8 ms·

I know the reality is more complicated, but it's always jarring to read a "company X had a great! quarter, is firing 20% of employees" headline. Very dystopian

I know the reality is more complicated, but it's always jarring to read a "company X had a great! quarter, is firing 20% of employees" headline. Very dystopian. It seems like these two facts should at least go out in different press releases on different days. For Shopify, does anyone know whether the 20% figure includes the people leaving with the sale of SFN to Flexport? Edit: just heard in the earnings call that the 20% headcount reduction does _not_ include the logistics teams going to Flexport.

MuffinFlavored 3y ago
What if the headline read like this? > Shopify to cut 20% of its workforce, beats an already/comparatively-to-history reduced/calibrated quarterly revenue estimates for the current economic landscape
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
It's a fundraising advertisement, not for you. The headline is to pitch possible future investors that Shopify will prioritize investor returns over anything else (as ordained by the Prophets of capitalism)
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  If Shopify can deliver its software with less people, that’s better for society. Put it this way - would you like to be paid to mow a lawn using scissors? I can pay hundreds of people to mow my lawn using scissors, and they will be employed as landscapers. Or I can pay one guy with a lawnmower.
  - mochomocha 3y ago
    "Bullshit jobs" [1] are a suboptimal and implicit mean to deliver on UBI without superficially changing the rules of capitalism. For exhibit 2, I'll bring in the US military and its economic impact on the midwest. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      The US military is not capitalism. That’s socialism - a job and industry fully dependent on the government and thus is a politically created career. Bullshit jobs don’t exist in the free market, as no capitalist would pay for someone to do something useless. If that is happening it would certainly be because a government regulator required someone to sit there twiddling thumbs.
      - mochomocha 3y ago
        > Bullshit jobs don’t exist in the free market, as no capitalist would pay for someone to do something useless And yet if you spend any time in any large corporation, you'll find countless examples of these, including in the tech industry. Don't you have any friend working for Google/Meta/${big tech co}? Bullshit jobs can and definitely exist with capitalism: any successful and large business is filled with them.
        monero-xmr 3y ago
        They may exist for a while but when push comes to shove, they will be eliminated. The government is the one with the real problem - there are bureaucrats who gladly do nothing all day every day, or even actively harm industry, and they can never be fired and exist as barnacles.
        mochomocha 3y ago
        > They may exist for a while I don't think we should be interested in the "asymptotic theoretical limit" of capitalism which is never reached. Let's discuss "capitalism in practice", not "capitalism in theory". If things self-correct in a time frame longer than your own lifespan, do you think it's an ideal scenario? I personally don't. I don't see the government forcing Google to pay thousands of highly qualified workers to fill in BS jobs. This is a natural consequence of being a very successful business: complacency, empire building, etc all decorellated from economic incentives. People spend decades with BS jobs in a very capitalist society. Note that I've never argued that a socialist alternative is any better or that the government isn't filled with BS jobs either. I just observe that the problem manifests itself regardless.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    Do more with less and less until you do everything with nothing.... The answer to your question is it depends, and is one of the big things that has people worried about AI and automation rapidly improving over time. If things like wealth redistribution don't occur in a highly automated society you end up with big problems really quick.
    - throwaway290 3y ago
      It occurs, just not in the direction it should.
    - usrusr 3y ago
      And even then economy would not be completely "done", as long as ownership of all that nothing that does everything is still distributed. But when that chapter is also over, imagine the succession drama!
  - bhargav 3y ago
    “Better for society” sounds like an overstatement. I think you mean better for Shopify or their investors. Are you excluding those 20% MFs that are getting fired from Society? Where are they gonna do their scissoring now?
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      You are falling into the trap of the Luddites. As a society we allow layoffs because it reallocates skilled workers to new areas that actually need them. Otherwise why not pay people to dig holes and fill them back in again, forever?
      - throwaway290 3y ago
        straw man analogy. yes, if your end goal is something crazy and unthinkable like functional society with less crime and full of happy, mentally healthy non stressed people. only then keeping people employed even if in some cases it is not the most ruthlessly financially effective thing to do can be desirable
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - bhargav 3y ago
        Not saying downsizing does not make sense, but its a stretch to say that its a service to our society to downsize one's company. > As a society we allow layoffs because it reallocates skilled workers to new areas that actually need them This more sounds like a trap mindset to me to be honest. Its associating some sort of morality to what is just regular part of running a business. Companies do what's best for the company and its investors first and foremost.
        AndrewKemendo 3y ago
        The conceit that there exists human actions that are exempt from “morality” is fundamentally depraved.
  - dboreham 3y ago
    Fewer.
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    > that’s better for society Increasingly I wonder what this means. What KPIs are you evaluating to determine if society is getting better or worse? And is it?
    - osigurdson 3y ago
      Economic growth would certainly suffer if we insisted that no one could ever be let go.
      - hotpotamus 3y ago
        In context, I understand that you mean let go from jobs, but it doesn't seem like we have much trouble letting people go from society either.
        osigurdson 3y ago
        What does it mean to let people go from society?
        hotpotamus 3y ago
        As an example, I'd look at the individual who was strangled to death on the New York subway on Monday.
  - orra 3y ago
    > I can pay hundreds of people to mow my lawn using scissors, and they will be employed as landscapers. Or I can pay one guy with a lawnmower. Right, but that's not the actual dichotomy. First, if Shopify can deliver its software with less people, then with the same number of people they could deliver more. Second, realistically the dichotomy, in the short to medium term, is will these people be employed in a skilled job, or will they be unemployed? You might say, that's not Shopify's problem. But let's not pretend unemployed people is "better for society".
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      the unemployment rate is 3.5% > then with the same number of people they could deliver more. this is not true to begin with. classic engineering fallacy
      - zimpenfish 3y ago
        > this is not true to begin with. classic engineering fallacy Are you assuming they'd be put onto the existing projects (which may slow down delivery, yes) rather than doing new projects in parallel (which will not and will in fact let them deliver more because there are more projects)?
        endisneigh 3y ago
        you're simply doubling down on the fallacy. doing more projects does not mean you're delivering more. code is not value. there needs to be clear demand for what is being produced and management needs to have effective leadership to make sure the right people are doing the right things. all of which require effort. in lieu of that, it's better to lay people off from the company's perspective. if and when they understand the scope of the problem and the demand is there they will hire more people. that's more or less how to economy works.
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      You are assuming that there is an infinite number of people that can be added to Shopify’s payroll that will increase the product’s usefulness and increase revenue enough to justify their hiring. The company leadership doesn’t believe that. There is a line where adding more people will not justify enough revenue increase, and that’s up to the company leaders to decide. It’s worse for the people laid off, but ultimately wouldn’t they want to do something useful? In a new job they will be wanted. At Shopify they are not wanted.
  - megablast 3y ago
    > I can pay hundreds of people to mow my lawn using scissors, and they will be employed as landscapers. Or I can pay one guy with a lawnmower. When you argument is to take the extreme, you must understand that it is bullshit, right?
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      On the contrary it is useful to distill an idea into its essence in order to make a point. This is a logical argument, and is the same technique any teacher uses when trying to begin with base principles. It’s tough when you have no counter argument, which is why you resort to arguing against the method rather than thinking of something intelligent.
  - musingsole 3y ago
    Landscaping is a perfect example of how an individual can instantaneously create value in the economy. Banks can create currency, but individuals can magically create value. How? Decide you want your yard to look different. On a whim. Just decide you want a hill over there with a ring of bushes on top. Congratulations, you have created demand. Pay a local crew to have it done, money flows into the economy, everybody eats. For greater effect, manufacture a cultural preference so that entire country clubs of people at a time decide that all hills need bonzai trees at their crest -- have all the clubbers pay all the landscaping crews. A golf course is just a jobs program /s
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    >If Shopify can deliver its software with less people, that’s better for society. What specific measures of society are better? Please use whatever metrics you deem relevant however I'll propose a few options to choose from based on the Harvard Human Flourishing Program [1]: 1. Happiness and life satisfaction 2. Mental and physical health 3. Meaning and purpose 4. Character and virtue 5. Close social relationships [1] https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/measuring-flourishing https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/measuring-flourishing
  - usrusr 3y ago
    Actually the good path, according to abovementioned prophets of capitalism, would be a new player undercutting the incumbent by being able to deliver comparably with less people. An incumbent so unchallenged that they can increase revenue while cutting staff is the economic equivalent of a bad code smell. Perhaps not that market outright failing, but clearly not working quite as advertised.
  - overrun11 3y ago
    Hiring 100 people then getting rid of 99 of them is probably worse for society then just hiring the 1
  - ROTMetro 3y ago
    A restaurant can get away with giving everyone crappy part time work IF the restaurant knows that on demand it can request people to work more hours/extra days. It sounds like an efficient way to run in a grad school sense. But what happens when people start saying no or get sick? The restaurant is closed at odd times, people are inconvenienced and just start going somewhere else, has opportunity costs because it has to pass on that last minute phone in order from an office catering lunch because it's minimally staffed (to be market efficient). Cutting to absolute minimum viable is a horrific concept if you are building a business. You lose your best people, you have a ton of opportunity costs, and you basically give up on growth, productivity goes down as your remaining people have to do way more context switching. If you are running a zombie company and just squeezing the last bits out it might be considered running a business I guess?
- throwawaysleep 3y ago
  > It's a fundraising advertisement, not for you. If you are an employee, nothing management does is for you.
  - KyeRussell 3y ago
    It’ll be a very confusing day for you when you grow up and have just one direct report, and you’ll need to face the reality of them calling you “management” on snarky Hacker News comments.
    - throwawaysleep 3y ago
      I have no managerial aspirations. I intend to be an under the radar B- player at a diversified portfolio of companies until I can retire.
- DelaneyM 3y ago
  Oh yes, I realize it's for the street. But unless a public offering coincides with the PR there's little value in combining the two messages.
- sheepscreek 3y ago
  Why the downvote? This comment is spot on. Anyone thinking otherwise is delusional. To see Toby’s give in to investors wholly saddens me. When Bezos was still at the helm of Amazon in the 2000s, the investors demanded a profit (and a dividend?). Not giving in, he kept reinvesting any earnings back in the business for years to come. The current flavour of capitalism is more heavily tuned for profits over other parameters such as employee satisfaction and morale. Still, seeing the same response across all companies in every industry is bizarre. This gives more credence to the big-three-index-funds-control-most-companies theory[1]. [1] Hidden power of the Big Three? Passive index funds, re-concentration of corporate ownership, and new financial risk https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-and-politics/article/hidden-power-of-the-big-three-passive-index-funds-reconcentration-of-corporate-ownership-and-new-financial-risk/30AD689509AAD62F5B677E916C28C4B6 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-and-politic...
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    > When Bezos was still at the helm of Amazon in the 2000s, the investors demanded a profit (and a dividend?). Not giving in, he kept reinvesting any earnings back in the business for years to come. Lots of differences. #1 is Amazon was not losing tons of money. They were also doing something novel and building physical infrastructure. Investing in an online retail business when there were few others (none at Amazon scale) is far different than investing in one with tons of competitors and low barrier to entry. >The current flavour of capitalism is more heavily tuned for profits over other parameters such as employee satisfaction and morale. People have always like more money than less money.
- cde-v 3y ago
  Almost no one is going to agree with you here. Hacker News is filled with “temporarily embarrassed billionaires” who all think their shitty little app or the fact that they know some obscure useless programming language think will make them rich one day.
  - kodah 3y ago
    and yet people agree with them.
    - cde-v 3y ago
      There, fixed. And what’s the elevator pitch for your killer app written in elixerust?
      - kodah 3y ago
        Why are you even here? It sounds like you have contempt for almost everyone here. This place was made for entrepreneurs and hackers, hence it focuses on curiosity. You seem to have none of that.
        cde-v 3y ago
        I have contempt for the shortsighted fools that are deluded enough to fuck over everyone and themselves for a .000000000001% chance of making it big. Go play the lottery loser.
        kodah 3y ago
        That's such a vague statement that you might as well have said nothing. How does "fuck over everyone else" jive with your hate on languages like Rust and Elixir? How does that jive with startups, many of the people who have worked in startups made a killing over time, but there's certainly plenty of people who got pennies. Anyway, I'd encourage you to step back and examine your rage. It seems misplaced.
    - 3y ago
ryathal 3y ago
The investor class is desperate for a recession and it's just not happening so they keep laying off people until they can make it happen.
- flappyeagle 3y ago
  This is not how recessions work.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    Of course not. They’re caused by the fed.
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      Recessions and collapses happened long before the Fed ever existed, e.g. Tulips
      - bichiliad 3y ago
        I think the Tulip Mania, if that's what you're referring to, was a speculation bubble, whereas a recession is widespread by definition.
  - MrSqueezles 3y ago
    Emotional investors moving hundreds of billions of dollars create self-fulfilling prophecies. It absolutely is how recessions work. "I'm so pissy because the US Fed isn't giving away free money anymore. I'm moving to cash and will shower money on any company that does layoffs." Yeah, it works.
    - flavius29663 3y ago
      US recessions and bear markets happen most of the time because of mass psychosis, not because of some underlying cause. There can be a trigger, yes, but it's generally not that big of a deal. The government also plays a role in triggering these recessions, so that they can pop the bubbles before it's too late. Yes, there can be recessions causes by world wars, worldwide droughts, pandemics and other cataclysmic events, but usually it's not the case for US.
HillRat 3y ago
The ZIRP discourse is a bit facile, but there’s a lot of truth to it, and a lot of tech companies have been kept afloat solely by historically-low WACC and a frothy IPO market; due to their inability or unwillingness to impose financial discipline commensurate with their revenue we have a bunch of companies that are, functionally, unprofitable at any scale. Rough times for good folks, unfortunately.

MuffinFlavored 3y ago

What if the headline read like this? > Shopify to cut 20% of its workforce, beats an already/comparatively-to-history reduced/calibrated quarterly revenue estimates for the current economic landscape

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

It's a fundraising advertisement, not for you. The headline is to pitch possible future investors that Shopify will prioritize investor returns over anything else (as ordained by the Prophets of capitalism)

monero-xmr 3y ago
If Shopify can deliver its software with less people, that’s better for society. Put it this way - would you like to be paid to mow a lawn using scissors? I can pay hundreds of people to mow my lawn using scissors, and they will be employed as landscapers. Or I can pay one guy with a lawnmower.
- mochomocha 3y ago
  "Bullshit jobs" [1] are a suboptimal and implicit mean to deliver on UBI without superficially changing the rules of capitalism. For exhibit 2, I'll bring in the US military and its economic impact on the midwest. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    The US military is not capitalism. That’s socialism - a job and industry fully dependent on the government and thus is a politically created career. Bullshit jobs don’t exist in the free market, as no capitalist would pay for someone to do something useless. If that is happening it would certainly be because a government regulator required someone to sit there twiddling thumbs.
    - mochomocha 3y ago
      > Bullshit jobs don’t exist in the free market, as no capitalist would pay for someone to do something useless And yet if you spend any time in any large corporation, you'll find countless examples of these, including in the tech industry. Don't you have any friend working for Google/Meta/${big tech co}? Bullshit jobs can and definitely exist with capitalism: any successful and large business is filled with them.
      - monero-xmr 3y ago
        They may exist for a while but when push comes to shove, they will be eliminated. The government is the one with the real problem - there are bureaucrats who gladly do nothing all day every day, or even actively harm industry, and they can never be fired and exist as barnacles.
        mochomocha 3y ago
        > They may exist for a while I don't think we should be interested in the "asymptotic theoretical limit" of capitalism which is never reached. Let's discuss "capitalism in practice", not "capitalism in theory". If things self-correct in a time frame longer than your own lifespan, do you think it's an ideal scenario? I personally don't. I don't see the government forcing Google to pay thousands of highly qualified workers to fill in BS jobs. This is a natural consequence of being a very successful business: complacency, empire building, etc all decorellated from economic incentives. People spend decades with BS jobs in a very capitalist society. Note that I've never argued that a socialist alternative is any better or that the government isn't filled with BS jobs either. I just observe that the problem manifests itself regardless.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Do more with less and less until you do everything with nothing.... The answer to your question is it depends, and is one of the big things that has people worried about AI and automation rapidly improving over time. If things like wealth redistribution don't occur in a highly automated society you end up with big problems really quick.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    It occurs, just not in the direction it should.
  - usrusr 3y ago
    And even then economy would not be completely "done", as long as ownership of all that nothing that does everything is still distributed. But when that chapter is also over, imagine the succession drama!
- bhargav 3y ago
  “Better for society” sounds like an overstatement. I think you mean better for Shopify or their investors. Are you excluding those 20% MFs that are getting fired from Society? Where are they gonna do their scissoring now?
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    You are falling into the trap of the Luddites. As a society we allow layoffs because it reallocates skilled workers to new areas that actually need them. Otherwise why not pay people to dig holes and fill them back in again, forever?
    - throwaway290 3y ago
      straw man analogy. yes, if your end goal is something crazy and unthinkable like functional society with less crime and full of happy, mentally healthy non stressed people. only then keeping people employed even if in some cases it is not the most ruthlessly financially effective thing to do can be desirable
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - bhargav 3y ago
      Not saying downsizing does not make sense, but its a stretch to say that its a service to our society to downsize one's company. > As a society we allow layoffs because it reallocates skilled workers to new areas that actually need them This more sounds like a trap mindset to me to be honest. Its associating some sort of morality to what is just regular part of running a business. Companies do what's best for the company and its investors first and foremost.
      - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
        The conceit that there exists human actions that are exempt from “morality” is fundamentally depraved.
- dboreham 3y ago
  Fewer.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  > that’s better for society Increasingly I wonder what this means. What KPIs are you evaluating to determine if society is getting better or worse? And is it?
  - osigurdson 3y ago
    Economic growth would certainly suffer if we insisted that no one could ever be let go.
    - hotpotamus 3y ago
      In context, I understand that you mean let go from jobs, but it doesn't seem like we have much trouble letting people go from society either.
      - osigurdson 3y ago
        What does it mean to let people go from society?
        hotpotamus 3y ago
        As an example, I'd look at the individual who was strangled to death on the New York subway on Monday.
- orra 3y ago
  > I can pay hundreds of people to mow my lawn using scissors, and they will be employed as landscapers. Or I can pay one guy with a lawnmower. Right, but that's not the actual dichotomy. First, if Shopify can deliver its software with less people, then with the same number of people they could deliver more. Second, realistically the dichotomy, in the short to medium term, is will these people be employed in a skilled job, or will they be unemployed? You might say, that's not Shopify's problem. But let's not pretend unemployed people is "better for society".
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    the unemployment rate is 3.5% > then with the same number of people they could deliver more. this is not true to begin with. classic engineering fallacy
    - zimpenfish 3y ago
      > this is not true to begin with. classic engineering fallacy Are you assuming they'd be put onto the existing projects (which may slow down delivery, yes) rather than doing new projects in parallel (which will not and will in fact let them deliver more because there are more projects)?
      - endisneigh 3y ago
        you're simply doubling down on the fallacy. doing more projects does not mean you're delivering more. code is not value. there needs to be clear demand for what is being produced and management needs to have effective leadership to make sure the right people are doing the right things. all of which require effort. in lieu of that, it's better to lay people off from the company's perspective. if and when they understand the scope of the problem and the demand is there they will hire more people. that's more or less how to economy works.
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    You are assuming that there is an infinite number of people that can be added to Shopify’s payroll that will increase the product’s usefulness and increase revenue enough to justify their hiring. The company leadership doesn’t believe that. There is a line where adding more people will not justify enough revenue increase, and that’s up to the company leaders to decide. It’s worse for the people laid off, but ultimately wouldn’t they want to do something useful? In a new job they will be wanted. At Shopify they are not wanted.
- megablast 3y ago
  > I can pay hundreds of people to mow my lawn using scissors, and they will be employed as landscapers. Or I can pay one guy with a lawnmower. When you argument is to take the extreme, you must understand that it is bullshit, right?
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    On the contrary it is useful to distill an idea into its essence in order to make a point. This is a logical argument, and is the same technique any teacher uses when trying to begin with base principles. It’s tough when you have no counter argument, which is why you resort to arguing against the method rather than thinking of something intelligent.
- musingsole 3y ago
  Landscaping is a perfect example of how an individual can instantaneously create value in the economy. Banks can create currency, but individuals can magically create value. How? Decide you want your yard to look different. On a whim. Just decide you want a hill over there with a ring of bushes on top. Congratulations, you have created demand. Pay a local crew to have it done, money flows into the economy, everybody eats. For greater effect, manufacture a cultural preference so that entire country clubs of people at a time decide that all hills need bonzai trees at their crest -- have all the clubbers pay all the landscaping crews. A golf course is just a jobs program /s
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  >If Shopify can deliver its software with less people, that’s better for society. What specific measures of society are better? Please use whatever metrics you deem relevant however I'll propose a few options to choose from based on the Harvard Human Flourishing Program [1]: 1. Happiness and life satisfaction 2. Mental and physical health 3. Meaning and purpose 4. Character and virtue 5. Close social relationships [1] https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/measuring-flourishing https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/measuring-flourishing
- usrusr 3y ago
  Actually the good path, according to abovementioned prophets of capitalism, would be a new player undercutting the incumbent by being able to deliver comparably with less people. An incumbent so unchallenged that they can increase revenue while cutting staff is the economic equivalent of a bad code smell. Perhaps not that market outright failing, but clearly not working quite as advertised.
- overrun11 3y ago
  Hiring 100 people then getting rid of 99 of them is probably worse for society then just hiring the 1
- ROTMetro 3y ago
  A restaurant can get away with giving everyone crappy part time work IF the restaurant knows that on demand it can request people to work more hours/extra days. It sounds like an efficient way to run in a grad school sense. But what happens when people start saying no or get sick? The restaurant is closed at odd times, people are inconvenienced and just start going somewhere else, has opportunity costs because it has to pass on that last minute phone in order from an office catering lunch because it's minimally staffed (to be market efficient). Cutting to absolute minimum viable is a horrific concept if you are building a business. You lose your best people, you have a ton of opportunity costs, and you basically give up on growth, productivity goes down as your remaining people have to do way more context switching. If you are running a zombie company and just squeezing the last bits out it might be considered running a business I guess?
throwawaysleep 3y ago
> It's a fundraising advertisement, not for you. If you are an employee, nothing management does is for you.
- KyeRussell 3y ago
  It’ll be a very confusing day for you when you grow up and have just one direct report, and you’ll need to face the reality of them calling you “management” on snarky Hacker News comments.
  - throwawaysleep 3y ago
    I have no managerial aspirations. I intend to be an under the radar B- player at a diversified portfolio of companies until I can retire.
DelaneyM 3y ago
Oh yes, I realize it's for the street. But unless a public offering coincides with the PR there's little value in combining the two messages.
sheepscreek 3y ago
Why the downvote? This comment is spot on. Anyone thinking otherwise is delusional. To see Toby’s give in to investors wholly saddens me. When Bezos was still at the helm of Amazon in the 2000s, the investors demanded a profit (and a dividend?). Not giving in, he kept reinvesting any earnings back in the business for years to come. The current flavour of capitalism is more heavily tuned for profits over other parameters such as employee satisfaction and morale. Still, seeing the same response across all companies in every industry is bizarre. This gives more credence to the big-three-index-funds-control-most-companies theory[1]. [1] Hidden power of the Big Three? Passive index funds, re-concentration of corporate ownership, and new financial risk https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-and-politics/article/hidden-power-of-the-big-three-passive-index-funds-reconcentration-of-corporate-ownership-and-new-financial-risk/30AD689509AAD62F5B677E916C28C4B6 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-and-politic...
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  > When Bezos was still at the helm of Amazon in the 2000s, the investors demanded a profit (and a dividend?). Not giving in, he kept reinvesting any earnings back in the business for years to come. Lots of differences. #1 is Amazon was not losing tons of money. They were also doing something novel and building physical infrastructure. Investing in an online retail business when there were few others (none at Amazon scale) is far different than investing in one with tons of competitors and low barrier to entry. >The current flavour of capitalism is more heavily tuned for profits over other parameters such as employee satisfaction and morale. People have always like more money than less money.
cde-v 3y ago
Almost no one is going to agree with you here. Hacker News is filled with “temporarily embarrassed billionaires” who all think their shitty little app or the fact that they know some obscure useless programming language think will make them rich one day.
- kodah 3y ago
  and yet people agree with them.
  - cde-v 3y ago
    There, fixed. And what’s the elevator pitch for your killer app written in elixerust?
    - kodah 3y ago
      Why are you even here? It sounds like you have contempt for almost everyone here. This place was made for entrepreneurs and hackers, hence it focuses on curiosity. You seem to have none of that.
      - cde-v 3y ago
        I have contempt for the shortsighted fools that are deluded enough to fuck over everyone and themselves for a .000000000001% chance of making it big. Go play the lottery loser.
        kodah 3y ago
        That's such a vague statement that you might as well have said nothing. How does "fuck over everyone else" jive with your hate on languages like Rust and Elixir? How does that jive with startups, many of the people who have worked in startups made a killing over time, but there's certainly plenty of people who got pennies. Anyway, I'd encourage you to step back and examine your rage. It seems misplaced.
  - 3y ago

ryathal 3y ago

The investor class is desperate for a recession and it's just not happening so they keep laying off people until they can make it happen.

flappyeagle 3y ago
This is not how recessions work.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  Of course not. They’re caused by the fed.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    Recessions and collapses happened long before the Fed ever existed, e.g. Tulips
    - bichiliad 3y ago
      I think the Tulip Mania, if that's what you're referring to, was a speculation bubble, whereas a recession is widespread by definition.
- MrSqueezles 3y ago
  Emotional investors moving hundreds of billions of dollars create self-fulfilling prophecies. It absolutely is how recessions work. "I'm so pissy because the US Fed isn't giving away free money anymore. I'm moving to cash and will shower money on any company that does layoffs." Yeah, it works.
  - flavius29663 3y ago
    US recessions and bear markets happen most of the time because of mass psychosis, not because of some underlying cause. There can be a trigger, yes, but it's generally not that big of a deal. The government also plays a role in triggering these recessions, so that they can pop the bubbles before it's too late. Yes, there can be recessions causes by world wars, worldwide droughts, pandemics and other cataclysmic events, but usually it's not the case for US.

HillRat 3y ago

The ZIRP discourse is a bit facile, but there’s a lot of truth to it, and a lot of tech companies have been kept afloat solely by historically-low WACC and a frothy IPO market; due to their inability or unwillingness to impose financial discipline commensurate with their revenue we have a bunch of companies that are, functionally, unprofitable at any scale. Rough times for good folks, unfortunately.