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YouTube Cuts 100 Employees as Tech Layoffs Continue

57 points by nickthegreek 3y ago

iwontberude 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20240117202912/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/technology/youtube-tech-layoffs-continue.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240117202912/https://www.nytim...
johnkpaul 3y ago
This is the first one where I've noticed that they have X amount of days to find another job in the company. I wonder how that works and what percentage of the 100 will actually not end up laid off.
- ramesh31 3y ago
  > This is the first one where I've noticed that they have X amount of days to find another job in the company. I wonder how that works and what percentage of the 100 will actually not end up laid off. A lot of this going on right now. Business is strong and companies don't necessarily want to let top talent go, but they simply can't afford the R&D expenditures anymore; it's all going to interest payments.
  - altairprime 3y ago
    > simply can’t afford “simply choose not to afford” is more correct here. YouTube is in no danger of shuttering due to lack of revenue and financial support from the corporate entity that operates it. Instead, that entity is choosing to weaken YouTube by layoffs, rather than accept a decrease in net revenue after expenses. This may or may not stem from US taxation changes, but it is regardless critical to distinguish between cannot (e.g. “the business will collapse from debt if we don’t layoff workers”), versus, will not (e.g. “profitable business chooses to layoff x% workers rather than reduce profits x% due to tax law change”), when considering these tech layoffs. YouTube is not under threat of collapse due to lack of funding, so the latter applies.
    - jeffwask 3y ago
      To be fair, a 1.4% reduction in force isn't going to weaken YouTube. That's just some light spring cleaning. It's only newsworthy in the current zeitgeist.
      - nothercastle 3y ago
        You could probably do a 90% musk off and still be fine for years at YouTube. Maybe keep the content moderation team though… but developers could go. YouTube does not need new features just maintenance at this point
      - altairprime 3y ago
        Pick your adjectives as you wish. To trivialize the layoff of a hundred workers is to reinforce that “can’t afford” isn’t applicable.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      It is better for YouTube to be self-sufficient, though. It shouldn't rely on handouts from a different business, as that makes it more vulnerable.
      - altairprime 3y ago
        If the alternative to the layoff was the collapse of YouTube, then “cannot afford to” applies. Otherwise, “will not afford to” applies. My point is that we should not implicitly frame layoffs as “cannot afford” without having evidence or claims to support that. If YouTube cannot afford 100 engineers, YouTube’s profitability at all hinges on $50mil/year of expenses, which is a rounding error to the overall business operating it. It is highly unlikely that the future of YouTube hinges on the absence of these 100 engineers, given the financial and megacorp contexts available to us. Thus, usage of the “cannot afford” framing in this case comes across as an unsupported argument that YouTube is in severe financial distress. If that distress is real, let’s hear more about it! If the layoffs were due to dire circumstances around funding and runway, that’s material and interesting news — and would explain why the corporation had no choice (“can’t afford”) in the matter.
  - UncleMeat 3y ago
    I understand that businesses take short term loans to cover payroll as part of normal operating procedure, but Google in general makes shitloads of money - plenty to cover their payroll. They aren't sitting on a mountain of employees who need to be paid out of ever more expensive loans. They are sitting on a mountain of cash.
- shaftway 3y ago
  This actually happened to me at Google in 2019. My position was eliminated and I was given 3 months to find a new role before I was axed. HR was extremely accommodating during this. I had a person to contact and to help keep me on track. I interviewed for a wide variety of teams, and there were tons of openings back then. Ultimately I found a transfer role, but it was a bit past the deadline. With a couple days ago I went to HR with evidence that the transfer was in-progress and on track, and they extended that time for a couple weeks. The funniest part was when I asked HR if I should come into the office while I was looking, and HR was like "I don't see why you'd bother". The infuriating part was that my position was eliminated because the team lead didn't like me. Three weeks after my transfer deadline the position was re-opened. HR didn't really do anything about that, and my new manager asked me not to push on it.
jondwillis 3y ago
Hell yes, my cancellation of my premium, refusal to give into the nag to turn on watch history, and bespoke ad blocker usage is finally having an effect. I will continue the above until YouTube removes scam/junk ads, lowers their price, and gives me a way to opt out of strong tracking without killing functionality.
- more_corn 3y ago
  So, forever?
- Grimblewald 3y ago
  google has fallen fully and completely to the corporate rot, so you may be holding out a long time.
  - delfinom 3y ago
    Please, Google has a long way to go down the path of corporate rot. Look at Boeing and GE, their cancer has cancer and they are still going.
- deaddodo 3y ago
  The most annoying part about premium is that pretty much every youtuber now just does in-video sponsorship, which is about 10x as annoying to me. It's not easily skippable and I'm not going to Nebula or becoming a patron at 5-10usd/mo each to skip them.
  - j7ake 3y ago
    in-video sponsoring can be skipped automatically with chrome add-ons.
    - deaddodo 3y ago
      I can install Chrome add-ons to my YouTube mobile app, which I use for about 80% of my YouTube watching?
  - 3y ago
stefanos82 3y ago
Some things don't add up to my eyes...far too many coincidences lately that make no sense at all. Far too many well-known YouTubers that have massive audience / subscribers decided to give up and claim burnout; fair enough I said, I understand. Then one "goodbye" video after another, they started jumping the ship and immediately I went skeptical and said to myself: either they have some inside info that something big is about to happen (thus the need to get out ASAP) or they are about to push them to their limits with new demands and have said "enough is enough; we are not going to die for them; it's time to say goodbye, it was good while it lasted". There's no other logical explanation, to me; this is my personal opinion which makes me very skeptical, that's all.
- armchairhacker 3y ago
  I doubt YouTubers quitting is anything except availability heuristic and a combination of burnout + bandwagon effect. I know of ~5 well-known people who have decided to stop making content, out of 100+ if not 1000+ of the "well-known" people on YouTube. Tom Scott was the first one, and his plan to stop was years in the making. I suspect the others were already burnt out, and seeing him leave gave them the initiative to do the same. A couple other YouTubers have made videos signaling they will pivot to different types of content, further reinforcing that they're burnt out with what they're doing but nothing is convincing them to stop making videos in general.
- kalleboo 3y ago
  From what I've heard in the Patreon updates from several YouTubers I watch, it's that YouTube ad revenue has dropped precipitously in the past year. Like, it's down to 20% of the peak 2020/2021 income. Now everyone is relying on diversified income like merch/brand deals and other projects or just living off of Patreon support. If you've already made lots of money so that you can retire, it seems obvious that just quitting is better than burning yourself out further for pennies. The same thing is happening in podcasting - podcast advertising has almost completely dried up.
- tqkxzugoaupvwqr 3y ago
  I’ve noticed several YouTube channels that have hundreds of thousands or millions of subscribers but new videos are watched only by a fraction of a fraction of that subscriber number. iJustine has 7.1 M subscribers but her latest videos have between 0.05 M to 0.15 M views. Either TikTok and Instagram pull all the viewers over to their platform or there is a problem with YouTube’s subscribtions feed. In any case, many YouTubers are frustrated by the few views.

57 points by nickthegreek 3y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20240117202912/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/technology/youtube-tech-layoffs-continue.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240117202912/https://www.nytim...

johnkpaul 3y ago

This is the first one where I've noticed that they have X amount of days to find another job in the company. I wonder how that works and what percentage of the 100 will actually not end up laid off.

ramesh31 3y ago
> This is the first one where I've noticed that they have X amount of days to find another job in the company. I wonder how that works and what percentage of the 100 will actually not end up laid off. A lot of this going on right now. Business is strong and companies don't necessarily want to let top talent go, but they simply can't afford the R&D expenditures anymore; it's all going to interest payments.
- altairprime 3y ago
  > simply can’t afford “simply choose not to afford” is more correct here. YouTube is in no danger of shuttering due to lack of revenue and financial support from the corporate entity that operates it. Instead, that entity is choosing to weaken YouTube by layoffs, rather than accept a decrease in net revenue after expenses. This may or may not stem from US taxation changes, but it is regardless critical to distinguish between cannot (e.g. “the business will collapse from debt if we don’t layoff workers”), versus, will not (e.g. “profitable business chooses to layoff x% workers rather than reduce profits x% due to tax law change”), when considering these tech layoffs. YouTube is not under threat of collapse due to lack of funding, so the latter applies.
  - jeffwask 3y ago
    To be fair, a 1.4% reduction in force isn't going to weaken YouTube. That's just some light spring cleaning. It's only newsworthy in the current zeitgeist.
    - nothercastle 3y ago
      You could probably do a 90% musk off and still be fine for years at YouTube. Maybe keep the content moderation team though… but developers could go. YouTube does not need new features just maintenance at this point
    - altairprime 3y ago
      Pick your adjectives as you wish. To trivialize the layoff of a hundred workers is to reinforce that “can’t afford” isn’t applicable.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    It is better for YouTube to be self-sufficient, though. It shouldn't rely on handouts from a different business, as that makes it more vulnerable.
    - altairprime 3y ago
      If the alternative to the layoff was the collapse of YouTube, then “cannot afford to” applies. Otherwise, “will not afford to” applies. My point is that we should not implicitly frame layoffs as “cannot afford” without having evidence or claims to support that. If YouTube cannot afford 100 engineers, YouTube’s profitability at all hinges on $50mil/year of expenses, which is a rounding error to the overall business operating it. It is highly unlikely that the future of YouTube hinges on the absence of these 100 engineers, given the financial and megacorp contexts available to us. Thus, usage of the “cannot afford” framing in this case comes across as an unsupported argument that YouTube is in severe financial distress. If that distress is real, let’s hear more about it! If the layoffs were due to dire circumstances around funding and runway, that’s material and interesting news — and would explain why the corporation had no choice (“can’t afford”) in the matter.
- UncleMeat 3y ago
  I understand that businesses take short term loans to cover payroll as part of normal operating procedure, but Google in general makes shitloads of money - plenty to cover their payroll. They aren't sitting on a mountain of employees who need to be paid out of ever more expensive loans. They are sitting on a mountain of cash.
shaftway 3y ago
This actually happened to me at Google in 2019. My position was eliminated and I was given 3 months to find a new role before I was axed. HR was extremely accommodating during this. I had a person to contact and to help keep me on track. I interviewed for a wide variety of teams, and there were tons of openings back then. Ultimately I found a transfer role, but it was a bit past the deadline. With a couple days ago I went to HR with evidence that the transfer was in-progress and on track, and they extended that time for a couple weeks. The funniest part was when I asked HR if I should come into the office while I was looking, and HR was like "I don't see why you'd bother". The infuriating part was that my position was eliminated because the team lead didn't like me. Three weeks after my transfer deadline the position was re-opened. HR didn't really do anything about that, and my new manager asked me not to push on it.

jondwillis 3y ago

Hell yes, my cancellation of my premium, refusal to give into the nag to turn on watch history, and bespoke ad blocker usage is finally having an effect. I will continue the above until YouTube removes scam/junk ads, lowers their price, and gives me a way to opt out of strong tracking without killing functionality.

more_corn 3y ago
So, forever?
Grimblewald 3y ago
google has fallen fully and completely to the corporate rot, so you may be holding out a long time.
- delfinom 3y ago
  Please, Google has a long way to go down the path of corporate rot. Look at Boeing and GE, their cancer has cancer and they are still going.
deaddodo 3y ago
The most annoying part about premium is that pretty much every youtuber now just does in-video sponsorship, which is about 10x as annoying to me. It's not easily skippable and I'm not going to Nebula or becoming a patron at 5-10usd/mo each to skip them.
- j7ake 3y ago
  in-video sponsoring can be skipped automatically with chrome add-ons.
  - deaddodo 3y ago
    I can install Chrome add-ons to my YouTube mobile app, which I use for about 80% of my YouTube watching?
- 3y ago

stefanos82 3y ago

Some things don't add up to my eyes...far too many coincidences lately that make no sense at all. Far too many well-known YouTubers that have massive audience / subscribers decided to give up and claim burnout; fair enough I said, I understand. Then one "goodbye" video after another, they started jumping the ship and immediately I went skeptical and said to myself: either they have some inside info that something big is about to happen (thus the need to get out ASAP) or they are about to push them to their limits with new demands and have said "enough is enough; we are not going to die for them; it's time to say goodbye, it was good while it lasted". There's no other logical explanation, to me; this is my personal opinion which makes me very skeptical, that's all.

armchairhacker 3y ago
I doubt YouTubers quitting is anything except availability heuristic and a combination of burnout + bandwagon effect. I know of ~5 well-known people who have decided to stop making content, out of 100+ if not 1000+ of the "well-known" people on YouTube. Tom Scott was the first one, and his plan to stop was years in the making. I suspect the others were already burnt out, and seeing him leave gave them the initiative to do the same. A couple other YouTubers have made videos signaling they will pivot to different types of content, further reinforcing that they're burnt out with what they're doing but nothing is convincing them to stop making videos in general.
kalleboo 3y ago
From what I've heard in the Patreon updates from several YouTubers I watch, it's that YouTube ad revenue has dropped precipitously in the past year. Like, it's down to 20% of the peak 2020/2021 income. Now everyone is relying on diversified income like merch/brand deals and other projects or just living off of Patreon support. If you've already made lots of money so that you can retire, it seems obvious that just quitting is better than burning yourself out further for pennies. The same thing is happening in podcasting - podcast advertising has almost completely dried up.
tqkxzugoaupvwqr 3y ago
I’ve noticed several YouTube channels that have hundreds of thousands or millions of subscribers but new videos are watched only by a fraction of a fraction of that subscriber number. iJustine has 7.1 M subscribers but her latest videos have between 0.05 M to 0.15 M views. Either TikTok and Instagram pull all the viewers over to their platform or there is a problem with YouTube’s subscribtions feed. In any case, many YouTubers are frustrated by the few views.