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Where in the article did you see cloud costs being the reason for this layoff? > Spotify is cutting almost 1,600 jobs as the music streaming service blamed a s

by ctvo 3y ago

Where in the article did you see cloud costs being the reason for this layoff? > Spotify is cutting almost 1,600 jobs as the music streaming service blamed a slowing economy and higher borrowing costs in the latest round of redundancies at big tech companies. It clearly states later that in a zero interest environment Spotify borrowed heavily and over hired, in this environment it’s no longer sustainable and they had to let employees go. Did you just assume “costs” meant infrastructure costs like cloud?

dijit 3y ago
Cost's don't exist in a vacuum. it's easier to lay people off than to save millions in cloud spending when you've already committed to $x-billion over 5 years.
- ctvo 3y ago
  A single engineer is 400k in total costs, and they hired thousands for initiatives that didn’t pan out. Thinking cloud costs come anywhere close to being a factor here is nonsense and not supported by anything in the article. You extrapolated that costs meant cloud costs vs. them overhiring during the pandemic and investing in things like podcasts, which haven’t had the expected returns. You did this in an attempt to tie this back to some injustice that happened to you in a comment section far far away, which you’ve edited the post to remove now, thankfully.
  - dijit 3y ago
    Five things wrong 1. I didn't edit my comment to remove anything like that, so I'm not sure what you're suggesting. 2. I didn't perceive injustice, I thought it was a bit brainless to not associate company costs with long term survivability. 3. An engineer being 400k TC is an anomaly, Spotify does not pay any of it's Swedish engineering force nearly that much, and since we don't know the demographics of the layoffs it's hard to argue engineers anyway. (Citation here says the avg was 125.000[0] which is still very high if these were europeans) 4. Their cloud bill would still be roughly 500 people based on that TC based on committed use alone. 5. Costs = Costs. Overspending in many areas = no more money. I'm merely suggesting that they overspent in one area that is now affecting another area indirectly. Yes, I drew a line. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38516794 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38516794
    - ctvo 3y ago
      > 3. An engineer being 400k TC is an anomaly, Spotify does not pay any of it's Swedish engineering force nearly that much, and since we don't know the demographics of the layoffs it's hard to argue engineers anyway. (Citation here says the avg was 125.000[0] which is still very high if these were europeans) Are we going to ignore that on average their US engineers costs significantly more than ~400K total costs and they have an engineering hub in New York City? > 4. Their cloud bill would still be roughly 500 people based on that TC based on committed use alone. And they paid Meghan and Harry 20,000,000 USD for a podcast deal that didn't work out. That's 50 engineers. Should we look at the Rogan deal too and go through everything that didn't work out in the last 3 years? You've provided no evidence that by not using the cloud Spotify would have made more money or prevented these layoffs. And costs is one thing: Could they have grown as quickly? Scaled as fast? Hired as easily? Without numbers, which you won't share (outside of "trust me I've seen it"), this becomes even harder to debate.
      - dijit 3y ago
        > Are we going to ignore that on average their US engineers costs significantly more than ~400K total costs and they have an engineering hub in New York City? Yes, because you're asserting that: A) That engineers who have been laid off have that TC. B) That it's engineers we're talking about. C) That it's mostly localised in NYC; a high CoL city by all metrics. Their other spending is also shameful, it doesn't discredit other poor spending. You're a little bit upset with me for some reason, I would surmise that you're feeling somewhat defensive, maybe you work for a cloud or you've skilled entirely into only being able to work with cloud. That's fine, but you need to understand financial constraints in business. This is the side of business I am most knowledgeable about so I am qualified to have an opinion; situations like Harry and Meghan? Rogan? Not my area at all and it would be impossibly arrogant of me to assume I know anything at all about those situations. Also: "trust me bro" is not my position, the way I saw the numbers is a grey area legally and I'm not sure any Spotify people want to chime in to clear it up because it's likely one thing that is under tight NDA. Here's some very old info though that'll help you realise that the order of magnitude is there: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/spotify-will-spend-nearly-450-million-on-google-cloud-over-3-years.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/spotify-will-spend-nearly-45...

by ctvo 3y ago

dijit 3y ago

Cost's don't exist in a vacuum. it's easier to lay people off than to save millions in cloud spending when you've already committed to $x-billion over 5 years.

ctvo 3y ago
A single engineer is 400k in total costs, and they hired thousands for initiatives that didn’t pan out. Thinking cloud costs come anywhere close to being a factor here is nonsense and not supported by anything in the article. You extrapolated that costs meant cloud costs vs. them overhiring during the pandemic and investing in things like podcasts, which haven’t had the expected returns. You did this in an attempt to tie this back to some injustice that happened to you in a comment section far far away, which you’ve edited the post to remove now, thankfully.
- dijit 3y ago
  Five things wrong 1. I didn't edit my comment to remove anything like that, so I'm not sure what you're suggesting. 2. I didn't perceive injustice, I thought it was a bit brainless to not associate company costs with long term survivability. 3. An engineer being 400k TC is an anomaly, Spotify does not pay any of it's Swedish engineering force nearly that much, and since we don't know the demographics of the layoffs it's hard to argue engineers anyway. (Citation here says the avg was 125.000[0] which is still very high if these were europeans) 4. Their cloud bill would still be roughly 500 people based on that TC based on committed use alone. 5. Costs = Costs. Overspending in many areas = no more money. I'm merely suggesting that they overspent in one area that is now affecting another area indirectly. Yes, I drew a line. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38516794 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38516794
  - ctvo 3y ago
    > 3. An engineer being 400k TC is an anomaly, Spotify does not pay any of it's Swedish engineering force nearly that much, and since we don't know the demographics of the layoffs it's hard to argue engineers anyway. (Citation here says the avg was 125.000[0] which is still very high if these were europeans) Are we going to ignore that on average their US engineers costs significantly more than ~400K total costs and they have an engineering hub in New York City? > 4. Their cloud bill would still be roughly 500 people based on that TC based on committed use alone. And they paid Meghan and Harry 20,000,000 USD for a podcast deal that didn't work out. That's 50 engineers. Should we look at the Rogan deal too and go through everything that didn't work out in the last 3 years? You've provided no evidence that by not using the cloud Spotify would have made more money or prevented these layoffs. And costs is one thing: Could they have grown as quickly? Scaled as fast? Hired as easily? Without numbers, which you won't share (outside of "trust me I've seen it"), this becomes even harder to debate.
    - dijit 3y ago
      > Are we going to ignore that on average their US engineers costs significantly more than ~400K total costs and they have an engineering hub in New York City? Yes, because you're asserting that: A) That engineers who have been laid off have that TC. B) That it's engineers we're talking about. C) That it's mostly localised in NYC; a high CoL city by all metrics. Their other spending is also shameful, it doesn't discredit other poor spending. You're a little bit upset with me for some reason, I would surmise that you're feeling somewhat defensive, maybe you work for a cloud or you've skilled entirely into only being able to work with cloud. That's fine, but you need to understand financial constraints in business. This is the side of business I am most knowledgeable about so I am qualified to have an opinion; situations like Harry and Meghan? Rogan? Not my area at all and it would be impossibly arrogant of me to assume I know anything at all about those situations. Also: "trust me bro" is not my position, the way I saw the numbers is a grey area legally and I'm not sure any Spotify people want to chime in to clear it up because it's likely one thing that is under tight NDA. Here's some very old info though that'll help you realise that the order of magnitude is there: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/spotify-will-spend-nearly-450-million-on-google-cloud-over-3-years.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/spotify-will-spend-nearly-45...