DigitalOcean is laying off staff • Hacker News Board

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#201

Post by Eikon » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:56 PM UTC

challenged wrote: post #169

blackflame wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe instead of using expensive SSDs. A topology of many spanning disks in large ZFS clusters by using PCIe HDD controllers. Then link the machines via 10GBe could provide you the speed and performance you require require. I've set up a moderate size pool of 1Pb across 16 physical servers on 4 full size racks. This cost less than 50k. Electricity and cooling come from solar. Its the damn internet connection for peop…

> Its the damn internet connection for people to access it that is the cost killer. Nope. Any hosting provider will be located at a carrier neutral datacenter or the like. At any of these you will have access to low cost IP transit providers and Internet exchanges. You can buy 100G IP transit for $5k per month, so Internet cost isn't really an issue.

> You can buy 100G IP transit for $5k per month.

I'd be curious to learn more, even Cogent is in the $0,20/mbps ballpark which would be ~$20k/month for 100G.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#202

Post by jjwiseman » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:57 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #185

biztos wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a "droplet" going at $7/mo for about half a year and probably used it less than ten hours so far, and not doing anything too heavy when I use it. Every time I think about turning it off I say "yeah but it's only $7 and I like to ssh into it sometimes." I've had a "shared hosting" setup on Dreamhost for at least 15 years, also using pennies per month in capacity, at most. I get that it can be a brutal, low-ma…

I’ll never forgive DigitalOcean for deleting my portfolio site after 5 weeks of nonpayment. 5 weeks. Deleted everything. Yes, I screwed up. But I would have happily paid them. They deleted the backups too. When we inquired as to whether the backups could be restored now that we’ve paid them, they said it was impossible. Blame me if you want and say it’s my fault. It certainly is; I admit that. But why was I paying th…

"But why was I paying them for backups that they wiped along with my server?"

The issue seems to have been that you weren't.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#203

Post by leetrout » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:57 PM UTC

raiyu wrote: post #181

Hey folks, Cofounder of DigitalOcean here. Letting people go is always a complicated matter at any scale. Whether you are a ten person company and firing one employee or you are 500 people and firing a larger number. Wanted to address a few statements from the hackernews community here. We are not prepping the company for sale. As unfortunate as the layoffs are they were really due to two CEO changes in the past 18 m…

Thank you for posting this and providing some perspective.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#204

Post by iudqnolq » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:58 PM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #174

iudqnolq wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite understand the economics of referral programs. I'm dealing with levels of customer support to get signed up for a $120/paying signup referral program (cash not credits). I don't understand a) How does this possibly make them money? b) If they want signups that much, why is the flow for joining the referral program so buggy? (It's Mailgun, btw)

Simple, there is a lifetime value for a customer. As long as the referral payout doesn't exceed the lifetime value, it should be profitable. Although some undoubtedly pay more than the lifetime value of a customer as a "growth hack". This of course can't go on forever.

My point was it seems insane to me that the lifetime value of a customer who has billed something to a credit card would be over $120, especially in the space of Email as a Service. I would guess (without any knowledge) that it'd actually be closer to $12 because of all the people who try it out and then never continue.

They take in less than the referral payout in revenue for a customer who sends tens of thousands of emails a year for five years based on their pricing page.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#205

Post by cdiamand » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:59 PM UTC

raiyu wrote: post #181

Hey folks, Cofounder of DigitalOcean here. Letting people go is always a complicated matter at any scale. Whether you are a ten person company and firing one employee or you are 500 people and firing a larger number. Wanted to address a few statements from the hackernews community here. We are not prepping the company for sale. As unfortunate as the layoffs are they were really due to two CEO changes in the past 18 m…

Thank you for this! As an individual who relies heavily on DO for getting small projects off the ground, this is reassuring to hear.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#206

Post by shard » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:59 PM UTC

kbar13 wrote: post #190

sillysaurusx wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll never forgive DigitalOcean for deleting my portfolio site after 5 weeks of nonpayment. 5 weeks. Deleted everything. Yes, I screwed up. But I would have happily paid them. They deleted the backups too. When we inquired as to whether the backups could be restored now that we’ve paid them, they said it was impossible. Blame me if you want and say it’s my fault. It certainly is; I admit that. But why was I paying th…

"i was able to pay rent but i forgot and got evicted and it's the landlord's fault!!!!!111"

I haven't decided whether DO did the right thing or not, but to be fair, your analogy should be more in the line of "they evicted me and burned everything of mine in the apartment".

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#207

Post by stanferder » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:59 PM UTC

mamurphy wrote: post #127

stanferder wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they ramped that $5/month to $20/month after X months, I would keep paying it. Digital Ocean is a fantastic deal, everything I've tried straightforwardly works, and the fact that I can't accidentally spend money as I experiment is a real boon.

Are you absolutely sure about that? There are several other services at $20/month that would offer a much more compelling value proposition compared to Digital Ocean's lowest-tier droplet. I would definitely have signed up for a competitor if DO droplets cost 400% what they do now. As other commenters have said, this space is a brutal race to the bottom in pricing. DO is great, I might pay 50% more for their current…

Yes. Digital Ocean got me in the door for $5, but thus far has they have done everything I needed it to do, with clear documentation for how everything works, and no nasty surprises.

As someone doing proofs-of-concept and experimental work, the resource I'm trying to conserve is my own time, and Digital Ocean's value proposition on that is great. Everything works really straightforwardly and I can concentrate on my own code.

I wouldn't suggest Digital Ocean change their high-volume pricing, but the experience they provide to the small-scale user is worth a premium.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#208

Post by raiyu » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 9:01 PM UTC

notjustanymike wrote: post #200

raiyu wrote: post #181

Hey folks, Cofounder of DigitalOcean here. Letting people go is always a complicated matter at any scale. Whether you are a ten person company and firing one employee or you are 500 people and firing a larger number. Wanted to address a few statements from the hackernews community here. We are not prepping the company for sale. As unfortunate as the layoffs are they were really due to two CEO changes in the past 18 m…

Would you mind teaching StackExchange a thing or two about PR while you're doing a good job here?

I think it's a learned behavior.

The more time you spend in the corporate world, the more comfortable you are with corporate speak.

I haven't spent any time in the corporate world and I personally value honesty very highly, so I always try to be as forthright as possible, while still respecting the privacy and feelings of other individuals.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#209

Post by peteradio » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

lallysingh wrote: post #130

peteradio wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope they don't get acquired by one of the big cloud providers.

For acquirers, it makes more sense for it to be some other company that wants to add 'cloud provider' to their list of services. To avoid losing their customers to amazon or google or MS.

Which seems like a good reason for the big ones to swallow it up.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#210

Post by 0xADADA » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 9:04 PM UTC

All that ops automation they were working on finally comes to fruition. Automation creates surplus labor, and that surplus is realized with the elimination of humor labor, reaping profit in the form of lowering costs.