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Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

blog.evernote.com

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Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#21

Post by jmadsen »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #10

I know that it is the common vernacular, but you didn't let them go, you fired them. Surely they would prefer to not go and continue to pay their mortgage. I'm sure it wasn't easy to fire them, but don't try and make the situation rosey. The folks who decided on the direction of the company decided wrong and now they have to fire the people who executed those decision. Edit: Would you all prefer the word "Terminated"…

It's more than common vernacular in English.

"Fired" implies wrong-doing on their part.

"Laid off" or "let them go" means the company couldn't afford to pay them, or didn't need them anymore. It leaves no black mark against their name.

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#22

Post by aaronbrethorst »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #10

I know that it is the common vernacular, but you didn't let them go, you fired them. Surely they would prefer to not go and continue to pay their mortgage. I'm sure it wasn't easy to fire them, but don't try and make the situation rosey. The folks who decided on the direction of the company decided wrong and now they have to fire the people who executed those decision. Edit: Would you all prefer the word "Terminated"…

"Fir[ing]" an employee suggests they did something wrong. These 47 people did nothing wrong outside of working on a product or products that are no longer relevant to Evernote.

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#23

Post by austenallred »

tempestn wrote: post #8

> Evernote’s strength is in its core: notes, sync, and search. That’s where we’re going to focus. Well, like many others, I've been wishing Evernote would drop all the auxiliary stuff and focus on their core product. Hopefully that's exactly what will now happen. Evernote has become an absolutely critical part of my life. Even though I use it for business (along with everything else) though, I have no use for the maj…

It would also be a huge plus if it didn't take 5 seconds to load every time I opened the app. Not sure how a company with so many competitors can survive long-term with its product in such a state.

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#24

Post by [deleted] »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #10

I know that it is the common vernacular, but you didn't let them go, you fired them. Surely they would prefer to not go and continue to pay their mortgage. I'm sure it wasn't easy to fire them, but don't try and make the situation rosey. The folks who decided on the direction of the company decided wrong and now they have to fire the people who executed those decision. Edit: Would you all prefer the word "Terminated"…

[deleted]

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#25

Post by kasey_junk »

jmadsen wrote: post #21
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #10

I know that it is the common vernacular, but you didn't let them go, you fired them. Surely they would prefer to not go and continue to pay their mortgage. I'm sure it wasn't easy to fire them, but don't try and make the situation rosey. The folks who decided on the direction of the company decided wrong and now they have to fire the people who executed those decision. Edit: Would you all prefer the word "Terminated"…

It's more than common vernacular in English. "Fired" implies wrong-doing on their part. "Laid off" or "let them go" means the company couldn't afford to pay them, or didn't need them anymore. It leaves no black mark against their name.

I've always found it striking to note how laid off has migrated over time. When my grandfather got laid off, there was an expectation that he would come back to the same job with the same company some time in the near future.

When I get laid off there is no expectation that my job will come back.

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#26

Post by chrisbennet »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #10

I know that it is the common vernacular, but you didn't let them go, you fired them. Surely they would prefer to not go and continue to pay their mortgage. I'm sure it wasn't easy to fire them, but don't try and make the situation rosey. The folks who decided on the direction of the company decided wrong and now they have to fire the people who executed those decision. Edit: Would you all prefer the word "Terminated"…

"Fired" = "let go because the employee did something to deserve it" "Let go" doesn't not have the same meaning.

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#27

Post by hkmurakami »

dangero wrote: post #14
egusa wrote: post #5

businessinsider had a great article on evernote here, "Evernote, the first dead unicorn", which really foreshadowed this: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/evernote-the-first-dead-un...

I believe Groupon is the first dead Unicorn

Groupon still has a $2.3B market cap.

My vote is for Fab, which went from $1B to effectively $0.

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#28

Post by therealarmen »

dangero wrote: post #14
egusa wrote: post #5

businessinsider had a great article on evernote here, "Evernote, the first dead unicorn", which really foreshadowed this: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/evernote-the-first-dead-un...

I believe Groupon is the first dead Unicorn

The public markets [1] would disagree.

[1] https://www.google.com/?q=GRPN

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#29

Post by on_ »

Evernote is a note taking app in 2015. While slack and hipchat are somewhat iconoclastic, they have network affects and boost productivity. Evernote is competing with apple notes, google docs, whatever microsoft has, every password keeping app, a notebook, a text editor and using a blog. This is something that will likely happen to dropbox and box. You provide storage. Simple math will provide you with the cost of storage in 5 years and it is not a lot. Further, similar to evernote, it solved a problem that had a lot of friction and was novel a few years ago, but is standard now.

Syncing. This is a default piece of all browsers, the 2 main operating systems win/os x, and comes standard on most phones. This is like the browser, you can have it for free so you stay in our ecosystem. Mega GIVES you 50GB of storage completely free NOW, and it is likely more secure. I don't know enterprise as well as I know consumer, but at some point I would imagine the choice is between buying a few SSDs and having an internal server, or setting up your own secure system via VPN. There can't be much room for this.

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#30

Post by Animats »

Ah, the death of a unicorn. The operational end is doing fine: "Our paid subscription growth is very strong and almost entirely organic; the number of new paid subscribers is 40% higher than this time last year." But the hype has faded, the $1bn valuation is down, and there's no greater fool available to fund them.

This is a problem with too much funding. You have to pay off the investors, which requires rapid growth, which often requires buying market share at a loss.

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