4 ms·

jumping on the bandwagon.

by devhead 4y ago

mc32 4y ago
On the other hand at least they’re not using cute pet names to refer to fired personnel, so that’s better.
- bosie 4y ago
  What have I missed?
  - ayewo 4y ago
    There 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 ago
    Zooms layoff note earlier this week referenced employees as “Zoomies”.
    - JTbane 4y ago
      I'd prefer "Zoomers".
  - mc32 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - pjam 4y ago
      Pretty 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
      - mc32 4y ago
        Thanks for the feedback. I’ve toned it down. However I want companies to understand how terrible that malpractice is.
    - throwboatyface 4y ago
      That's beyond a crude example, that's just fucking gross. Maybe don't compare getting fired to being sexually assaulted?
      - mc32 4y ago
        I’ve edited it. I wanted to illustrate the extreme disconnect between their comms and how it’s received by affected people.
- notinfuriated 4y ago
  Ooh, they also didn't use the word "impacted." Kudos to them.
PaywallBuster 4y ago
unlike other companies Gitlab is _still_ not profitable https://ir.gitlab.com/news-releases/news-release-details/gitlab-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-fiscal-2022 https://ir.gitlab.com/news-releases/news-release-details/git... Fiscal Year 2022 Highlights: Total revenue of $252.7 million GAAP operating margin of (51)%; Non-GAAP operating margin of (39)% hence cutting costs before borrowing money becomes too expensive (0% interest rates are gone)
- notinfuriated 4y ago
  Interesting. Looks like the bulk of their spend is on sales and marketing, which I suppose makes sense in that these companies require using this kind of money to acquire new customers. But obviously that spells out the questions, how sustainable is this business model, and also, how much of this are they decreasing in addition to or as part of the layoffs? This is on the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations. Total OpEx: 351,625; Sales and Marketing as part of that is 190,754 or about 54% of their operating expenses. I don't read finance statements that often so I don't know how normal this is for the industry.
- eugenekolo 4y ago
  I'm honestly surprised they're not profitable. The cloud tax and cost to acquire new customers is just too high I guess.
- yla92 4y ago
  Noob question: how does one learn to read these financial statements?
  - notinfuriated 4y ago
    You could start by going through some Accounting or Finance videos from edu sites like Khan Academy, and also spend some time looking at the financials for public companies on a site like Yahoo Finance. Annual statements are also available on EDGAR (https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch) rather than, e.g., Yahoo Finance, but maybe a bit harder to parse even though its closer to source data. I think you only need some basics to learn how to look at a financial statement and understand information like whether or not the company is profitable, or roughly how long the company can survive if things continue the way they are, or get better, or get worse. If you want to be able to really understand and assess a business and its financial health based on these statements, I'm not sure you can just learn that. I certainly don't have the confidence that I can do that yet. My feeling is that I'd probably have to work in the industry in some capacity where I am looking at this information daily, across dozens or hundreds of companies. At best, I can pick up on anomalies that can later be explained (e.g., I saw there was a large amount of cash added to GitLab in the past year, and later it was clear that this was largely because of their IPO, which seems obvious but nobody told me there was an IPO before reading the statements (granted, the existence of the statements tend to imply this is a publicly-traded company)). That gives me some confidence that I know what I am reading, but I haven't done much outside of Khan Academy videos and taking a university-level accounting 101 course where I learned about the accounting equation, the accounting cycle, and how to write financial statements based on the financial events for a business.

jumping on the bandwagon.

mc32 4y ago

On the other hand at least they’re not using cute pet names to refer to fired personnel, so that’s better.

bosie 4y ago
What have I missed?
- ayewo 4y ago
  There 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 ago
  Zooms layoff note earlier this week referenced employees as “Zoomies”.
  - JTbane 4y ago
    I'd prefer "Zoomers".
- mc32 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - pjam 4y ago
    Pretty 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
    - mc32 4y ago
      Thanks for the feedback. I’ve toned it down. However I want companies to understand how terrible that malpractice is.
  - throwboatyface 4y ago
    That's beyond a crude example, that's just fucking gross. Maybe don't compare getting fired to being sexually assaulted?
    - mc32 4y ago
      I’ve edited it. I wanted to illustrate the extreme disconnect between their comms and how it’s received by affected people.
notinfuriated 4y ago
Ooh, they also didn't use the word "impacted." Kudos to them.

PaywallBuster 4y ago

unlike other companies Gitlab is _still_ not profitable https://ir.gitlab.com/news-releases/news-release-details/gitlab-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-fiscal-2022 https://ir.gitlab.com/news-releases/news-release-details/git... Fiscal Year 2022 Highlights: Total revenue of $252.7 million GAAP operating margin of (51)%; Non-GAAP operating margin of (39)% hence cutting costs before borrowing money becomes too expensive (0% interest rates are gone)

notinfuriated 4y ago
Interesting. Looks like the bulk of their spend is on sales and marketing, which I suppose makes sense in that these companies require using this kind of money to acquire new customers. But obviously that spells out the questions, how sustainable is this business model, and also, how much of this are they decreasing in addition to or as part of the layoffs? This is on the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations. Total OpEx: 351,625; Sales and Marketing as part of that is 190,754 or about 54% of their operating expenses. I don't read finance statements that often so I don't know how normal this is for the industry.
eugenekolo 4y ago
I'm honestly surprised they're not profitable. The cloud tax and cost to acquire new customers is just too high I guess.
yla92 4y ago
Noob question: how does one learn to read these financial statements?
- notinfuriated 4y ago
  You could start by going through some Accounting or Finance videos from edu sites like Khan Academy, and also spend some time looking at the financials for public companies on a site like Yahoo Finance. Annual statements are also available on EDGAR (https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch) rather than, e.g., Yahoo Finance, but maybe a bit harder to parse even though its closer to source data. I think you only need some basics to learn how to look at a financial statement and understand information like whether or not the company is profitable, or roughly how long the company can survive if things continue the way they are, or get better, or get worse. If you want to be able to really understand and assess a business and its financial health based on these statements, I'm not sure you can just learn that. I certainly don't have the confidence that I can do that yet. My feeling is that I'd probably have to work in the industry in some capacity where I am looking at this information daily, across dozens or hundreds of companies. At best, I can pick up on anomalies that can later be explained (e.g., I saw there was a large amount of cash added to GitLab in the past year, and later it was clear that this was largely because of their IPO, which seems obvious but nobody told me there was an IPO before reading the statements (granted, the existence of the statements tend to imply this is a publicly-traded company)). That gives me some confidence that I know what I am reading, but I haven't done much outside of Khan Academy videos and taking a university-level accounting 101 course where I learned about the accounting equation, the accounting cycle, and how to write financial statements based on the financial events for a business.