61 ms·
Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoWhy do these companies blow their load and lay people off at the slightest sign of trouble? Layoffs should be a last resort because of the pain that they cause.
- orthecreedence 4y agoShareholders are looking at the next quarter, not the next decade. The entire system is optimized for extremely short-term gains.
- guywithabike 4y agoTWLO is down 80% from its 52 week high, even after today's 10% rise. Do you really believe that this is the "slightest sign of trouble"?
- xeromal 4y agoSo I'm a big dummy, but I STILL don't understand how current stock price affects companies. They've already raised their money. How does the stock going down make them lose money other than lowering their chance at another seed round?
- crackercrews 4y agoThey use it for compensation and acquisitions so having a higher price makes these things cheaper. Also if shareholders lose confidence they can oust the leadership.
- jiveturkey 4y agothe stock price is a trailing indicator of the company’s health. in the case of headcount, you hire based on growth rate, to sustain and even further that growth. it works until it doesn’t. then you fire. it’s no skin off the company’s back, so it is the correct strategy. when CEOs (the world over) say they overhired AND that it was a mistake, it’s a pitiful political lie. also a mandatory strategy. you can’t say, “employees are cogs. we planned this shit. this was plan A.”. you wouldn’t be able to hire again when you find your stride.
- bjt2n3904 4y agoMany people are trying to rationalize the "anti-racist lens" remark as a simple post-hoc analysis to make sure there wasn't racial bias. (This seems plausible, and I don't think many people would have an issue with that, in theory.) However, if this is what the CEO did, then he did not use an anti-racist lens -- merely a "not-racist" lens. Kendi is explicit in his book, "How to be an Anti-Racist", that there is no neutrality. You simply cannot say "the layoff is not racist". You can either have the layoff be racist, or antiracist, there is no middle ground. DiAngelo agrees in her assessment. She says that people should not ask, "Did racism occur", but rather, "How did racism occur?" When looking at the roster of layoffs, one must come to the conclusion that racism occurred, no matter how unbiased the results appear. How does Kendi say anti racism rectifies past prejudice? Present prejudice. How to rectify present prejudice? With future prejudice. If the CEO actually used an anti-racist lens in the layoff decisions, then by definition, he used prejudice based on race.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoBack in my time, we called "treating people differently, based on their race" racism.
- forgingahead 4y agoYes, quite an interesting magic trick that has been performed by people from certain political persuasions about how they now make everything about race, yet claim while patting us minorities on the head about how "they're not racist". It's barking mad.
- nervlord 4y ago
- taeric 4y ago
- phillipcarter 4y agoI agree with this in the abstract. I think it's just, uhh, a little weird to pair this kind of message with a "we're removing tons of jobs that people relied on" kind of message.
- taeric 4y agoI agree that this was poor messaging. If they had instead worded it in a "we are making active efforts to make sure we are not disproportionately hitting any demographic", that would have been better. Would ultimately be the same message, of course, but the idea is to find ways to battle default behaviors/prejudices, not just to be "anti-racist."
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoWhy would they hit minorities harder? What does race have to do with that?
- rglover 4y ago> "were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens" People have lost their damn minds. This is actual institutionalized racism. I wouldn't work for these people in a million years, but I really do wonder how I'd fit into their shallow models (I'm mixed race b/w).
- bombcar 4y agoThat’s the creepiest thing to me - employers tracking your race seems … strange. And if they’re not tracking it it’s even worse because that means they’re deciding your race for you!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- foofoo4u 4y agoTrue. My race is listed on Workday. And that was determined by HR after I declined to declare what I am. They just decided to look at me, my name, and choose what they thought most suiting.
- testfoobar 4y agoWell, where exactly are you on the RGB scale? This a strict 8 bit operation. If you expect HDR level fidelity here, just move along.
- rglover 4y agoDepends on the time of year. During the winter I trend toward toasted marshmallow but during the summer with ample sun I'm somewhere between Obama and Denzel.
- testfoobar 4y agoSounds like you may have Seasonal Privilege Disorder - a strange, recently observed, condition where privilege waxes and wanes. But seriously since we're talking about skin color, all kidding aside, (and you're probably already aware of this) skin cancer rates vary dramatically by race: https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/uscs/about/data-briefs/no9-melanoma-incidence-mortality-UnitedStates-2012-2016.htm https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/uscs/about/data-briefs/no9-melano...
- rocket_surgeron 4y ago>Twilio had 7,867 employees as of Dec. 31, 2021. Every single layoff story stupefies me. Confuses. Flabbergasts. What are these companies doing with so many people? What are they doing? Like, what are their day-to-day tasks? My employer has more people but we build nuclear reactors and spacecraft. Our revenue per employee is nearly double Twilio's and is low for a "tech" firm due to the extremely high capital costs and labor-intensive nature of our work. Nearly 8,000 people (surely, 8,000 with contractors) to build an SMS and VOIP marketing spam, sorry, ahem, communications, platform? Are they all in marketing or customer support? It is incomprehensible.
- hudsonjr 4y agoBased on my experience bloat causes more bloat. People get hired to work on fringe projects/products, those people cause work for other staff that are already at 100% capacity on higher priority work, so additional staff are hired.
- foobiekr 4y agoI wrote about what drives this previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32171468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32171468
- peckrob 4y agoI am glad I'm not the only person who has had this thought, and I think it every time I see how many people some of these random tech companies employ. Those are the kinds of employee numbers I would expect from a much larger company than Twilio. For reference, in the past I worked for an immensely profitable eCommerce business and I don't think our entire engineering department ever reached more than 40 people at its absolute largest. I know all those employees aren't engineers, and I've been around long enough to know that what we see from the outside is just the tip of the iceberg. But if we assume even 25% of them are engineers directly working on the product, that is still nearly 2,000 people. That must be a huge iceberg. So what on Earth are all those people doing? I am not being sarcastic or obtuse, I am genuinely curious because the only organization that I have ever worked for that was that size or larger was the US government. Is it administrative/managerial bloat? Are there a bunch of different pivot projects going on? What does Twilio have going on that needs nearly 8,000 employees?
- zo1 4y agoThis is not going to be a pretty thread. Hopefully we can keep this civil and maybe move the conversation forward, as this could be a big tipping point in the landscape wrt DEI.
- nomel 4y ago> and maybe move the conversation forward What does this actually mean, in the context of "when we fired people, we considered their race"?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Ensorceled 4y agoOr, "when we fired people, we tried NOT to consider their race" ... the idea that a layoff would, by default, be fair and not a racist or bigoted decision is a very privileged world view.
- the_doctah 4y agoWhy are you trying to make it sound like most layoffs are race-based?
- Ensorceled 4y agoI'm not. Why are you assuming they are all fair and equitable? There is more than enough racism and other bigotry in North America to make the assumption that the layoffs across all departments would be fair and equitable a suspect assumption.
- nomel 4y ago> is a very privileged world view. I guess this is probably true. In every group I've worked for, it was obvious who the high and low performing people were. In the two companies I was at, with layoffs, there weren't really any surprises. Not surprisingly, this has remained a strong motivator for my work effort: if you're complacent or incompetent, you're the first to go.
- trention 4y agoSo, a company explicitly states that when push comes to shove, if you are white, you move to the front of the firing queue. Remind me again, why would a white person (especially man) not put them on the back of the queue when deciding where to apply for a job? Despite not living in the states (and in a country where this sh*t is illegal), I think I will make it my policy to never work for a (parent) company that has a diversity policy from now on.
- csa 4y agoIndeed. They may not realize it, but they will quietly lose business over time to folks who are not fans of the style of this layoff.
- peanuty1 4y agoIn tech, Indians and East Asians are also not considered a minority.
- Crash0v3rid3 4y ago+1. I bet Indians and East Asians were bucketed with white people.
- happyopossum 4y agoStrangely enough, it’s pretty darned illegal here too. I expect well see multiple lawsuits and some corporate backtracking on this.
- foofoo4u 4y agoIs there a list of employers that I can reference that reject DIE (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion)? That way I know who to interview with.
- immigrantheart 4y agoThese virtue signaling needs to stop.
- jballer 4y agoMaybe they’re just trying to get more people to walk out voluntarily
- callalex 4y agoNot in this case, anyone who has worked at Twilio for any amount of time would not be surprised by this language. It has been prevalent as a core part of management’s communications since the pre-IPO days.
- cpursley 4y agoSeems like a good time to switch to Mailersend. They just introduces SMS: https://www.mailersend.com/blog/introducing-transactional-sms-api https://www.mailersend.com/blog/introducing-transactional-sm... I'm very happy with their support and email product.
- Ensorceled 4y agoThis line seems to be referenced a lot in these comments: > Layoffs like this can have a more pronounced impact on marginalized communities, so we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs – while a business necessity today – were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens. Sounds like they are taking steps to make sure whoever was chosen for layoffs were not chosen for racist reasons. But so many comments are making the leap to they are targeting white people for layoffs and claiming this layoff is racist against white people. For example this comment: > People have lost their damn minds. This is actual institutionalized racism. and this: > I consider myself very ‘liberal’ per American standards (pro abortion, pro lgbt rights, pro racial diversity and acceptance), and this to me screams of woke culture gone wild. Looks like anything can be weaponised. You can find more.
- jballer 4y ago“We avoided firing people who aren’t white” vs “we preferred firing people who are white.” This school of thought purports to agree that harmful impact supersedes good intent. They just refuse to recognize the individual as the ultimate minority.
- Ensorceled 4y agoOr, more charitably, "We avoided laying off racial/oppressed minorities for racist/bigoted reasons"
- Antrikshy 4y agoThat should be a given. Why even bring it up? It's like saying "I'm not racist" before doing something unrelated.
- Ensorceled 4y ago> That should be a given. Why even bring it up? It should be; but I think it's naive or disingenuous to imply that hiring/layoff decisions are usually fair and unbiased, especially in multiple departments in a large organization.
- locusofself 4y agoI left a company just over two years ago that was aq
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- NaturalPhallacy 4y agoI recently had a preliminary phone screen with their HR and I told them to pound sand when they wanted me to do a coding challenge before even talking to the hiring manager to know if I wanted the job. Even more happy with that decision now.
- SnowHill9902 4y agoWhile you are busy worrying about being woke there is a competitor getting ready to kick your ass.
- syspec 4y agoWhich one is that?
- datalopers 4y agoNot nearly enough. Should have been 30%.
- mooreds 4y agoHere's the statement on the Twilio blog: https://www.twilio.com/blog/a-message-from-twilio-ceo-jeff-lawson https://www.twilio.com/blog/a-message-from-twilio-ceo-jeff-l...
- tonymet 4y agoWhat's to stop everyone from declaring themselves hispanic or black when they are hired? First off, it's probably true to some degree (we're all mixed). Secondly, it's a self selected category. Third, your employer cannot question your selection. Given that it's basically all downside to declare yourself white or asian, I'm expecting almost everyone to start electing black or hispanic in the coming months. For those who cry it's unfair – there's presently no justice or transparency in how these "anti racist" aka affirmative action policies are being implemented. It's a black box, private committee selecting person A or person B , based on some criteria: likely a self-selected category or worse a stereotypical naming pattern. (and if you don't believe me, look into university admissions processes).
- BonoboIO 4y agoYou can be anything you want, look at Elizabeth Warren. She pretended to be a Native American for more than 30 years. Trump called her Pocahontas and she challenged trump with a dna test. This test is kind of bogus but it proved that she is like 1/1024 Native American. How can that fly.
- tonymet 4y agoOf course she should have stopped that as a tenured professional / politician, but it's perfectly understandable she did that as a young applicant based on her family lore. It goes to show these policies are clumsy and absurd. They will only make matters so much worse. Is it reasonable to ask someone to make an election that will result in them not getting or getting fired prematurely ? We're talking about food on the table here.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago> but it's perfectly understandable she did that as a young applicant based on her family lore. To be clear, she contributed as a Cherokee Indian on a cookbook called Pow Wow Chow, and sumbitted at least one completely plagiarized recipe… as an adult. https://elizabethwarrenwiki.org/pow-wow-chow-cookbook/ https://elizabethwarrenwiki.org/pow-wow-chow-cookbook/ As to why Cherokee matters, the Cherokee have a well maintained registry. You do not claim to be Cherokee if you are not. She doesn’t care and never had anything in her youth to bring her up Cherokee. She’s a liar through and through.
- terryneo3 4y agoWell. Job cuts are a serious problem right now. A report from CouponBirds shows that the US unemployment rate rose to 3.7 percent in August of 2022, the highest since February and above market expectations of 3.5 percent. The number of unemployed people increased by 344 thousand to 6.014 million, while employment levels went up by 442 thousand to 158.732 million. And according to the survey, the District of Columbia had the highest unemployment rate in August at 5.2 percent, followed by Alaska and New Mexico, both at 4.5. Minnesota had the lowest unemployment rate, at 1.8 percent. https://www.couponbirds.com/research-center/data/unemployment-rate-of-august-varies-among-states https://www.couponbirds.com/research-center/data/unemploymen...
- SV_BubbleTime 4y agoA. [Don’t worry, we only fired whites!] is the an absolutely awful thing to do, and a worse pat yuorself on the back for. Racists. The term “anti racist” is a dog whistle that means racists for everyone, but justified for some. B. I appreciate they made their idiocy public. I will make sure to 100 percent shut down any possibility of my company using their services. We’re still using Expensify which does upset me, cut from the same cloth as Twillio but they were more sneaky about it, will cut them asap.
- RSieger 4y agoIf any evidence emerges that race or lack of melanin played a role in who was laid off then there must be lawsuits.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- RSieger1 4y agoIf real evidence emerges/has emerged that race played a role in which people were laid off then there must be lawsuits. Otherwise, it will keep happening.
- HereIGoAgain 4y ago>"so we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs -- while a business necessity today -- were carried out through a Racist/Racially-Oppression lens." Fixed that for you.. And oh boy would I not want to be one of this companies lawyers in the coming months and no doubt years! Yikes
- Juliet245 4y ago
- WFHRenaissance 4y agoSheesh. That's a pretty large chunk... ~865 people.
- abledon 4y agocurious what % are software devs compared to sales/hr etc..
- kernel-dump 4y agoYup IMO this is the most interesting question. While admittedly I haven’t been closely following the layoffs taking place this week; those I have read about talk primarily about downsizing non-engineering headcount.
- _fat_santa 4y ago> The cloud communications software builder has been striving for profitability in 2023, and the restructuring plan aims to improve operating margins, create a better selling capacity and reduce operating costs. If you look at all the layoffs we had this year, the vast majority are by companies that are VC funded and unprofitable. It would be a scary time to work for a VC backed company, because you're one missed funding round away from getting kicked to the curb, and VC's seem to be clutching the funds in this economy.
- automatic6131 4y agoOh no, imagine having to provide value to the world instead of being in the business of selling a dollar for 95c. So hard ;*(
- SV_BubbleTime 4y agoNext you are going to tell me that a company is going to need to make a product going forward and can’t just expect to be supplied with literally endless free money forever.
- time_to_smile 4y agoYou can't just broadly look at all companies for patterns in layoffs. It's important to divide startups from IPO'd companies. A common pattern for all of these is the inability to generate profit, but this is business-as-usual for a startup. Even in normal times it's okay for startups to lose money. Startups typically perform layoffs because they are running out of runway and need to extend the life of the company. Their entire reason for existing is the liquidity event that is either acquisition or IPO, and it is essential for investors that they survive long enough to see such an event. For publicly traded companies, which we've seen a lot of layoffs in recently (which in the last 30 days includes: Twilio, Rent the Runway, Uber, Shopify, Snap, Wayfair, New Relic). The common theme for almost all of this is negative net earnings and B2C. This is what makes Twilio interesting, they're the first B2B IPO with major layoffs. One thing that I keep hearing at my IPO'd startup is that "we won't have layoffs since we have a long runway", but runway matters way less for IPO'd companies. The key aim for IPO'd companies is to please your investors, and if you're shares keep taking a hit because interest rates go up and your net earnings remains steeply negative, then layoffs are coming. If this continues it will start to impact profitable companies, but not before doing much more damage to the non-profitable ones. This feels like a slow motion re-enactment of the dot com burst.
- christkv 4y agoIt seems a lot of the layoffs are from over-hiring in 2020-21 ?
- avelis 4y agoover-hiring or not trimming due to the pandemic.
- seydor 4y agoAnd it will be just fine
- saos 4y agoAnother company carelessly overhiring. OR maybe using opportunity to do some trimming? edit: Where does one check hiring metrics for company before accepting contract?
- romeros 4y agoThey were overhiring. I talked to their recruiter last year. They had pretty aggressive hiring goals. Same story with Zillow, Upstart, Facebook and a bunch of companies. All of their stocks tanked by more than 50% since then.
- ryandrake 4y agoWhy would a business even have a "hiring goal?" Shouldn't you have business goals, and then look at those business goals and determine if hiring will contribute to them? Having an isolated "hiring goal" seems as pointless as having a "printer buying goal".
- jjulius 4y ago>Why would a business even have a "hiring goal?" Shouldn't you have business goals, and then look at those business goals and determine if hiring will contribute to them? Sure! So, you've got your business goal(s), and within those goals you have sub-goals that achieve the main goals. One of your primary goals requires additional headcount, which then necessitates that one of your sub-goals is... wait for it... a hiring goal.
- roflyear 4y agoBro, Apple makes like $2m or something per employee. They can hire a ton of developers to do whatever at like $300-400k/yr. It's win-win. They have talent, they keep talent from other people. Apple is at the extreme, but the logic applies. There are massive budgets, so what do you do? You hire. Startups do this, too. Give an engineering team $20m (or $200m....) and they will hire a lot of people. They aren't just going to sit on the money...
- 4y ago
- pastor_bob 4y agoMostly in "Go-To-Market". Same as Patreon I don't even know what that is, but sounds like a money pit.
- geodel 4y agoWell its true for me also. When I go to market and end up spending money on useless junk. These people go to market and probably try to sell something similar.
- calrueb 4y agoGo-To-Market or often referred to as GTM is a common term used within the B2B SAAS space. The term is thrown around quite a bit if you work in that sector. Like others said, it is primarily concerned with all things revenue (obtaining and retaining).
- telman17 4y agoAnother term for Sales I believe.
- sulam 4y agoThat’s correct.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- realityking 4y agoSales, Marketing, and Customer Success are the “Go-To-Market” team.
- ubertaco 4y agoDodged a bit of a bullet, I think; they were one of my top 2 choices in my last job hunt a few months ago, and ultimately I got a better feeling about the other choice. I've been loving the job I _did_ take, and don't regret my decision (especially now).
- maerF0x0 4y agoIf you dont mind sharing, what company did you accept?
- anonym29 4y agoAnyone else read the letter from the CEO where they claim that the layoffs "were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens"? That's verbatim from the actual PDF, in case anyone was curious (https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001447669/5c6aa734-ca9d-4d59-84b4-42ab54ca3603.pdf https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001447669/5c6aa73...) Page 6, under the heading "How did we decide which roles would be impacted". I wonder what race they deliberately targeted for these layoffs, with language like that. Oh well, I guess we'll never know.
- pentae 4y agoThey have been pushing "anti-racism" hard, which sounds nice on the surface but when you dig into critical race theory where its coming from it's a dog whistle for hating white people, basically. Now I know this is super trendy right now but I don't want to get emails from your organization about how woke and bigoted you are. Just sell me the damn SaaS tool we signed up for and keep your politics to yourself. We moved all our business away.
- howinteresting 4y ago
- csa 4y agoYou refer to the original/early version of CRT. In the 90s and beyond, CRT has expanded substantially in scope. It has also changed focus in terms of how it is utilized.
- skyyler 4y agoCould you recommend some texts responsible for the change in scope? My understanding of CRT is that race is entirely a social construction, and that the laws and attitudes surrounding race are primarily informed by this social construction and not anything with real biological basis. When did that change?
- gnicholas 4y agoTo what extent do companies announce layoffs (that they were preparing to do already) on the heels of other companies announcing layoffs? That way it becomes less memorable that 'Company X laid off 11% of their employees' and instead people remember that 'a few companies laid off some people last week'. Perhaps this is too difficult to tweak the timing on, particularly at public companies. But at the very least, I'm sure some of the Twilio execs were glad to hear about Patreon's layoff yesterday.
- bombcar 4y agoThe layoffs take time to plan and get rolling, but the macro causes are often similar. Once they start you may have a bit of PR adjusting things but I daresay this announcement was planned weeks in advance. I could see a company deciding to lay off a bit less to make their percentage look a tiny bit better but other than that, probably not. Now some companies may have "perpetual layoff plans" where every manager has to identify X people he'd lay off if needed, even if they never use it, then I could see someone taking advantage of it.
- propogandist 4y agoTwilio won’t fall out of the news cycle like the the rest because of their CEO’s “anti-racist” comments. It’ll, ideally, become a class action lawsuit, which should keep this story in the news for a long time, providing cover for other companies to do layoffs
- geodel 4y agoIt seems to be profitability is next generation technology like Web 4.0 or something. We will be hearing a lot in coming years.
- pc86 4y agoIt used to be profitability was a core component of running a business.
- jiveturkey 4y agopepperidge farm remembers
- lotsofpulp 4y agoIt still is, hence the security and rewards of working at businesses like Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, etc. and the same for shareholders/owners too.
- John23832 4y ago(I am a black man) I feel like the statement that the layoffs "were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens" puts a target on the backs of the people who you claim to be helping. If you're affected by layoffs described this way, you then question whether that was because of who you are. That then makes it harder for the minorities you claim to be "helping" to stay in the room anywhere else because of bad will generated by some company that wanted the headlines to include their diversity push. Edit: In summation, do not conflate your layoffs with your "diversity".
- LegitShady 4y ago>If you're affected by layoffs described this way, you then question whether that was because of who you are. I mean, this isn't a question. They're saying it outright. When picking who to layoff, race was a factor. If you don't like it, take it up with people making those decisions.
- John23832 4y agoIt is still a question. There could people who are clearly not performing and then are let go that just so happen to not be a part of the "protected group". People are not being let go because of who they are, it's just a part of the calculus. It may not be the significant factor.
- nemo44x 4y ago> People are not being let go because of who they are This is a common tactic from progressive in that they flat out deny the reality that everyone else see. They just say "it doesn't happen" when the CEO in a letter that was filed stated they specifically did this.
- John23832 4y agoDude, I don't know why you're trying to paint me as something when I'm the OP of the thread that has taken umbrage with the layoffs. First, go outside and breathe. Second, the statement clearly says that it is a part of the calculus. Nobody is fired because they are white or black or whatever. The statement is just that it is taken into consideration (which is something that I have issue with). Please (and I mean this in the most considerate way because you're on the internet just randomly labeling people) touch grass.