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Pixar to undergo 20% layoffs in 2024
- FredPret 3y ago> According to insiders, the Pixar layoffs include headcount that was hired for Disney+ — hires Disney pushed on Pixar to produce for its streaming division, which hasn’t yet turned a profit.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yreg 3y agoWhy are all of these announced on the same day? Is there some special date comming up or what?
- wslh 3y agoThis is the week when people and families return from their winter vacations in USA?
- tempnow987 3y agoThe budget cycle for 2024 has likely finished so orgs are moving to execute on 2024 plans. Executives can finalize things a bit more easily when folks out of the office as the day to day a bit slower. HR / Acctg / IT also usually like doing a one off project in these spots - usually a smaller group is in loop on these things. The week between Christmas and New Years for the quiet meetings and week after for plans to be finished up.
- Tyrek 3y agoIt's year-end close for most companies, so accounting is, uh, not having the best time for projects.
- akira2501 3y agoWild guess. SEC Q1 Reporting Deadline is Jan 16th. Share prices have been flat or slightly down on a year over year basis for many companies. They're all trying to hedge the bad news?
- paxys 3y agoPretty much any unpopular decision made since mid November will be announced starting around now.
- jncfhnb 3y agoThese are popular decisions
- foooorsyth 3y agoDoing it before the holidays is bad PR
- quickthrower2 3y agoLet people run up their credit cards over Christmas first instead.
- choppaface 3y agoIf every big company dumps at the same time, less chance of falling behind your competitors.
- dexwiz 3y agoMany companies run fiscal calendars that start Feb 1 because having it Jan 1 means a bunch of year end work during the holidays.
- paulddraper 3y agoDated source, but AFAIK that's not common. https://blog.auditanalytics.com/when-does-a-companys-year-end/ https://blog.auditanalytics.com/when-does-a-companys-year-en...
- paulddraper 3y agoMost companies try to avoid holiday layoffs.
- habibur 3y agoEveryone waited for end of Christmas/New Year before laying off their own people.
- HumblyTossed 3y agoI mentioned it in another thread but this is employers resetting employee expectations. Lay off a percentage and work the rest harder, make people RTO, etc.
- Waterluvian 3y agoI think this makes sense from the perspective of a worker and what their fears are. I think it’s probably much simpler: money isn’t cheap anymore and everyone overhired for a long time.
- aaomidi 3y agoDon’t let a “crisis” go to waste.
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoThe point is that isn’t what’s happening. From the workers’ perspective it’s a convenient narrative. The truth is, as usual, messier: constrained executives are confronted with targets they don’t know how to meet, and so start shoving round pegs into square holes.
- jachee 3y agoAnd very seldom suffer themselves for their choices.
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoSure. Yes. Wealth insulates. Firing the CEO before a lay-off is stupid; it means every hire is a job risk. If we want that, Europe has it better figured; socialise the risk of unemployment.
- evantbyrne 3y agoDo layoffs actually motivate workers though? I feel like from the people I've spoken to that have experienced losing coworkers to layoffs, they just kind of disconnect.
- rvz 3y agoProfitability is the new target in 2024. Not losing so much money on useless underperforming movies. Let's go through the recent Pixar flops in the years before since 2020. Onward (2020) - Budget: $200 million - Box Office: $142 million (Loss) Soul (2020) - Budget: $150 million - Box Office: $121 million (Loss) Luca (2021) - Budget: >$100+ million - Box Office: $49.8 million (Loss) Turning Red (2022) - Budget: $175 million - Box Office: $20.1 million (Loss) Lightyear (2022) - Budget: $200 million - Box Office: $226.4 million (Tiny profit) Apart from Elemental (2023) which was highly successful, there seems to be a string of more box office failures from Pixar recently and it being turned into a high cost factory. Disney saw the same and decided to let 20% from Pixar go.
- jemmyw 3y agoIf I understand what I read recently about movie budgets, for big films like these they need to make roughly double that headline budget to break even. The budget does not include distribution and marketing. So even Lightyear was actually a loss edit: (and incidentally Lightyear is the only one of these I've seen. I've got 3 kids and we used to love Pixar films but these days.. meh. Even though we've since had the third so still should be the same demographic).
- dexwiz 3y agoI would be careful about Hollywood loss numbers. Disney is in it for the merch. That said, I wonder how those movies stack up to older greats like Cars, Toy Story, or Monsters Inc. They are only true failures if they fail to sell toys. Which considering I’ve never seen merch for any of these movies on the street tells me they probably have failed.
- nickpeterson 3y agoI’m near certain they fail compared against the original Pixar movies. Pixar used to make surefire films for the whole family. Now it’s just more Disney nonsense, the soul has been lost.
- nostromo 3y agoDisney's problem is they're making trash content. Including Pixar. They need to fire some exes, not just the rank and file. Like how the fuck is Kathleen Kennedy still employed? She's the reverse Midas, turning money-printing machines into dust overnight.
- ekianjo 3y ago[flagged]
- cr__ 3y agoYou should be bold and name the ideology you think that drives them.
- paulddraper 3y agoDiversity equity and inclusion
- cocacola1 3y agoWhy would something so innocuous be an issue?
- z7 3y agohttps://www.pixar.com/inclusion https://www.pixar.com/inclusion I can definitely imagine scenarios in which such diversity goals could impact commercial success on some level.
- cocacola1 3y agoI'm not so sure – I don't think it'll impact it positively or negatively. Personally, at least, it's never impacted my willingness to watch a movie. Seven Samurai is an all Japanese cast, but it's still my favorite movie of all time.
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- josh_carterPDX 3y agoMy first "startup" was cartoonlagoon.com. We were going to be a site for independent animators and artists with the draw being a showcase of more well-known artists releasing exclusive content you wouldn't see anywhere else. We had some cool stuff from Kevin Eastman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Heavy Metal) and others, but it never really took off. Hearing the news about Pixar and other studios letting people go, made me think that something like this could totally be done today. Maybe it doesn't need to be its own site, but could be a channel on YouTube or something. There's definitely a shift happening in the space and I'm so excited for what's going to happen next.
- Solvency 3y agoAll of the independent animators have their own IG/TikToks.
- yterdy 3y agoAnd they hate it. Patreon, too (particularly the ones with more risqué work). A dedicated platform would be a major boon in terms of community, reliability, and possibly remuneration.
- thrdbndndn 3y agoI'd argue Patreon is dedicated enough. If we're talking about remuneration, the audience/customer don't really want a "dedicated platform" since that's not the only thing they do, unlike the artists themselves. Or in other words, dedicated platform (like deviantart) is fine but it won't attract the largest audience.
- echelon 3y agoThe bar to create animation is going to be so incredibly low in just a few years time, that the skills to have will be writing, imagination, focus, clarity, cohesion, and taste making. Katzenberg has had a lot of flops, but he's right about this [1]. I'd even wager costs will get cut by 99.9% in ten years time. All this to say I think you're 100% correct. Now's the time to build platforms and tools for independent animators. [1] https://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/jeffrey-katzenberg-artificial-intelligence-will-cut-animation-production-time-labor-234649.html https://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/jeffrey-katzenb...
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoBoom. On one hand, seems like a trend, Google, Twitch, Amazon, etc... Now Pixar. But on other hand, it seems like each case is just isolated issues to each company. It isn't a general tech downturn because Disney isn't making good movies. It isn't a general tech downturn because less people are watching Twitch. So, is it isolated problems at each company. or Some disaster on the horizon.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jmyeet 3y agoOnce again the workers pay the price for bad leadership while the leadership largely continues to simply collect large paychecks for that bad execution. It's no different to the layoffs for Google Assistant. Do you think the average IC determines the outcome of Pixar (or Google) projects? Disney's content strategy has generally been abysmal. Milking Star Wars IP with content that varies between mid and bad for the most part. Marvel really fell off post-Avengers. Pixar once made some of the great movies period, animated or otherwise. Creative ventures can't be reduced to a formula. Corporate America seeks to cut costs and reduce their business plan to a formula. How many times do people need to see this before they develop class consciousness?
- sbarre 3y ago> How many times do people need to see this before they develop class consciousness? Never. Because the carrot to join their class will continue to be dangled.
- dehrmann 3y agoTo be fair, Bob Chapek also lost his job over how he managed Disney. I'm not sure if he actually dropped the ball, or if Iger left while things were good, but the pipeline was about to run dry.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoI imagine it is mostly Iger leaving while things were good. Disney was never going to be able to retain the amount of people’s time it had in previous decades with the competition from other forms of entertaining, from video games to YouTube to Instagram to TikTok to WhatsApp and even to sites like Reddit/HN. I think they tried to battle this by saturating the market with their IP and that goose is done laying eggs, so I am assuming they will lean on sports gambling now as long as they have ESPN.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wonderwonder 3y agoImagine working somewhere and then reading "The studio stressed the layoffs are not imminent, but will take place later this year as Pixar focuses on making less content". Then having to go to work each day at a place that keeps saying we are all family here knowing that 2/10 of you are going to get axed. I have to think they will lose at least 10% just through attrition. Although for many of those people I would imagine they have landed their dream job; feel bad for them.
- rapfaria 3y agoPerhaps it's a pivotal moment for those folks to rethink the whole "dream job" shindig, while being in the great position of having a job at Pixar when interviewing in the coming months.
- infotainment 3y agoThis is a classic layoff debate -- is it better to do it with zero warning, or is it better to let employees know that a layoff is coming? Personally, I believe advance notice is better, because it signals to employees that, if layoffs are going to happen, there will be some time to prepare. By choosing to blindside employees, it creates a culture of paranoia, IMO. ("Will today be layoff day?" "What about next month?" "Oh no, it's the end of the quarter, does that mean tomorrow my laptop will lock up at 4am?")
- tycho-newman 3y agoCalifornia has the WARN Act.
- tiffanyh 3y agoIn my experience, your best talent then leaves. Which is the opposite of what you want.
- euos 3y agoNo where to leave. Industry is dead rn, at least if you're an SWE in Silicon Valley. All open positions are paying 50% less.
- dcolkitt 3y agoIt's interesting that Disney today almost the entire profits of the company come from the parks division (which also includes cruises, resorts and "experiences"). The media division by itself is in a massive war for eyeballs with tons of other streaming competitors, all of whom are probably over-investing in content relative to what consumers can support. One interesting possibility is that maybe the business model of media companies in the 21st century will become content as a loss leader for the purpose of providing valuable IP to amusement parks. Certainly seems like a similar thing is happening with Comcast with their massive expansion of Universal parks.
- Solvency 3y agoI was under the impression the real money came from merchandising the IP.
- ethbr1 3y agoObligatory 1957 Disney growth plan, which hasn't changed that much: https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/2013/05/disney-2.jpeg https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/2013/05/disn... [0] Change some distribution models and mediums of distribution, and it's the same cycle between content, brand, and customer eyeballs. Which makes sense, as the key observation was: brands and characters are more valuable than content, but content creates and sustains them. And you can afford more content if you have more channels to monetize it through. Which is the same observation Google made with respect to advertising integration, albeit just buying platforms instead of works. [0] From article: https://hbr.org/2013/05/what-makes-a-good-corporate-st https://hbr.org/2013/05/what-makes-a-good-corporate-st
- doctorpangloss 3y agoAmusement parks are part of the inefficient monetization Hollywood is built around. The video games that make the most money give gameplay away for free too, but the difference is you can sell infinite skins and pay only 30% to assholes like Apple. It remains to be seen if even that cost will remain. Disney lost not due to streaming, but due to its failed interactive division.
- citizenpaul 3y ago
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- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoThis gives Disney plenty of time to have them train their replacements.
- achow 3y agoRelated? Jeffrey Katzenberg Says A.I. Will Eliminate 90 Percent of Artist Jobs on Animated Films https://www.indiewire.com/news/business/jeffrey-katzenberg-ai-will-take-90-percent-animation-jobs-1234924809/ https://www.indiewire.com/news/business/jeffrey-katzenberg-a...
- firtoz 3y agoIt's a red herring.
- coolandsmartrr 3y agoWhile layoffs are detrimental to employee morale (e.g. employees take less long-term risk), I wonder how much worse the effects of layoffs are in the creative industry. You might be able to replace employees in a more utility-driven company. But creative people are not exactly interchangeable, as creative ideas tend to bounce better among employees who have "chemistry." These collective of creatives end up sharing tribal knowledge of producing creative outputs with a given expectation or taste. If you fire them, it will be difficult to replicate or enhance the creativity (by whatever metric we can try to measure it with). Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa once lamented the dissolution of the studio system, which turned the industry into a loose gathering on freelancers. He believed it would be antithetical to creativity, which he sees to happen tribally. A famous counter-example to layoffs in the creative industry is Nintendo. Former CEO Satoru Iwata opposed layoffs as a way to weather financial downturns, as layoffs would discourage employees from committing to their work in the long-term. Instead, Nintendo tries to guarantee stable employment with their sizable financial reserves, albeit not paying a high salary. Animation studios were able to garner a sense of "expectation" and establish a brand (e.g. Pixar especially with their first 11 features) because of the "regulars" who worked on their releases. Layoffs would change the collaborative chemistry among employees, and can make it difficult to establish or maintain a brand.
- throwaway2037 3y agoThe Nintendo model would never work in the Silicon Valley. Literally, some of the most talented video game programmers that the world has ever known worked most of their career for relative peanuts... compared to what Activision & Co. would have paid them. Much less stable? Yep. From a purely financial perspective, Nintendo is not well run. An infamous quote: <<Nintendo has such a large cash reserve it could lose $250 million every year and wouldn't go bankrupt until 2052.>> Or: <<Nintendo cash on hand for the quarter ending September 30, 2023 was $14.250B.>> There is a limit to useful cash reserves. Else, it should be distributed as a cash dividend, share buyback, or buy a competitor / "invest". In Japanese corporate thinking from 1950s to 1990s, lifetime employment was the singular goal for your employees, above all else. Read that twice and let that sink in. Layoffs were viewed as culturally impossible due to loss of face. It is nearly impossible to (culturally) "translate" this goal into the American state of mind. Simply stated: US employees take much more career risk and, correspondingly, are paid much more. I am not making a moral judgement here about either system -- there are pros and cons for both. My point: Little insight can be found here when comparing the layoff practices of uber-uber-uber-uber-uber-uber-uber-conservative Japanese corps vis-a-vis American tech companies. It is literally Mars vs Venus or Moon vs Earth -- a different planet (culture state of mind). I work in Japan, but I am not Japanese. One of the biggest complaints from foreign software developers is that salaries are awful compared to their home countries. The complaining never stops about it. However, they overlook the full picture -- as noted above. From what I hear, Germany is quite similar -- much lower salaries, but way more stable (fewer layoffs) compared to SV.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- caubert 3y agoHow is going from 1300 workers to under thousand only 20% cut?
- SushiHippie 3y ago> While sources at the company said the layoffs would be significant and as high as 20% — or reductions that would see Pixar’s team of 1,300 dropped to less than 1,000 over the coming months — Pixar says those numbers are too high. Rather, the studio said the number of impacted employees is still being determined due to factors like production schedules and staffing for future greenlit films. There is an "or" betwen that, as there is no definitive source, they said that one source said the layoffs would be up to 20% and another source said, that Pixar's team would drop below 1000. But Pixar denies, that the layoffs are this high.