After big layoffs SoundCloud founder says its strategy is to ‘take back control’ • Hacker News Board

Re: After big layoffs SoundCloud founder says its strategy is to ‘take back control’

#31

Post by ghaff » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 12:43 AM UTC

josephpmay wrote: post #18

It's a huge shame that SoundCloud is likely dying, because large segments of the music industry and literally entire genres of music are solely on SoundCloud. This may sound hyperbolic, but I feel like them shutting down would be the "burning of the Library of Alexandria" of 21st century music

Largely already happened previously with MP3.com

Not to say "we" couldn't do better but there's always been a huge amount of content, music and otherwise, from amateurs and mostly amateurs in particular that isn't preserved in any systematic way.

Re: After big layoffs SoundCloud founder says its strategy is to ‘take back control’

#32

Post by redm » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 12:49 AM UTC

The biggest problem is what the article touches on, loss of the best employees. They kept who they thought were key, but the best employees, the ones who really move the needle and have lots of other opportunities are out the door first.

Losing your best talent means time to market goes up for new products and quality goes down. It's also really hard to get top talent again. This makes a bad situation far worse and its why so few companies can recover.

On top of that, the investors are going to push for a sale or write off the company completely. It becomes toxic very quickly.

There's still time for SoundCloud, it still has value, but they have to make some good choices in the near term.

Re: After big layoffs SoundCloud founder says its strategy is to ‘take back control’

#33

Post by flyinglizard » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 12:52 AM UTC

thesmallestcat wrote: post #24

anatari wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and I only feel bad for those who have cancer, and have no food to eat. The employees only have to worry about the mental anguish of suffering through some stupid whiteboard coding problems to get their next job. /sarcasm off.

Critical hit! I didn't realize that cancer patients and the starving were part of this discussion of Soundcloud's layoffs. I will go lick my wounds and perform the required penance of reading five PG essays for suggesting that CEOs have it relatively easy.

Do you suggest that being a CEO is an easy job - let alone of a company in the situation of SoundCloud?

Re: After big layoffs SoundCloud founder says its strategy is to ‘take back control’

#34

Post by flyinglizard » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 12:55 AM UTC

They should start begging for money, Wikipedia style. I'd happily pay $50-$100 a year for a service I use for like 10 hours a day (I already pay di.fm something like that).

Re: After big layoffs SoundCloud founder says its strategy is to ‘take back control’

#35

Post by bogomipz » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 1:05 AM UTC

josephpmay wrote: post #18

It's a huge shame that SoundCloud is likely dying, because large segments of the music industry and literally entire genres of music are solely on SoundCloud. This may sound hyperbolic, but I feel like them shutting down would be the "burning of the Library of Alexandria" of 21st century music

>"This may sound hyperbolic, but I feel like them shutting down would be the "burning of the Library of Alexandria" of 21st century music"

Except that all the original content still exists and could be made available somewhere else.

Re: After big layoffs SoundCloud founder says its strategy is to ‘take back control’

#36

Post by epa » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 1:10 AM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #31

josephpmay wrote: post #18

It's a huge shame that SoundCloud is likely dying, because large segments of the music industry and literally entire genres of music are solely on SoundCloud. This may sound hyperbolic, but I feel like them shutting down would be the "burning of the Library of Alexandria" of 21st century music

Largely already happened previously with MP3.com Not to say "we" couldn't do better but there's always been a huge amount of content, music and otherwise, from amateurs and mostly amateurs in particular that isn't preserved in any systematic way.

MP3.com and SoundCloud are not as comparable. SoundCloud has really re-defined how new music is released and how new artists promote their music.

Re: After big layoffs SoundCloud founder says its strategy is to ‘take back control’

#37

Post by drizzzler » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 1:14 AM UTC

scopecreep wrote: post #6

Remember the employee you guys had that said "Comment timelines are neat but this is not enough to establish a working business"? Find him/her - rehire him/her, and fire all of the fucking idiots that ignored them. They should have sold the idea to Google - at least then we might all benefit from it. Instead, SoundCloud, and comment timelines, will be a neat idea strangled by poor leadership.

Useless feature imo. SC was better without it (noticeably faster load times). How much server cost do they save if they eliminate comments?

Re: After big layoffs SoundCloud founder says its strategy is to ‘take back control’

#38

Post by buchhalter » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 1:19 AM UTC

flyinglizard wrote: post #33

thesmallestcat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Critical hit! I didn't realize that cancer patients and the starving were part of this discussion of Soundcloud's layoffs. I will go lick my wounds and perform the required penance of reading five PG essays for suggesting that CEOs have it relatively easy.

Do you suggest that being a CEO is an easy job - let alone of a company in the situation of SoundCloud?

This specific CEO had a reasonably easy job/life/career:

http://www.businessinsider.com/life-of-soundcloud-founder-ce...

Both him and his cofounder are paper rich from Angel investments they made (they just got a massive windfall with the IPO of Delivery Hero), by the way, so I'm sure they'll do just fine.

Re: After big layoffs SoundCloud founder says its strategy is to ‘take back control’

#39

Post by jfoster » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 1:20 AM UTC

josephpmay wrote: post #18

It's a huge shame that SoundCloud is likely dying, because large segments of the music industry and literally entire genres of music are solely on SoundCloud. This may sound hyperbolic, but I feel like them shutting down would be the "burning of the Library of Alexandria" of 21st century music

It's difficult for me to believe that they would actually go out of business. Somewhere between the price they would want and going out of business, I feel that a Google/Apple/Netflix/Amazon acquisition is a near-certainty. Not sure how that would work if they don't have sufficient runway for due diligence & acquisition closure, but I'm sure the above companies could deal with that scenario if necessary.

Re: After big layoffs SoundCloud founder says its strategy is to ‘take back control’

#40

Post by weego » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 1:23 AM UTC

draw_down wrote: post #27

scopecreep wrote: post #6

Remember the employee you guys had that said "Comment timelines are neat but this is not enough to establish a working business"? Find him/her - rehire him/her, and fire all of the fucking idiots that ignored them. They should have sold the idea to Google - at least then we might all benefit from it. Instead, SoundCloud, and comment timelines, will be a neat idea strangled by poor leadership.

Dear lord, no. That feature is not ever anything but annoying.

I have actively spent a good amount of my free time finding or maintaining chrome addons to block that garbage. It's the most inane and vacuous product feature I've come across and that's ignoring that it used to be so badly optimised that changing the comment caused a noticeable browser slow down