6 ms·

Well, a company doesn't exist to just be profitable. But to maximize profits (mostly). So it's certainly possible that cutting costs - even when profitable - c

Well, a company doesn't exist to just be profitable. But to maximize profits (mostly). So it's certainly possible that cutting costs - even when profitable - can increase short-term and long-term profitability.

TylerE 4y ago
I believe it short term. I’m not sure I’ve seen a large convincing example of it NOT causing a PR/customer/staff retention issue long term.
ryandrake 4y ago
So why didn't they do it a year ago? Or two years ago, or three? It would have increased profitability at that time, too. How did dozens of already-profitable companies all suddenly decide together to cut costs within 6 months of each other? I wish they would be more specific than the "macroeconomic environment" excuse. I swear these CEOs are like soccer players running around the pitch, just waiting for Mister Macroeconomic Environment to run near them so they can dive, clutching their calves, crying "impacted! impacted!"
- sberens 4y ago
  > It would have increased profitability at that time, too. Not necessarily. The profit(headcount) function generally varies over time.
  - wombatpm 4y ago
    And you can’t fire all of the engineers and replace them HR drones and expect to maintain the revenues and profits. Under you theory, companies should start laying off at the top and work down until the proper $/person metric is obtained
- kneebonian 4y ago
  That is preposterous the big tech companies would never do anything like cullouding with one another to depress salaries and reduce expenses, that is absolutely insane and conspiracy minded, I mean they super swore pinky promised they wouldn't do it after that one time Google and Apple did.
  - narcraft 4y ago
    Are these depressed salaries the $200k+ ones they were giving for entry level devs?
- listenallyall 4y ago
  > Or two years ago, or three? Because 3 years ago (2020), their average concurrent viewer count increased from 1.26 to 2.12 million and average monthly streamers grew from 3.6 to 6.9 million. Both nearly 100% growth. Then the next year they both grew by about 30%. The company, for good reason, probably thought they needed more people -- more support staff, more payments to process, more server admins, more HR people to support those other people, etc. But in 2022 growth declined, both viewers and streamers. It is still Q1 of the next year, a perfectly reasonable time to lay people off as future projections have been lowered. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/ I know it's more fun to rant on HN and try to make corporate executives seem evil and nasty and selfish, but if you did a bit of research you'd see it is all pretty justifiable.
  - savingsPossible 4y ago
    You can be reasonable from your point of view, and still be evil and nasty and selfish. I'll bite the bullet: damn maximizing profits. It's a bad, inhuman goal. You got people creating things other people enjoy and are making money. That is more than enough, more than most people get. When you maximize profit at the expense of your workers, instead of just keeping it sustainable, you are acting like an evil, nasty, selfish bastard. How the hell do we get coders, mostly workers, defending the POV of the employer like that? Coders of the world, *ing unite :P --- But if they don't maximize profit, another company will, and eventually it'll eat them for dinner. Well, lets get some laws then? Say, lets *ing cap profits. Company sizes. Again, workers of the world and all that Communism was a resounding failure, and one sad consequence of that failure is that now we seem ok with growing concentration of power and wealth, and everyone seems to think like a capitalist, when so few actually are. An important goal for a decent democracy is to counterbalance the inherent tendency of concentration that comes with capitalism, so that common people keep having cash and capitalists keep working for said common people. --- But then other countries will... (see above. Laws and all that. Free movement of capital, low tariffs without regard to other democratic and social goals, they stop democracy on its tracks while concentration grows) --- While we are at it? The whole 'build a moat' startup thing? Well, it can (maybe?) protect you from google and facebook, but is also a call to reduce competition in a way that specifically harms users and workers (coders of the world, unite with the workers and stop pretending you are not workers yourselves?) --- Also: https://nitter.net/trungtphan/status/1342521433470210049#m https://nitter.net/trungtphan/status/1342521433470210049#m profit per employee. Again, your salary might not look so hot now, specially if you are helping getting other people unemployed also, what a nasty metric to try to optimize (sorry for the nitter link, if twitter is somewhat more confortable: https://twitter.com/trungtphan/status/1342521433470210049 https://twitter.com/trungtphan/status/1342521433470210049) (coders of the world, kindly notice that your employers are actively trying to reduce your share of the pie, and, well... At least think about it? Call me maybe?)
- misssocrates 4y ago
  Because interest rates went up. When money was free they overhired. Now that's it's expensive they have to unwind.
Madmallard 4y ago
They don't exist to maximize profits. Publicly traded companies try to maximize profits in the short term. If it was over long-term they would be doing things people would generally like more.

TylerE 4y ago

I believe it short term. I’m not sure I’ve seen a large convincing example of it NOT causing a PR/customer/staff retention issue long term.

ryandrake 4y ago

So why didn't they do it a year ago? Or two years ago, or three? It would have increased profitability at that time, too. How did dozens of already-profitable companies all suddenly decide together to cut costs within 6 months of each other? I wish they would be more specific than the "macroeconomic environment" excuse. I swear these CEOs are like soccer players running around the pitch, just waiting for Mister Macroeconomic Environment to run near them so they can dive, clutching their calves, crying "impacted! impacted!"

sberens 4y ago
> It would have increased profitability at that time, too. Not necessarily. The profit(headcount) function generally varies over time.
- wombatpm 4y ago
  And you can’t fire all of the engineers and replace them HR drones and expect to maintain the revenues and profits. Under you theory, companies should start laying off at the top and work down until the proper $/person metric is obtained
kneebonian 4y ago
That is preposterous the big tech companies would never do anything like cullouding with one another to depress salaries and reduce expenses, that is absolutely insane and conspiracy minded, I mean they super swore pinky promised they wouldn't do it after that one time Google and Apple did.
- narcraft 4y ago
  Are these depressed salaries the $200k+ ones they were giving for entry level devs?
listenallyall 4y ago
> Or two years ago, or three? Because 3 years ago (2020), their average concurrent viewer count increased from 1.26 to 2.12 million and average monthly streamers grew from 3.6 to 6.9 million. Both nearly 100% growth. Then the next year they both grew by about 30%. The company, for good reason, probably thought they needed more people -- more support staff, more payments to process, more server admins, more HR people to support those other people, etc. But in 2022 growth declined, both viewers and streamers. It is still Q1 of the next year, a perfectly reasonable time to lay people off as future projections have been lowered. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/ I know it's more fun to rant on HN and try to make corporate executives seem evil and nasty and selfish, but if you did a bit of research you'd see it is all pretty justifiable.
- savingsPossible 4y ago
  You can be reasonable from your point of view, and still be evil and nasty and selfish. I'll bite the bullet: damn maximizing profits. It's a bad, inhuman goal. You got people creating things other people enjoy and are making money. That is more than enough, more than most people get. When you maximize profit at the expense of your workers, instead of just keeping it sustainable, you are acting like an evil, nasty, selfish bastard. How the hell do we get coders, mostly workers, defending the POV of the employer like that? Coders of the world, *ing unite :P --- But if they don't maximize profit, another company will, and eventually it'll eat them for dinner. Well, lets get some laws then? Say, lets *ing cap profits. Company sizes. Again, workers of the world and all that Communism was a resounding failure, and one sad consequence of that failure is that now we seem ok with growing concentration of power and wealth, and everyone seems to think like a capitalist, when so few actually are. An important goal for a decent democracy is to counterbalance the inherent tendency of concentration that comes with capitalism, so that common people keep having cash and capitalists keep working for said common people. --- But then other countries will... (see above. Laws and all that. Free movement of capital, low tariffs without regard to other democratic and social goals, they stop democracy on its tracks while concentration grows) --- While we are at it? The whole 'build a moat' startup thing? Well, it can (maybe?) protect you from google and facebook, but is also a call to reduce competition in a way that specifically harms users and workers (coders of the world, unite with the workers and stop pretending you are not workers yourselves?) --- Also: https://nitter.net/trungtphan/status/1342521433470210049#m https://nitter.net/trungtphan/status/1342521433470210049#m profit per employee. Again, your salary might not look so hot now, specially if you are helping getting other people unemployed also, what a nasty metric to try to optimize (sorry for the nitter link, if twitter is somewhat more confortable: https://twitter.com/trungtphan/status/1342521433470210049 https://twitter.com/trungtphan/status/1342521433470210049) (coders of the world, kindly notice that your employers are actively trying to reduce your share of the pie, and, well... At least think about it? Call me maybe?)
misssocrates 4y ago
Because interest rates went up. When money was free they overhired. Now that's it's expensive they have to unwind.

Madmallard 4y ago

They don't exist to maximize profits. Publicly traded companies try to maximize profits in the short term. If it was over long-term they would be doing things people would generally like more.