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Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff
- robinhood 4y agoConsidering the huge "organic" turnover Gitlab had already, they lay off 7% every month already. They always grew thanks to the sweat of remote workers they already fired on the spot without any remorse. The excuse of "our commitment to responsible growth" is really cynical.
- lozzo 4y agolooks like layoffs are going to continue for a while amongst tech companies. I think it's more significant the 20% cut in yahoo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64596061 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64596061
- dewey 4y agoMaybe the official blog post would be the better link: https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2023/02/09/gitlab-news/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2023/02/09/gitlab-news/
- NeckBeardPrince 4y agoThat's the link they posted
- dewey 4y agoIt was updated from https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/GITLAB-INC-128192404/news/GitLab-Earlier-today-GitLab-CEO-Sid-Sijbrandij-sent-the-following-note-to-GitLab-team-members-42943540/ https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/GITLAB-INC-128192... to the current one
- oytis 4y agoThat reads like an example of good communication, somehow not taking complete responsibility makes it even better.
- devhead 4y agojumping on the bandwagon.
- mc32 4y agoOn the other hand at least they’re not using cute pet names to refer to fired personnel, so that’s better.
- bosie 4y agoWhat have I missed?
- ayewo 4y agoThere was the recent use of "Dutonians" by Pager Duty's CEO https://www.pagerduty.com/blog/letter-to-employees/ https://www.pagerduty.com/blog/letter-to-employees/
- kasey_junk 4y agoZooms layoff note earlier this week referenced employees as “Zoomies”.
- JTbane 4y agoI'd prefer "Zoomers".
- mc32 4y ago[flagged]
- pjam 4y agoPretty sure your first paragraph was enough, don’t really see the point of bringing up a rape victim example. I mean, “dutonians” from PagerDuty is enough to illustrate how ridiculous this whole thing is
- newaccount2021 4y ago[dead]
- pb7 4y agoThere’s an opportunity for a SaaS that will provide a boilerplate layoff template, all you have to do is put in your % impacted and severance terms.
- bottled_poe 4y agoChatCEO
- nonethewiser 4y agoIts called ChatGPT and its free.
- nness 4y agoBasically a "Employment Law Specialist as a Service."
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ta1243 4y agoI've been reminded of the "Up in the Air" film from the last recession, where George Clooney flew around the country firing people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkX-TPaodoM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkX-TPaodoM The film included a lot of people who had really been fired and what their honest reactions were
- DharmaPolice 4y agoThat doesn't sound too far from a mail merge.
- maineiac 4y agoGood on them for offering proper severance. At my company, we got 2wks and nothing else. Not even a thoughtful letter from the CEO. Nothing. (And this was a sizable tech company in the middle of an IPO).
- ctvo 4y agoAny reason to protect them here vs. sharing their name?
- molsongolden 4y agoMany severance agreements prohibit sharing details of the severance agreement.
- hajile 4y agoSounds like they didn't get a severance agreement.
- Dalewyn 4y agoBurning bridges who might have been references for subsequent employment is almost never a good idea. There is always a time and place, of course. But generally speaking, you don't speak ill of your (former) employer or even talk about it publically lest there be ramifications beyond your imaginations.
- impish9208 4y agoSeverance: A single payout equal to four months' base salary, and payments will be made according to local processes and timing requirements. Equity: We’re accelerating vesting through 2023-03-15 and removing the vesting cliff for team members who have been granted equity and have been with us for under six months. Healthcare: Based on location and current benefit options previously selected by team members, healthcare premiums will be covered for up to six months, where possible. Modern Health for mental health support will continue for all team members for six months. Hardware: Team members can keep their hardware and home office equipment subject to our security protocols. Career support: We will provide outplacement services with a third-party vendor, including coaching, resume building and guidance, and job-seeking support.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cactusplant7374 4y agoWas the severance written into their contract or was it just a nice thing the company did?
- naikrovek 4y agoAre layoffs like a fashion statement, now? "Look, we're cool, too!" why is everyone doing this at the same time?
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoC-levels are driven by fads.
- RA_Fisher 4y agoI think it’d be wise for more companies to employ an executive data scientist.
- bogwog 4y agoThat sounds like an interesting idea. Do you know of any companies that have an executive role like that?
- RA_Fisher 4y agoI’ve been performing it informally for many years and more formally for the last year and a half as Zapier’s Principal Data Scientist. I really enjoy combining my advanced technology, business, economic and statistical skills with large scale business opportunities to produce innovation for people and earnings for the company. My goal is ensuring executives are making decisions using the best information possible. It’s highly collaborative to maximize the amount of pooled information (because executives are deep experts, too). Based on how it’s gone so far, I think it’s innovative and has a strong beneficial affect on the quality of decisions (and output as you’d expect). ie- applying more technology & skills improves output volume and quality.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoThey would never be listened to. Their purpose is to confirm whatever the execs want to believe in. Facts that don't agree must obviously be wrong.
- breton 4y agoHow many is that in absolute numbers?
- shagie 4y ago115 of 1,630
- shever73 4y agoIt's impossible to parse these percentages when the article doesn't state the total amount of employees a company has. According to their website, they have (had) 2,159 employees, so this affects ~151 people.
- gerhardhaering 4y agoOk, 7%. With all the cost, I wonder if just stopping hiring and letting normal attrition rate play out would have had almost the same effect.
- dboreham 4y agoNo because some of the effect is to instill fear.
- likeabbas 4y agoNot just fear. It's to flatten the salaries that spiked during covid
- scient 4y ago[flagged]
- noirbot 4y agoI mean, it does instill some fear though. Knowing that a lot of companies are going around laying off 5-10% of their folks means I'm a lot less confident I can get a new job if I'm laid off or quit my job. Which means I'm going to keep my head down and do my work and not rock the boat at my current job as much. Yes, I'm paid well, and yes I have more of a cushion to land on if I got laid off, but I know folks who got laid off last year who haven't been able to get a new job for months. I don't have 6 months of all of my living expenses just laying around in a bank account, and even if I did, that pretty much wipes out my savings. "Other people are doing worse than you" doesn't mean there aren't rational fears. Making an engineer's salary doesn't set you up for life within a few years.
- ye-olde-sysrq 4y agoDon't drive class division. Even the highest paid engineer is closer to being homeless than being any of the people deciding these layoffs. If the primary economic force you have is the sale of your labor, you are labor, and need to act like it. Our "high" salaries could quickly evaporate if we're not paying attention while the owners of capital are taking advantage of excuses to wage class warfare.
- amelius 4y agoIn which departments?
- hendry 4y agoTbh I'm surprised, there is a real opportunity at least in Singapore to offer better support. Lot of companies adopting Gitlab.
- mattl 4y agoNothing to stop them hiring for that particular role if needed... also hi!
- trombonechamp 4y agoIs this the mattl I think it is? If so, hi!
- mattl 4y agoHey Max! You can get me on https://mat.tl https://mat.tl or @mattl@mat.tl for Mastodon
- jrochkind1 4y agopay through unspecified transition period, but also 4 months salary PLUS 6 months health insurance? that is such a nice severance package that I almost wish I worked there and was getting laid off! But I have been thinking "the job market is still ok", but am starting to doubt that, it seems like it really is going to be a lot harder to get a job.
- gizmo 4y agoAt least is a simple announcement without all the BS. You hire some you fire some. It's not fun, but sometimes it's the right move.
- RA_Fisher 4y agoAnd the stock seems down 7% vs. the Nasdaq.
- arbuge 4y agoAt this point it's beginning to look like tech companies are doing this because it's the trendy thing to do, along with inserting a few words about AI in their websites and pitch decks.
- bhouston 4y agoWe are a SaaS tool and we've has to justify our value to customers as everyone is looking to cut expenses. We also did cut our own spending on SaaS tools. So I think that this is sort of percolating through the industry. There is a real contraction in SaaS spending.
- killingtime74 4y agoI work at a big SaaS and growth is still double digit
- dfern 4y ago"What explains why so many companies are laying large numbers of their workforce off? The answer is simple: copycat behavior, according to Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business." https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-layoffs-worried/ https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-la...
- blippage 4y agoA few weeks ago I was opining that companies were laying off staff because "that's what everybody else was doing." I'm glad to see to few folks concur. Copycat behaviour is not uncommon, I think, and is swayed by market sentiment. If the (equities) market ( mean in a general sense) feels bullish, then Microsoft, Google, etc. start piling on employees. Because hey, we're tech companies, we have to justify our market ratings by pursuing (or at least looking like we are pursuing) growth, so that's what they do. Then, when things sour, the mood becomes one of conservatism. Then it looks good to shed employees. This is all despite the fact that it may have little to do with the actual state of the companies. Microsoft in particular is hardly a heavily cyclical company, so there is little need to behave like one. Not really. They could adopt a more even approach to hiring. If they tried. Companies bleat on about how difficult and expensive it is to hire staff. And yet, here we are.
- fleddr 4y agoThe economy is bad but we're doing our part in making it worse.
- djha-skin 4y agoGenerous severance, half the layoff size of other firms by percentage, particular attention paid to health care. I have always admired GitLab, and I remain impressed.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago"Please sir, may I have some more?"
- softwaredoug 4y agoListened to a great podcast about layoffs yesterday (https://hbr.org/podcast/2023/02/why-many-companies-get-layoffs-wrong https://hbr.org/podcast/2023/02/why-many-companies-get-layof...) The takeaway is that layoffs are extremely trust destroying for employees NOT laid off, and in the end not clear they're a financial net positive. Both with direct and indirect costs (lack of engagement from employees, etc).
- michaelcampbell 4y ago> and in the end not clear they're a financial net positive This feels like another instance of Deming's (paraphrased) "People will destroy the enterprise to align to their incentives." The people who make these decisions may be incented on the _short term_ cost savings. It's a fractally smaller version of the entire org aligning to shareholder expectations at the expense of company growth.
- pelasaco 4y agoI've got already a message of a former colleague working on Gitlab. He wants to leave. He thinks thats better to negotiate a salary while in a job, than when you are desperate running against the clock. We are going to take him back.
- msm_ 4y agoMy issue with analyses like this is they argue that layoffs are a bad idea and it's just companies shooting themselves in a foot. That's what people want to hear, so it gets a lot of clicks and citations. But, this also means that all the big companies (and that's a lot of them) that just announced layoffs made a obviously bad move. Are they all stupid? I find it hard to believe. It's more plausible, that yeah, layoffs are trust destroying and life ruining, but they make shareholders rich, so they are a rational choice expected from CEOs.
- aaomidi 4y agoHonestly yes. If you’ve been in any high exec meeting you’ll know they’re all stupid. Like, arguably more so than the average engineer.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bogomipz 4y agoIt's interesting the number of company layoffs recently that have listed "you can keep your laptop" as part of the severance package. Is it possible that shipping charges for layoffs of this size plus the overhead and personnel to deal with such numbers of returns is more expensive than just having employees keep them?
- sqldba 4y agoCompanies like this drop-ship new laptops to new employees. The laptops everyone has are COVID-era and about to expire for warranty, and would just be binned anyway. So there is no point taking them back.
- mikeyouse 4y agoMost companies, especially remote first ones like Gitlab, don’t have sizable IT departments that could deal with receiving, cleaning, reformatting, and deploying hundreds of laptops anyway. Can you imagine the poor technician who gets 150 laptops FedEx'ed to his house? The company is paying tens of thousands in severance costs per employee, way easier to just add the mostly-depreciated laptop onto that figure than deal with the logistics.
- bogomipz 4y agoThis was kind of my point though. It's a really net-benefit to the company but couched as a severance benefit to the individual being laid off.
- tebruno99 4y agoIf they would lower their prices to be competitive they’d get a lot more cash. We tried to switch to Gitlab and at every turn they acted like We just weren’t worth the $$. Seems they want nothing but big enterprise accounts and they push everyone else to free
- sonjaqql 4y agoThis rings so true. A best friend ran her business through GitLab for years. She was a subscriber for a team of 3-5 people, but recent pricing and plan changes [1] caused her to switch back to GitHub. She's got a small team on GitHub and has all of the critical features for less than a single seat at GitLab now. [1]: https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2021/01/26/new-gitlab-product-subscription-model/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2021/01/26/new-gitlab-product-...
- isodev 4y agoI don’t get this - did every single company hire hundreds of people for no good reason? A global event forcing folks to temporarily use more online services is, well, temporary. I just don’t get the mindset that triggered all these companies to mismanage their teams so badly.
- trentnix 4y agoIt's quite simple: If you don't follow the herd, you risk being blamed if you fail. But if you follow the herd and do what everyone else is doing, even if the herd runs off of a cliff, nobody points any fingers. You'd think somewhere, in at least one of these larger tech companies, there would be a leader boldly proclaiming "this is our time to increase our investments and beat our competitors!" But it turns out there is even less diversity of thought in tech leadership than there is racial and gender diversity. That said, Gitlab may be making a very prudent decision given their circumstance. I don’t know enough to conclude one way or the other. But considering what they are doing so closely mirrors what nearly everyone else is doing, skepticism is warranted.
- isodev 4y agoIt makes me sad. These are actual human beings losing their jobs. I guess they don't include “human cost” or “how much pain we inflicted” as a column in financial reports.
- trentnix 4y agoIn many cases, these were people they shouldn’t have hired in the first place. When the herd said “hire 10% more employees!” the same lemmings did as the herd commanded. It certainly isn’t the fault of those being hired, but it might have given them a chance to find employment somewhere that truly needed their skills and didn’t see them as “headcount”.
- moomoo11 4y agoDo you feel bad for the minimum wage and non w2 people whose jobs you automate away being in tech? I’m a highly paid tech employee and idk it’s different feeling bad for someone who lost their $10/hr job vs someone making 400k tc
- sqldba 4y agoIt's weird because I've seen job posts for them running for 6 months now and still not be filled. Are they running job ads but not hiring?
- pc86 4y agoIt's really hard to find people willing to work on a second-tier product for 60% market rate salaries apparently.
- irq 4y agoA recruiter from gitlab reached out to me last week for a SRE management position. My guess is they had no idea about the impending layoff.
- time_to_smile 4y agoCompanies generally give as little evidence as possible of layoffs before they happen. Morale and productivity take a huge hit as soon as employees start to realize what's coming. If you keep an eye open on who's hiring on linkedin you'll see a surprising number of companies posting new positions will have layoffs the next week.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y agoThere is a reason why they made their compensation calculators private.
- pelasaco 4y agohttps://www.businessinsider.com/fire-blame-ceo-tech-employee-layoffs-google-facebook-salesforce-amazon-2023-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/fire-blame-ceo-tech-employee...
- throway_gtlbr 4y agoLaid off GitLabber here, the funny thing about this is the promotion season just ended. A LOT of people got promoted, so their employee cost is probably a wash after these promotions. Make of that what you will.
- time_to_smile 4y agoMy company is doing the same thing. Layoffs haven't happened yet (but anyone who isn't in denial knows they're coming), but we probably had a record number of promotions. The reason for this is that you want to butter up the employees you're going to keep before layoffs. Getting promoted after you saw coworkers you respect get laid off makes you feel gross, and companies do need to do something to increase morale. The funny part is many people at my co. believe promotions are evidence that we couldn't possibly get layoffs.
- ActionHank 4y agoWould you mind sharing some rough details on the types of positions affected? Really sorry to hear about the shitty situation you're going through, all the best in finding the next opportunity.
- coffeebeqn 4y agoSame at my company. I see that many people got a BS promotion because their bosses are good at politics. Meanwhile about 7% were laid off and our bonuses were taken away
- 2-718-281-828 4y agoI'll have to find a new job in spring this year in IT after a one year break. I'm kind of worried considering all those lay offs I must say. I'm not a high profile candidate by any means.
- Aperocky 4y agoI've always wondered if programming skill would be useful and transformative of traditional businesses internally (instead of a salesman pushing a B2B solution). But it's clear that traditional business have neither the know how or the money to hire software engineers in numbers that could actually affect such change. I wonder if downturns like this offers them a chance.
- ericmcer 4y agoI have thought about this too, it would probably be very innovative if smallish 100 person companies brought on software people to do menial work with eventual automation in mind. The problem is no competent software engineer is going to work for 60k a year and no company is going to pay 200k.
- coffeebeqn 4y agoAnecdotallly I’m not hearing back a lot. I think positions are flooded with applications right now. Last year I would hear back for most applications at least to talk to the recruiter
- ddevault 4y agoI am in a position to hire and fire people in this market, albeit at a much smaller scale. We only hire those that we can afford to keep, even based on our most conservative financial models, because it's the right thing to do. When companies like GitLab hire you, they lie about their principles and values. It's a polite lie that obfuscates their true goal, which is to generate profits for only a small fraction of the people to whom they are accountable, at the expense of the remainder. This is cowardly, and morally wrong. I hope that those who were affected by this lie will find greener pastures at companies which live up to their stated goals and principles, who work in the service of what's right over what's profitable.
- perrygeo 4y agoGeneral question about this wave of tech layoffs: Has anyone done a breakdown of what roles have been cut? Is it management or product or engineering? Senior or junior? My general sense is that every company is rushing to trim some fat while it's socially acceptable to do so. But where are they making cuts?
- oofta-boofta 4y agoIt's mostly sales, hr, and lower level managers. Here's the number that I keep tossing around: in June of 2019, Microsoft had about 144k employees. In 2022, they had about 221k employees. They're laying off 10k, which still makes a net gain of almost 70k. It's pure optics for wall street. I'm not particularly worried but this is why you should always be applying and looking for another gig to have in your back pocket. Or, even better, be overemployed and work multiple gigs at once. These companies will toss you out like an old shoe, so f*ck 'em.
- coffeebeqn 4y agoOur company is hiring more sales. Trying to squeeze more out of the market before facing reality I guess. Our investors also forced us to do layoffs and other savings because it’s good optics and their other portfolio companies are losing money fast. Even though we’re a net profitable company
- joegahona 4y agoNo one has done this analysis -- I keep wondering the same thing. I'm sure it's insanely difficult to get accurate data. If (e.g.) the majority of cuts are in HR/recruiting, that's more of a signal of tightening up hiring for the foreseeable future.
- dzonga 4y agoit's always the magic number between 5~7%. which shows these companies are following the herd.
- nwsm 4y agoAnyone know about how many 7% is?
- jlmorton 4y ago> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing steadily, but not rapidly in a wage-inflation spiral. In the US, the stock market is down about 10% over the past 12 months, but it's up over the past six months, and corporate earnings have been high. Everywhere you look, the economic indicators are solid. I do not have insight into Gitlab's customers, or the current state of Gitlab's business. But it is simply not true that the macroeconomic environment is tough. It is not. If there are problems, they are Gitlab problems, not macroeconomic problems.
- ozim 4y agoI saw that in one place I was working - macroeconomic environment was always tough for them. Like 2014-2016 was not global depression and it was long past 2008 but somehow they were still in depression.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoThe current macroeconomic environment is tough if you have deeply negative cash-flow (most of tech).
- napsec 4y agoYup, this is it for GitLab. They've never been profitable. I'm honestly surprised they went this long without layoffs.
- jeltz 4y agoAnd it is no wonder they have issues when their customer support is hostile. I used to pay for Gitlab but switched to the community edition after having to deal with their support over billing issues. Easier to use the free version than the paid version. Making money does not seem to be a priority.
- Gustomaximus 4y agoFrom an investor POV are layoffs an indicator that companies management feel they dont have growth prospects? Companies, especially tech companies would rarely admit this openly, e.g. how they typically hold ever growing cash rather than pay dividends. Logically you would think now would be a great time to hire if you genuinely saw significant grow/product rollouts coming. Especially if a company is making profit and not trying to extend runway, reduce debt, in world where money costs more.
- tukantje 4y agoIn this context it is a sign they bend their knees and kiss the ring. Shareholders have been feeling that the tech workers held too much power, and companies were openly / not-so-openly having a fight with their shareholders, so to speak (especially in cases like Meta). With the new blood sacrifices, shareholders can rest assured that their profit > everything else.
- satysin 4y agoGitHub is also going fully remote (zero offices, current offices will close at end of lease) and reducing headcount by 10% :( Statement will be coming out shortly I guess. I wonder if they knew Gitlab were going to be doing layoffs too and so waited them out.
- isuckatcoding 4y agoIs that part of the Microsoft layoff?
- holman 4y agoIt was announced this morning- during the initial Microsoft layoffs they were told GitHub wasn't impacted.
- ActionHank 4y agoThis doesn't even make sense, I can't imagine that there was a huge surge in demand for Github due to the pandemic that has now dissipated.
- satysin 4y agoNot that I am aware of. Microsoft did not include GitHub in their numbers so I am thinking this is in addition.
- dsq 4y agoSo, are there FANGS that not only are not laying off, but are even hiring or raising salaries? Or all they looking at each other and copycatting?
- rootusrootus 4y agoEvery time a tech company announces a layoff, I'd like a corresponding announcement of where in their history this puts them. Back at late 2022 levels? 2021? 2020? All of these layoffs feel like a little purge after a big binge, not a serious signal of problems.
- eptcyka 4y agoWhilst never a nice letter to write, at least the employees here get to talk to their managers about this.
- siliconc0w 4y agoLayoffs make sense if you need to extend runway past the current economic climate (valuations are down and it could be very painful to raise now). Basically if it's make or break. That doesn't describe the big tech companies who will certainly suffer greater than 10% lost productivity and opportunity cost and could easily weather a long down trend.
- Manfred 4y agoWeathering the trend only really makes sense when you know there is growth on the other side. Maybe a lot of these companies grew to accommodate the explosive growth caused by working from home and they are no longer certain they really need the extra workforce in the coming few years?
- insane_dreamer 4y agoIt’s an easy opportunity for common to cut costs while making the same excuse as everyone else whether it’s applicable or not. If you do it when everyone is doing it, it’s not news and doesn’t scare shareholders the way it would if you did it at another time.
- tiffanyh 4y agoFor a company that's entirely remote, I wonder how the logistics of this was handled. (e.g. how were people informed, de-provisioning access, laptops/corp asset returns)
- freeCandy 4y agoEmployees get to keep the hardware, according to the post.
- alexggordon 4y agoI'm a huge supporter of GitLab, I love their product. Facilitated the use of it for my work and really admire how open their product development and company morals are. So when I say that this is probably one of the worst decisions they can make I hope you can understand I don't say that casually. The problem with running an open company (check out their handbook[0] if you don't understand what I'm referencing) is that you can be held accountable to your values when you break them. All these blog posts regarding the "current macroeconomic climate" make it sound as though they've been blindsided by the downturn in the economy. To me, that's just a straw man. If you listened to any economist or financial adverser, even while the economy was doing okay in 2022, most knew there was a recession coming[0]. Even if they didn't know that, and they were completely ignorant (of which I would expect multiple executive level firings), they bragged in the Q3 Earnings Call on 12/05/2022 that "We added over 200 new team members in 3Q and we continue to experience lower attrition than the industry"[2], undoubtedly as they were planning layoffs. According to Wikipedia, Gitlab had 1,630 employees in January of 2022, so assuming they added 500 new employees in 2022, 7% layoffs would be about 150 positions. Given that, I love this quote from that same call[2]. > As Sid and I have said over the last several quarters, our number one priority is growth but we will do this responsibly. The "I" that quote is Sharlene Seemungal, acting CISO[3]. I don't even have to research the layoffs to know that neither Sid nor Sharlene have suffered from the layoffs. All that said, it's laudable the level of investment you took in ensuring the employees you laid off have a good transition--but it would be better if you didn't play the corporate bullshit shocked pikachu face game when the downturn everyone knew was coming came and actually hired responsibly. [0] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/ [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/09/recession-will-hit-in-first-half-2023-the-dow-is-headed-lower-cfos.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/09/recession-will-hit-in-first-... [2] https://ir.gitlab.com/static-files/96839a79-517d-4d92-989f-925139c74fba https://ir.gitlab.com/static-files/96839a79-517d-4d92-989f-9... [3] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/eba/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/eba/
- qbasic_forever 4y agoIf these layoffs were just done to go with the flow and because everyone else in tech is doing it, holy moly will it go down as one of the worst actions a CEO can take in history. Gitlab lives, breathes and dies on customer trust. If I send them money I am betting on them being a good steward of my source code (_the_ most important asset for many companies) and host for my artifacts, CI, etc. Nothing gives me more concern about the near and long term future of the company than a massive layoff out of the blue. How can customers trust Gitlab will even be functioning or exist in a year? If I depended seriously on them today I would be rapidly finding and moving to an alternative.
- higeorge13 4y ago7% seems like a number shared in a non paper across tech ceos. lol
- iaccountthencom 4y agoI fucking hate it when they talk about integer number of HUMANS as a mere percent (potentially a floating point value)
- andreygrehov 4y agoIs laying people off the new marketing strategy these days?
- neilv 4y agoI would've guessed GitLab would be unlikely to join the layoffs party right now, just on culture and internal/hiring image reasons. Then again, I also thought Google might've been a holdout among the FAANG companies. Before, I figured someone working at Google could assume that, if they focus on the company and do great work (or focus on the perf/promo metrics/criteria that Google seems to want), that Google will take care of them. Now, for both companies, I wonder whether, rather than lighting a fire under anyone who needs it, layoffs erode the unusual trust and intangible appeal they might've enjoyed. (Obviously, Google will still have the selling point of paying very well (or pay OK, if RSUs and bonuses don't recover). And I suppose Leetcode interviews make more sense, if you imagine it coming from a musty old complacent Fortune 100 bureaucracy. And GitLab, though not known in the US for pay, will still hire people around the world, with transparency on at least non-layoffs things.)
- thwayunion 4y agoGoogle doesn't need good will; they'll always be able to get commodity labor. As long as they take care of a large enough number of senior folks they will be okay. (Unclear they're doing this, ofc.) Companies like GitLab are different; these layoffs seem extremely risky long-term. But they're unprofitable and capital has gotten a lot more expensive, so they might not have much of a choice.
- neilv 4y agoDo the founders still believe in Google culture? It seemed to be styled as a place that other Stanford new college grads would want to go (money, status, lifestyle, ambition). Without goodwill, even senior people pulling down $500K-$1M and performing very well are going to be thinking about when it makes sense to leave (for a competitor, startup, or windsurfing/woodworking).
- beepbooptheory 4y agoIs there a single company anywhere that doesn't intermittently layoff employees? Like, I think its good, of course, to analyze and criticize, but why particularize it so case by case in all these threads? It just feels like a lot of missing the forest for the trees. If you were studying an animal that has been shown in all prior research to intermittently eat its offspring, you wouldn't then stop at each animal and ask "why is this animal doing this?" You would start to generalize as a good scientist and understand that this is just how these animals sustain themselves. You wouldn't moralize the animals, you would understand they are apart of a deterministic system which requires this. If you have a problem with layoffs and workers being chronically undermined for the sake of the bosses, then you have problem with our current economic order, not this or that company.
- pokstad 4y agoAs a former GitLab employee from an expensive region, I’m a little concerned Sid didn’t layout the layoff process more transparently. Were high earners more likely to be laid off while lower CoL areas were kept? This was always a distant fear in working for a very global team where I knew teammates from other countries did the same job as me for much less.
- postexitus 4y agoThe answer is yes, in all cases, he doesn't need to state in explicitly. So what? Layoffs are being done to save costs or to signal doing so to shareholders. It is not a "let's be meritocratic and only cut the lowest performers" exercise. The overarching question is, with our insistence on remote working etc, how will we ever justify hiring from high CoL areas again?
- pokstad 4y agoThere’s a lot of value in those high CoL areas. A lot of concentrated knowledge and skill is in the Bay Area.
- postexitus 4y agoIf that value justifies the cost, there should not be a problem. Some of that value may move to low CoL areas and offer comparable value for much lower cost - then things will start to become complicated - this is totally based on the assumption that that value is only available in high CoL areas.
- pokstad 4y agoThe problem is when you hire those high CoL areas, extract value by training others, and then discard them. This will make high CoL workers more hesitant to join a globalized employer.
- postexitus 4y ago
- vparikh 4y agoI am waiting to see the C-suite get some accountability - not holding my breath. if you over-hired by 7-12% over a an 18-24 month period that's a pretty significant management mistake - you clearly did not have a pulse on the business and its operations. I fail to see why these CEOs still have their jobs and worse, are continuing to get their performance bonuses.
- Lapsa 4y agono surprises there
- pachico 4y agoI really looks like swinging the word 'macroeconomic' is a wildcard to justify just anything. I'm tempted to see if I can get away with horrible shit by just appealing to it. "Agent, I got in the drugs business fue to the current macroeconomic situation..."
- ddmichael 4y agoThere is no excuse. One way or the other it's really bad management. You may not realize it but 7% is a massive piece of the pie. Why did you hire those people Gitlab in the first place? The macroeconomic environment isn't tough, my equity stock and shares could have been better but are doing just fine. And if it were tough, it would justify layoffs of 1%, not 7%. Covid, the Russian war and energy crisis have been going on for years now but they didn't stop you from hiring Gitlab. Your irresponsible hiring patterns show mediocrity, corporate chaos. Exploiting the situation to rollback hiring mistakes is not justified. Nor experimenting with peoples' lives.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y agoI mean Sid Sijbrandij has been a horrible CEO for Gitlab. Has squandered every meaningful lead the company had. If he was sharp and a good leader, they wouldn't be in this boat.
- sylware 4y agoWhen github was bought by msft, I moved all my code, but unfortunately not on gitlab as it is not noscript/basic (x)html friendly. I wish they were.
- shrimpx 4y agoWhat’s annoying is these companies maintain a “Careers” page with a bunch of job openings. “Oh look we’re the ones who are still hiring. Psych! We’ve been working on firing thousands!” At least GitHub shut down their careers page weeks before they announced their cut.
- 8kthrowaway 4y agoThey removed about 60% of listings back in January (without notifying candidates, mind you), and seem to have removed another chunk today. An optimist might assume that the remaining listings are legitimate, although it's possible that some recruiters are yet to come online and remove further listings today.
- nitwit005 4y agoThese small percentage layoffs seem a bit pointless. A lot of these companies were hiring right up till their layoff (including gitlab if their careers page was accurate last time I looked). Just appropriately pausing hiring would deliver similar savings.