SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#31

Post by MisterOctober » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 1:25 AM UTC

technotony wrote: post #10

Some think you should do this annually. "Back when he was running GE, Jack Welch famously argued that leaders should fire the bottom 10 percent of their workforce each year, as part of an orderly continuous improvement process." https://www.inc.com/paul-b-brown/should-you-fire-10-of-your-...

Yep, the warped logic of stack ranking still infects HR thought to this day, in some quarters anyway. It's one of those notions that sounds brilliant at first, but then when you think it all the way through, it reveals itself as patently bizarre and misguided.

As noted, it creates a really unhealthy intra-team sabotage mindset as everybody competes to avoid being at the bottom of the stack. It puts managers in a horrible spot, having to rank 'n' purge when maybe their team was humming along wonderfully all year. It creates an atmosphere of awful fear and dread that distracts from the work.

As one of my buddies said back when MS was still using this accursed system -- "If they'd used stack-ranking at Los Alamos, hell, Oppenheimer would probably have had to fire Feynman!" {obviously not reflective of the historical reality, but I think pithy nonetheless}

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#32

Post by sova » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 1:26 AM UTC

inferiorhuman wrote: post #17

whatshisface wrote: post #6

10% is a big fraction. How often do large, stable companies execute a layoff like that? Sometimes layoffs can be not so bad, for example when that's the company's way of clearing off the managers' firing wishlist without incurring legal trouble. However at 10% of the workforce, this may be a change of direction away from R&D and towards sitting on the falcon 9 and launching to LEO.

It's a big fraction but it's not necessarily unheard of. For example Autodesk laid off about 13% of its workforce at the end of 2017. Additionally, in California you've got to give plenty of advance notice and as a result the state tracks mass layoffs[1]. 1: https://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/Layoff_Services_WAR...

Thanks very much for the link. They only show how many layoffs, and not percentage of workforce. Still, good data.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#33

Post by stupidcar » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 1:28 AM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #6

10% is a big fraction. How often do large, stable companies execute a layoff like that? Sometimes layoffs can be not so bad, for example when that's the company's way of clearing off the managers' firing wishlist without incurring legal trouble. However at 10% of the workforce, this may be a change of direction away from R&D and towards sitting on the falcon 9 and launching to LEO.

Maybe, maybe not. Consider it in terms of your own workplace: if you worked on a team of 10, and one person got laid off, would that seem so huge? I think the question is whether this round of layoffs is in response to an acute cash flow issue or just part of long-term financial prudency. They fact that they waited until after Christmas and are providing 8 weeks of pay and benefits makes me hopeful that it's the latter.

Also, given that Falcon 9 is now essentially "done", I expect there probably is a fair bit of internal capacity that's accumulated during its development which can be cut. For example, SpaceX is famous for building a lot of components in house, but perhaps they'll move more to using subcontractors for Falcon 9 parts. That might free up money to spend on R&D. The challenge will be to become leaner and save money in the core launch business without compromising standards. It'll only take a couple of accidents to trash their reputation.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#34

Post by joecool1029 » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 1:28 AM UTC

To get around paywall: https://outline.com/Ewv9xM

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#35

Post by Rebelgecko » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 1:29 AM UTC

bsmitty5000 wrote: post #26

Rebelgecko wrote: post #2

Sounds like 90% of their employees will be working an extra 10% more hours per week

Taken straight from the ULA playbook!

From what I've heard from the SpaceX and ULA people I know (although there may be some sample bias because most of the SpaceX people I know quit due to the hours), that's not really the case. ULA is more of a 9-5 company, especially for union folks, whereas SpaceX is more of a 60-80 hours/week kind of place.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#36

Post by mcs5280 » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 1:30 AM UTC

mpg33 wrote: post #5

Had no idea they had 6000 employees..

I think their headcount surprises a lot of people. SpaceX has gotten very big over the past few years trying to carve out market share and evolve F9. The old incumbent competition (ULA) has around 3500 employees. Part of the difference in headcount is likely because SpaceX does a lot more in-house manufacturing, but still it seems like a large differential.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#37

Post by ChrisSD » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 1:31 AM UTC

w-m wrote: post #22

Oh, the LA Times seem to finally have taken down their GDPR wall. This is the first article on their domain that I’m able to read since last May, from Europe.

I always assumed they were just making a point. I'm not sure what that point was but I guess they consider it made.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#38

Post by adventured » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 1:31 AM UTC

Others wrote: post #4

Is this a bad sign for SpaceX? Is ‘getting leaner’ why they’re really doing this?

It's because projections for large launch demand are softer for the next few years than had previously been expected. It was thought that that weakness would give way and demand would perk back up. This layoff is happening because that's no longer expected to happen and they're not going to need the staff to match a much greater launch rate.

What does it mean? It more or less officially confirms that Starlink is the only way they can finance the plans for Mars and BFR. There isn't going to be a huge uptick in launches in the coming years, such that that will be enough to dent their capital requirements. Musk has been attempting to finance some of SpaceX's capital demands with debt recently to avoid further diluting his stake, because it risks pushing him below a controlling interest. It's very questionable whether he'll be able to hold the line on that if the launch rate is going to remain fairly stagnant versus 2018.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#39

Post by viraptor » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

Deimorz wrote: post #27

According to some comments from employees, the company had an all-hands meeting where everyone was sent home and told to check their email over the weekend to find out if they're being laid off or not: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/af1n7f/spacex_will_...

Whatever the reasons for the workforce reduction, this way of doing it is just unnecessarily cruel.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#40

Post by jpatokal » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 1:34 AM UTC

sombremesa wrote: post #14

cbanek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah the glory of the stack ranking. Microsoft did this as well, and it was much celebrated when they stopped, as the stack ranking had a lot of effects that had nothing to do with performance (like coworkers stonewalling each other, or infighting, and what do you do with an org of rockstars).

Not to mention that eventually you end up firing some really smart people and find worse replacements (not in the least due to shitty reputation - but also because of regression to the mean and because people are biased towards hiring worse than themselves in this regime). Definitely so at 10% p.a. if you're in a remotely niche industry.

Apparently some managers used to hire sacrificial lambs with the express purpose of culling them to spare the rest of the team.