6 ms·

PayPal lays off 7% of staff

87 points by impish9208 4y ago

newaccount2021 4y ago
[dead]
throwayyy479087 4y ago
That tracks. Recently got a scammy invoice _from their mail servers_. Sort of thing that works really well on boomers - looks like they've had an unreported breakin. Layoffs cover that news nicely.
- rco8786 4y ago
  Zero reason to think these things are related.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  That's not a breakin. Any PayPal user can send an invoice to an email address. It's just the online version of sending a fake invoice to a company's accounts receivable department in hopes they pay it. https://www.paypal.com/us/business/accept-payments/invoice https://www.paypal.com/us/business/accept-payments/invoice or https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/send-receive-money/request-money https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/send-receive-money/... Currently in my inbox: > JEFFREY BRIAN GLICK sent you a money request > Amount requested: $500.00 USD > Note from JEFFREY BRIAN GLICK: We found suspicious activity on your account. If you did not make this transaction, call us at 18887272074 to cancel and claim a refund. Obvious scam, but folks fall for it.
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    They do have a security issue, because people are sending the invoices from "PayPal Inc.". They have some basic filters in place to disallow you from entering PayPal Inc. exactly, but scammers get around it by using similar looking characters. Like a capital I instead of lowercase l.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      Still not a break-in. Forward it to phishing@paypal.com. One of the more responsive abuse addresses I've come across; only AWS's has beat it thus far.
      - jjeaff 4y ago
        I didn't say break-in, just "security issue". And I would be interested in how responsive their phishing address would be to a case like this simply because the email is actually from paypal, as was said before, it's just misleading because it looks like Paypal itself is requesting payment. Definitely meets the definition of phishing, but not the most common type of phishing.
saos 4y ago
> macro-economic environment Sick of seeing these words I’m curious to know what roles they are cutting
- extheat 4y ago
  It's not wrong. The Fed is explicitly asking for these kinds of layoffs. The fact that they are seeing more layoffs in tech opposed to other industries is part of why the interest rate hikes aren't stopping.
  - almost_usual 4y ago
    There’s a good chance they’ll stop this year.
  - mcast 4y ago
    ELI5 why would the Feds only want this to affect the tech sector and not other markets?
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      You're talking past each other. The Fed doesn't want tech layoffs in particular, they want layoffs in general to destroy aggregate demand and push wage increases down. Much to the chagrin of all parties, the Fed isn't able to keep up with folks leaving the labor force and job creation. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS#0 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS#0 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UEMPMEAN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UEMPMEAN (switch to 1Y resolution for the above) https://seekingalpha.com/article/4531829-older-workers-propping-up-us-economy https://seekingalpha.com/article/4531829-older-workers-propp... https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/the-great-retirement-boom.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/the-great-retire... > “The Fed is tightening monetary policy but somebody forgot to tell the labor market,” said Fitch Ratings chief economist Brian Coulton. “The good thing about these numbers is that it shows the U.S. economy firmly got back to growth in the second half of the year. But job expansion continuing at this speed will do nothing to ease the labor supply-demand imbalance that is worrying the Fed. > Fed Chairman Jerome Powell earlier this week said the job gains are “far in excess of the pace needed to accommodate population growth over time” and said wage pressures are contributing to inflation. > “To be clear, strong wage growth is a good thing. But for wage growth to be sustainable, it needs to be consistent with 2 percent inflation,” he said during a speech Wednesday in Washington, D.C. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/jobs-report-november-2022.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/jobs-report-november-2022.ht... (but lets be real, wages weren't/aren't driving inflation; it was the supply chain (goods), the Ukraine conflict (energy), ZIRP and new stock not keeping up with demand (housing), and Avian flu (eggs))
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
oxfordmale 4y ago
Has the CEO taken "responsibility" for their mistakes while increasing their bonus for improving operational efficiencies?
- sprkwd 4y ago
  He has not. He has expressed his personal appreciation for the meaningful contributions they have made to PayPal. Progress?
  - oxfordmale 4y ago
    At least he is being more honest than the CEOs in the previous tech layoffs "While we have made substantial progress in right-sizing our cost structure, and focused our resources on our core strategic priorities, we have more work to do," Schulman said in the note. "We must continue to change as our world, our customers, and our competitive landscape evolve."
- paulddraper 4y ago
  If an employee moves to a new job, was the first job a "mistake"? If an employer lets people go, did it make a "mistake"? Businesses are not completely static from beginning to end. This is especially true for R&D heavy enterprises.
  - oxfordmale 4y ago
    There are many good reasons for lay-offs, for example, in the case of Twitter, as they would have run into cash flow issues without them. However, the recent lay-offs appear to be copycat behaviour. All the companies had plenty of cash, good revenue, and staff turnover rates multiple times the lay-offs. A hiring freeze would have been sufficient. Most of the companies affected are still hiring and will likely ramp up hiring again towards the end of 2023 if a recession is avoided. As flagged up by other commenters, there is still plenty of cash for events, execute flights and other excesses.
  - deelly 4y ago
    Depends on numbers I suppose. One employee - not a mistake. Twelve thousands employees - looks like a quite big mistake?
almost_usual 4y ago
Feels like companies are rushing to layoff now that inflation is cooling and the Fed is likely to pivot this year.
judge2020 4y ago
Unrelated, interesting how many domains they have. Of course paypal.com, but then there's their investor relations site at investor.pypl.com, and now paypal-corp for publicly available internal communication, I suppose?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
xkbarkar 4y ago
I saw this post floating around social media. Layoffs at apple 0 The rest HN already knows. 50k+ in the other FAANGs. Company count change in last 3 years Apple: +20%. Amazon: +100%. Facebook: +94%. Google: +57%. Microsoft: +53%. So there is simply the case of massive overhiring in c19 times. Is it really so bad though that they overhired in lockdown times where unemployment and desperation soared and layoffs are now during a time where tech people usually have an offer or two within weeks? Just playing devils advocare here.
- rsj_hn 4y ago
  This is hacker news, so they are going to be focusing on tech layoffs, but really there are layoffs happening in all industries, and tech is about the middle of the pack. In terms of complaining about growth companies being too aggressive in hiring, I mean, that's the point of a growth company. Almost all companies gearing up for fast revenue growth get fast headcount growth as part of the deal. For some data, you can look at BLS layoff by industry reports here: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t05.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t05.htm The biggest hit industry has been arts, entertainment, and recreation. The second biggest hit was construction. The third biggest hit was professional and business services, and information was fourth biggest hit. After that, transportation, trade, and utilities. The usual safe sectors like government are doing well, but mining and manufacturing as well as retail have done pretty well. My personal theory is the reason for all these news articles is that media has been hit really hard. So the journalists writing for media are in mass panic mode -- not a good time to be working for either a news website or legacy news outlet.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
6451937099 4y ago
[dead]

87 points by impish9208 4y ago

newaccount2021 4y ago

[dead]

That tracks. Recently got a scammy invoice _from their mail servers_. Sort of thing that works really well on boomers - looks like they've had an unreported breakin. Layoffs cover that news nicely.

rco8786 4y ago
Zero reason to think these things are related.
ceejayoz 4y ago
That's not a breakin. Any PayPal user can send an invoice to an email address. It's just the online version of sending a fake invoice to a company's accounts receivable department in hopes they pay it. https://www.paypal.com/us/business/accept-payments/invoice https://www.paypal.com/us/business/accept-payments/invoice or https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/send-receive-money/request-money https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/send-receive-money/... Currently in my inbox: > JEFFREY BRIAN GLICK sent you a money request > Amount requested: $500.00 USD > Note from JEFFREY BRIAN GLICK: We found suspicious activity on your account. If you did not make this transaction, call us at 18887272074 to cancel and claim a refund. Obvious scam, but folks fall for it.
- jjeaff 4y ago
  They do have a security issue, because people are sending the invoices from "PayPal Inc.". They have some basic filters in place to disallow you from entering PayPal Inc. exactly, but scammers get around it by using similar looking characters. Like a capital I instead of lowercase l.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Still not a break-in. Forward it to phishing@paypal.com. One of the more responsive abuse addresses I've come across; only AWS's has beat it thus far.
    - jjeaff 4y ago
      I didn't say break-in, just "security issue". And I would be interested in how responsive their phishing address would be to a case like this simply because the email is actually from paypal, as was said before, it's just misleading because it looks like Paypal itself is requesting payment. Definitely meets the definition of phishing, but not the most common type of phishing.

saos 4y ago

> macro-economic environment Sick of seeing these words I’m curious to know what roles they are cutting

extheat 4y ago
It's not wrong. The Fed is explicitly asking for these kinds of layoffs. The fact that they are seeing more layoffs in tech opposed to other industries is part of why the interest rate hikes aren't stopping.
- almost_usual 4y ago
  There’s a good chance they’ll stop this year.
- mcast 4y ago
  ELI5 why would the Feds only want this to affect the tech sector and not other markets?
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    You're talking past each other. The Fed doesn't want tech layoffs in particular, they want layoffs in general to destroy aggregate demand and push wage increases down. Much to the chagrin of all parties, the Fed isn't able to keep up with folks leaving the labor force and job creation. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS#0 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS#0 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UEMPMEAN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UEMPMEAN (switch to 1Y resolution for the above) https://seekingalpha.com/article/4531829-older-workers-propping-up-us-economy https://seekingalpha.com/article/4531829-older-workers-propp... https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/the-great-retirement-boom.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/the-great-retire... > “The Fed is tightening monetary policy but somebody forgot to tell the labor market,” said Fitch Ratings chief economist Brian Coulton. “The good thing about these numbers is that it shows the U.S. economy firmly got back to growth in the second half of the year. But job expansion continuing at this speed will do nothing to ease the labor supply-demand imbalance that is worrying the Fed. > Fed Chairman Jerome Powell earlier this week said the job gains are “far in excess of the pace needed to accommodate population growth over time” and said wage pressures are contributing to inflation. > “To be clear, strong wage growth is a good thing. But for wage growth to be sustainable, it needs to be consistent with 2 percent inflation,” he said during a speech Wednesday in Washington, D.C. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/jobs-report-november-2022.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/jobs-report-november-2022.ht... (but lets be real, wages weren't/aren't driving inflation; it was the supply chain (goods), the Ukraine conflict (energy), ZIRP and new stock not keeping up with demand (housing), and Avian flu (eggs))

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

oxfordmale 4y ago

Has the CEO taken "responsibility" for their mistakes while increasing their bonus for improving operational efficiencies?

sprkwd 4y ago
He has not. He has expressed his personal appreciation for the meaningful contributions they have made to PayPal. Progress?
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  At least he is being more honest than the CEOs in the previous tech layoffs "While we have made substantial progress in right-sizing our cost structure, and focused our resources on our core strategic priorities, we have more work to do," Schulman said in the note. "We must continue to change as our world, our customers, and our competitive landscape evolve."
paulddraper 4y ago
If an employee moves to a new job, was the first job a "mistake"? If an employer lets people go, did it make a "mistake"? Businesses are not completely static from beginning to end. This is especially true for R&D heavy enterprises.
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  There are many good reasons for lay-offs, for example, in the case of Twitter, as they would have run into cash flow issues without them. However, the recent lay-offs appear to be copycat behaviour. All the companies had plenty of cash, good revenue, and staff turnover rates multiple times the lay-offs. A hiring freeze would have been sufficient. Most of the companies affected are still hiring and will likely ramp up hiring again towards the end of 2023 if a recession is avoided. As flagged up by other commenters, there is still plenty of cash for events, execute flights and other excesses.
- deelly 4y ago
  Depends on numbers I suppose. One employee - not a mistake. Twelve thousands employees - looks like a quite big mistake?

almost_usual 4y ago

Feels like companies are rushing to layoff now that inflation is cooling and the Fed is likely to pivot this year.

judge2020 4y ago

Unrelated, interesting how many domains they have. Of course paypal.com, but then there's their investor relations site at investor.pypl.com, and now paypal-corp for publicly available internal communication, I suppose?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

xkbarkar 4y ago

I saw this post floating around social media. Layoffs at apple 0 The rest HN already knows. 50k+ in the other FAANGs. Company count change in last 3 years Apple: +20%. Amazon: +100%. Facebook: +94%. Google: +57%. Microsoft: +53%. So there is simply the case of massive overhiring in c19 times. Is it really so bad though that they overhired in lockdown times where unemployment and desperation soared and layoffs are now during a time where tech people usually have an offer or two within weeks? Just playing devils advocare here.

rsj_hn 4y ago
This is hacker news, so they are going to be focusing on tech layoffs, but really there are layoffs happening in all industries, and tech is about the middle of the pack. In terms of complaining about growth companies being too aggressive in hiring, I mean, that's the point of a growth company. Almost all companies gearing up for fast revenue growth get fast headcount growth as part of the deal. For some data, you can look at BLS layoff by industry reports here: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t05.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t05.htm The biggest hit industry has been arts, entertainment, and recreation. The second biggest hit was construction. The third biggest hit was professional and business services, and information was fourth biggest hit. After that, transportation, trade, and utilities. The usual safe sectors like government are doing well, but mining and manufacturing as well as retail have done pretty well. My personal theory is the reason for all these news articles is that media has been hit really hard. So the journalists writing for media are in mass panic mode -- not a good time to be working for either a news website or legacy news outlet.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

6451937099 4y ago

[dead]