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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 reve

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.

orra 4y ago
We're not talking about hiring more people, let alone an infinite number. Simply I am pointing out the downsides of laying off people.
- mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
  You're not taking into account that "deliver more" isn't an infinite type of thing that can happen. There is a threshold with market/product fit where "more" doesn't mean more revenue and benefit to shareholders. I think this is something all companies struggle with: at some point you may achieve product/market maturity but the people that could determine this are fundamentally in conflict with ever communicating this because they or their peers would be out of work at that employer. In my opinion, this is when internal politics start to become more prevalent because its human nature to protect your well being/source of money.
bwestergard 4y ago
To put it another way, you believe that a welfare maximizing equilibrium can not only be achieved in principle, but is routinely achieved in practice with minimal friction? This is difficult to believe. I think everyone sees signs all around them of foolish decisions by firm principals that hamper consumer and worker welfare even in the short term, to say nothing of the effect of various kinds of hysteresis on the long term development path of economies (e.g. detaching people from the labor market in a manner that undermines their health, currency of their skills, etc.)
cableshaft 4y ago
Companies aren't limited to one software product. They often are, but they don't have to be. How many software products has Google released over the years, which they're able to do so because they have a massive number of employees? More employees will allow for more products. Whether it would be prudent or profitable to tackle more products is another story, but we're already talking about hypotheticals with 'infinite employees' here. I do think there is room for 20% of its employees to work on other products that could integrate well with their vision and still be within the ecommerce realm. But that doesn't juice up their stock price right away.
tshaddox 4y ago
> The company leadership doesn’t believe that. Starting rather recently and suddenly, don’t you think? The company leadership did apparently believe that each and every time they made a hire. And I bet a lot of the people laid off today were hired fairly recently.

orra 4y ago

We're not talking about hiring more people, let alone an infinite number. Simply I am pointing out the downsides of laying off people.

mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
You're not taking into account that "deliver more" isn't an infinite type of thing that can happen. There is a threshold with market/product fit where "more" doesn't mean more revenue and benefit to shareholders. I think this is something all companies struggle with: at some point you may achieve product/market maturity but the people that could determine this are fundamentally in conflict with ever communicating this because they or their peers would be out of work at that employer. In my opinion, this is when internal politics start to become more prevalent because its human nature to protect your well being/source of money.

bwestergard 4y ago

To put it another way, you believe that a welfare maximizing equilibrium can not only be achieved in principle, but is routinely achieved in practice with minimal friction? This is difficult to believe. I think everyone sees signs all around them of foolish decisions by firm principals that hamper consumer and worker welfare even in the short term, to say nothing of the effect of various kinds of hysteresis on the long term development path of economies (e.g. detaching people from the labor market in a manner that undermines their health, currency of their skills, etc.)

cableshaft 4y ago

Companies aren't limited to one software product. They often are, but they don't have to be. How many software products has Google released over the years, which they're able to do so because they have a massive number of employees? More employees will allow for more products. Whether it would be prudent or profitable to tackle more products is another story, but we're already talking about hypotheticals with 'infinite employees' here. I do think there is room for 20% of its employees to work on other products that could integrate well with their vision and still be within the ecommerce realm. But that doesn't juice up their stock price right away.

tshaddox 4y ago

> The company leadership doesn’t believe that. Starting rather recently and suddenly, don’t you think? The company leadership did apparently believe that each and every time they made a hire. And I bet a lot of the people laid off today were hired fairly recently.