Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce • Hacker News Board

Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#11

Post by galfarragem » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 10:37 AM UTC

ginko wrote: post #8

adventured wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much worse than that unfortunately. Pre-tax income 2013: $310m on $2.3b in sales Pre-tax income 2014: $279m on $2.26b in sales Pre-tax income 2015: $83m on $2.5b in sales Pre-tax income 2016: -$20m on $2.46b in sales Pre-tax income last four quarters: -$544m on $1.95b in sales Net income for 2013 was $247m, for 2014 it was $228m, for 2015 it was $81m. For the last eight quarters, it's nearly a negative billion d…

How do they manage such abysmal numbers after essentially monopolizing the CAD software market?

Architectural offices that still use cad, prefer ZWCAD, that is literally a Chinese copy of Autocad (with the same UI and even Lisp scripting) that you can buy for 10% of price. AutoCAD as a software is nearly done: Autocad 2017 is just a chromy version of Autocad 2007 despite their R&D efforts.

IMHO their product is nowadays REVIT (3DMax has fierce competition and is a lost battle). REVIT is a product that is still evolving and as such harder to copy/compete.

Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#12

Post by lsiebert » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 10:40 AM UTC

yuchi wrote: post #9

Can a single damn news source stop using metaphors in their titles?… I infer there’s a huge lay off here…

Now I'm picturing an onion article about axing employees with actual axes.

Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#13

Post by chatmasta » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 10:41 AM UTC

Does anyone remember when Autodesk bought SocialCam? What a bizarre acquisition that was. Although it brought us Mike Seibel who's been a great YC partner.

Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#14

Post by namdnay » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 10:44 AM UTC

ginko wrote: post #8

adventured wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much worse than that unfortunately. Pre-tax income 2013: $310m on $2.3b in sales Pre-tax income 2014: $279m on $2.26b in sales Pre-tax income 2015: $83m on $2.5b in sales Pre-tax income 2016: -$20m on $2.46b in sales Pre-tax income last four quarters: -$544m on $1.95b in sales Net income for 2013 was $247m, for 2014 it was $228m, for 2015 it was $81m. For the last eight quarters, it's nearly a negative billion d…

How do they manage such abysmal numbers after essentially monopolizing the CAD software market?

I don't think they monopolize this market. All the big industrial groups I've worked with were using CATIA

Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#15

Post by buserror » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 12:02 PM UTC

cinquemb wrote: post #6

analognoise wrote: post #3

I hope this doesn't effect the team working on EAGLE. EAGLE sucks, but it has gotten much better since Autodesk took over and actually started making improvements.

Who knows, maybe it's a chance for Kicad to take off ;)

Yeah, as an Eagle customer, I flatly refused to go to their new subscription model. Instead, I learned Kicad! :-)

Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#16

Post by stctgion » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 12:22 PM UTC

pzone wrote: post #2

The 2016 layoffs of similar magnitude didn't seem to make a noticeable impact in their software's update cadence. They are a company formed though an old sediment of mergers and acquisitions and I'm not surprised they've built up inefficiencies.

Do you realize that calling people inefficiencies sounds rather cold?

Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#17

Post by bitL » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 12:28 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #7

margorczynski wrote: post #5

Probably just cutting the standard big-corp fat. If I'm correct their financial results are great, in many areas even improving

It's much worse than that unfortunately. Pre-tax income 2013: $310m on $2.3b in sales Pre-tax income 2014: $279m on $2.26b in sales Pre-tax income 2015: $83m on $2.5b in sales Pre-tax income 2016: -$20m on $2.46b in sales Pre-tax income last four quarters: -$544m on $1.95b in sales Net income for 2013 was $247m, for 2014 it was $228m, for 2015 it was $81m. For the last eight quarters, it's nearly a negative billion d…

Could that be they now have incompetent/malicious management siphoning money out via subcontracting companies (tunels)? $1B loss in 2 years is super suspicious.

Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#18

Post by Frogolocalypse » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 12:34 PM UTC

pzone wrote: post #2

The 2016 layoffs of similar magnitude didn't seem to make a noticeable impact in their software's update cadence. They are a company formed though an old sediment of mergers and acquisitions and I'm not surprised they've built up inefficiencies.

They're a company that is selling a product that has already saturated the market.

Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#19

Post by fapjacks » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 12:49 PM UTC

stctgion wrote: post #16

pzone wrote: post #2

The 2016 layoffs of similar magnitude didn't seem to make a noticeable impact in their software's update cadence. They are a company formed though an old sediment of mergers and acquisitions and I'm not surprised they've built up inefficiencies.

Do you realize that calling people inefficiencies sounds rather cold?

Well, organizations are made of people, and organizations can and do have inefficiencies. I completely understand what you're saying, but wouldn't we just be using code words if we said something else?

Re: Software Giant Autodesk to Axe 13% of Global Workforce

#20

Post by adventured » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 1:06 PM UTC

bitL wrote: post #17

adventured wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much worse than that unfortunately. Pre-tax income 2013: $310m on $2.3b in sales Pre-tax income 2014: $279m on $2.26b in sales Pre-tax income 2015: $83m on $2.5b in sales Pre-tax income 2016: -$20m on $2.46b in sales Pre-tax income last four quarters: -$544m on $1.95b in sales Net income for 2013 was $247m, for 2014 it was $228m, for 2015 it was $81m. For the last eight quarters, it's nearly a negative billion d…

Could that be they now have incompetent/malicious management siphoning money out via subcontracting companies (tunels)? $1B loss in 2 years is super suspicious.

Overall it looks pretty easy to explain, such that one doesn't need to leap that far.

For example, if you build your costs for a $2.4 to $2.5 billion sales run-rate, generating $80m in net income, which is what they did for fiscal 2015. Then, you drop sales to $2 billion instead (which is now where they're at), while not reducing their operating expenses (which actually went up slightly), you get a big fat loss.

I'd attribute their mess to a wildly incompetent management and board, most of which should probably be thrown out of the company immediately. The crazy stock valuation is the sole thing keeping that from happening now; reality will catch up to that however as it almost always does. When the hammer does come down on the stock, activists will start shaking the company for changes.

The 30 million share repurchase program they proclaimed a little over a year ago, is equal to about a $3 billion cost in today's stock price. They're losing a lot of money, and they have $1.7 billion in cash in the bank, with a negative balance sheet. Then consider the zero growth for a decade and the poor prospects for turning that around near-term. Management & the board are doing something extraordinarily egregious and a large number of Autodesk employees are going to get hurt in the coming years most likely (very tragically). I can't see a scenario where Autodesk doesn't have to slash a further 1/4 to 1/3 of their staff in the next few years (they have to cut deep to get back to even on net income). When the bloom comes off this stock market bubble, their $109 stock will be a $20 or $30 stock if they don't quickly find a way to drive growth again.