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> Wait, I thought revenue was growing! How is that not sustainable? If you just leave costs where they are and let revenue grow, you are by definition sustainin
by lanza 4y ago
> Wait, I thought revenue was growing! How is that not sustainable? If you just leave costs where they are and let revenue grow, you are by definition sustaining/growing the bottom line.
Come on man, if you don't understand how a business can be showing signs of unhealthiness while still increasing revenue then don't post. That's such a trivial superficial analysis of reality.
I'm not going to pretend to know or understand enough about Twitch's business to agree or disagree with whether they need layoffs. But a shallow comment of "revenue go up" is lowbrow nonsense.
- ilyt 4y agoOr, the investors want their returns. If you don't understand how perfectly healthy business can be gutted just because investors want better number on next year's sheets and don't care about long term then don't post.
- throwawayinvi 4y ago[flagged]
- dantheman 4y agoIf you look around most companies especially with the way hiring has been the last few years, layoffs != gutting.
- camhart 4y agoI just want to say, investors getting returns should be a goal of every for profit company (whos taken investor $$). Thats why investors risk their capital. That capital is responsible for the growth of most major tech companies. Its responsible for most jobs at tech companies. Not saying this is an excuse to treat employees poorly. They're just as vital as the capital (employee hours is often quite literally whats bought with the capital). But I get tired of hearing only poo poo being thrown on investors.
- yunohn 4y agoHaving money should not be worth more than doing the work. Same goes for landlords.
- ThunderSizzle 4y agoThen don't take the money. You don't need seed money to make a business. You can just spend all your time instead. You might get to the point where you'll value that money more. Or not.
- yunohn 4y agoAre you positing that companies should never go public? Or even if public, that there is no physical limit we can impose on growth expectations?
- Vaslo 4y agoExcept for this whole thing called “risk” that investors and landlords undertake as part of the process.
- yunohn 4y agoAnd that’s exactly the problem - risk does not confer inherent value. The employees are also taking on significant risk - clearly, if things go even slightly south for investors, they fire the employees first!
- eldritch_4ier 4y agoThey are the same thing! Money is just a store of work. All money was earned via work. Investors give that stored work to companies. They’re essentially energy credits
- yunohn 4y ago> Money is just a store of work So, when you print more of it, whose work is being encapsulated into it? And how do you explain profit margins? You are aware that things aren’t priced at just the cost of work, right?
- parasense 4y agoBut we are in fact in the early stages of a slow train-wreck of a global economic meltdown. Investors wanting value out of stock is one thing, especially if the stock has a dividend. But this is not a dividend stock, so that tired trope doesn't apply. Also, this is Amazon, famous for channelling revenue back into the business, effectively making the stock neutral value in a fiat sense. It would be one thing if it were any other company, but it's Amazon. The only value in the stock is the perceived value of the stock holders, and Amazon doesn't play that value-game like other corporations. Considering they previously cut 19K jobs, and this is just a piece of the additional 9K job cuts across all business units... it strongly indicates Amazon is preparing for an even worse economy to come. Consider the Biden Administration printed about ~$10 trillion USD since 2020, and if Inflation were comparable to Dune sand-worms, this would be the Shai Hulud of Inflation. It takes a while for the economy to realise everyone is being payed less, and prices need to rise in accordance with increasing costs, but oh wait... people are still paid the old income they always earned, and so they buy less stuff, and around and round the cycle goes. Amazon isn't selling as much as they used to, so please with all due respect... get the fuck out of here with the ShArE hOlDeRs WaNt VaLuE nonesense. A bunch of corporations are cutting jobs, because payroll is typically the #1 cost of doing business, for any business.
- WeylandYutani 4y agoThe investors that made the business want to cash out? How dare they!
- kibwen 4y agoWe should be holding the president of a multi-billion dollar corporation to a higher standard than a random HN commenter. If Dan Clancy wants to lie to our faces with this egregiously milquetoast corpo-speak, he does not deserve serious or good faith analysis of his words. He's bullshitting us, plain and simple, and I see no reason to smile, lick my lips, and ask politely for seconds.
- geodel 4y agoHuh. If multi-billion dollar corporation executive is not going to do a corpo-speak, I don't really know who is supposed to be doing that.
- marcosdumay 4y agoHum... This one is easy to answer. Nobody is supposed to be doing that. The entire thing is a non-statement (I dunno about the GP's accusation of lying; you can't lie if you don't say anything), so it should be one small paragraph. Or, two, if you want to say you are sorry for both employees and customers. Nobody gains anything by the chatGPT-like decompresion of the message.
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- vineyardmike 4y agoNext thing you'll tell me that politicians no longer want to be politically correct!
- junofan 4y agoThe last guy fucked up and overhired. Now this guy is fixing it. What do you want him to say?
- 4y ago
- dangus 4y agoThe truth of the matter is that companies aren't monetarily incentivized to avoid layoffs. Layoffs cost almost nothing. Companies aren't required to pay full salaries or provide any healthcare/benefits for any reasonable period of time after a layoff. I think even the 3 month notice period from the WARN Act is a pretty crap amount of time to provide for employees who have been terminated. For a software company especially, they can pull a Twitter and leave the business on autopilot with the code that has already been written and axe most employees. It's not really a big deal to get rid of employees then hire them back 6 months later, but it really should be. Also, companies like Twitter prove that the WARN Act can just be outright violated while employees are left to fight court battles they can't afford nor have time to fight. Then you look at unemployment benefits where in most states the whole process is overly bureaucratic and wasteful system that doesn't come close to anything resembling a replacement for salary. I think that whole system would work better and be able to send more money to the unemployed if it was just automatic payments without all the overhead of having people on staff processing applications and answering phones to deal with questions, appeals, etc. Instead, just continue all terminated employees' salary and healthcare benefits for 3-6 months after termination automatically on the employer's dime. Implement something like that and watch as our boom and bust economy gets a lot less mountainous. Companies would actually have to try and make an educated choice about whether or not to hire someone. Companies should only be able to dispute unemployment in cases of clear and obvious misconduct. I don't even think that low performing employees who showed up and made some level of half-assed effort should have unemployment benefits revoked. Isn't the hiring of a low-performing employee the fault of the employer for not sufficiently vetting the candidate? Maybe what I'm proposing is too extreme, I don't know, but I think the status quo is way too lenient on businesses.
- abledon 4y agoon-demand scalability mindset creeped over from spinning up VMs into their quick hiring/firing strategy
- selimthegrim 4y agoI discovered the iPhone’s four hour call limit while on hold with the Louisiana unemployment system
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jszymborski 4y ago> Come on man, if you don't understand how a business can be showing signs of unhealthiness while still increasing revenue then don't post. I wasn't aware of this criteria, is that somewhere in the guidelines? All I'm seeing is stuff about civility and being decent.
- yunohn 4y ago> revenue go up faster CEO takes responsibility by cashing out massive bonuses. > revenue go up slower CEO “takes responsibility” by firing others. Are you good-faith questioning why the HN crowd is justifiably upset over the current state of things?
- shapefrog 4y agoCEO gets paid massive bonus for “taking responsibility” and firing others.
- amitrip 4y agois it though?