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Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

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Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#501

Post by mrtweetyhack »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #488
aivatra wrote: post #404

FIRST FACTORY (company link: https://firstfactory.com/ ) Hello fellow HN readers. Here's the short version of the story: So I was working at X SF startup company (with a subsidiary office in Costa Rica) and decided to give it a try at First Factory, an outsourcing shop based in NY and Costa Rica, they handed me a contract (March 5th, 2020) to start working with them effective March 30th, 2020. So I quit my job and wa…

Contact your former employer... and see if they want you back. Tell them the new place isn't as fun as you thought.

Or just tell them the truth

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#502

Post by lukas099 »

londons_explore wrote: post #403
gjmacd wrote: post #388

Not naming the company, but I know of a startup that's got a round of $10M (not much but enough) who just applied for relief because their burn rate is $200K+ a month. They have no customers, have been in the red for 2 years and have been slowly building their product out -- like most early funded startups -- they are building potential without revenue (yet). Their theory is, get some free money and treat it like 6 m…

This is the government's fault for not attaching more strings to the money. It should have been a loan at favourable interest rates with a fixed term.

Stimulus payments, like tax codes, are usually best kept broad and simple. Doing otherwise usually just rewards those who are best at gaming the system.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#503

Post by sh87 »

forgotmylogin2 wrote: post #491
dsfargeg wrote: post #214

Babylon Health furloughed 140 people. I think they're using this as an excuse to re-structure their organisation. The tagline is that they are furloughing 5% of staff. They've used it as an opportunity to make 30% of their mobile engineers redundant, as well as push many senior engineers on higher salaries towards the exit

Can you explain more about why you think they would need an excuse to re-structure? If they thought their senior engineers were getting paid too much, what was stopping them from cutting their salaries before the pandemic?

I suspect legal liability to be a big factor.

I imagine, for a manager to get rid of someone on performance grounds needs heck a lot more work and time than getting on the company wide blanket firing bandwagon.

"We hate to let you go but we have no options in these challenging times" gets less opposition from employees and more legal stance over any performance related reason.

Sad.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#504

Post by ivalm »

atlgator wrote: post #500
gjmacd wrote: post #388

Not naming the company, but I know of a startup that's got a round of $10M (not much but enough) who just applied for relief because their burn rate is $200K+ a month. They have no customers, have been in the red for 2 years and have been slowly building their product out -- like most early funded startups -- they are building potential without revenue (yet). Their theory is, get some free money and treat it like 6 m…

It's a LOAN of $1000 per employee, and you have to retain your employees for 180 days in order for the loan to be forgiven... do the math. I assume most employees make more than $2000 per year. The money is only "free" if you were going to stay open anyway.

but they WERE going to stay open anyways. This is literally free money. They burn 2.4M/year and recently raised 10M. They could stay open even without this free money. This money is a bonus, it doesn't fully pay for the burn but it does give them money despite them not being directly impacted.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#505

Post by Ididntdothis »

areyousure wrote: post #362
catacombs wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For-profit hospitals are a stain on the American healthcare system. I worked for one of these facilities years ago, and elective surgery was the only thing the administrators cared about.

Just out of curiosity, is your comment about "for-profit hospitals" a non sequitur? Your parent comment refers to the Mayo Clinic, which is neither "for-profit" nor "a stain on the American healthcare system".

Non profits just make profits in a different way. Either the money goes to the leadership or into an endowment or new buildings or something else. Don’t confuse non profit with not greedy or not profitable. They are basically the same as for profit hospitals as far as cost goes.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#506

Post by ivalm »

gjmacd wrote: post #388

Not naming the company, but I know of a startup that's got a round of $10M (not much but enough) who just applied for relief because their burn rate is $200K+ a month. They have no customers, have been in the red for 2 years and have been slowly building their product out -- like most early funded startups -- they are building potential without revenue (yet). Their theory is, get some free money and treat it like 6 m…

Hedge funds can benefit from PPP as well, after all, in terms of employee count they are a "small business" and they are negatively affected by COVID:

https://www.pkfod.com/insights/are-hedge-fund-managers-eligi...

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#507

Post by ivalm »

onychomys wrote: post #136

Hospitals are having a surprisingly tough time of things. I work for a very famous hospital in a small town in the American midwest, and we've (our IT department, that is) laid off all our contractors and the rest of us have mandatory furloughs coming up too. They're doing everything they can to not let us go, but some of us will probably end up getting sacked. And this is maybe the richest and most well-connected ho…

I work for a large healthcare org. We just had a hiring freeze and have to work hard to justify extending existing contracts with our contractors. At the same time, I am unsure how this will long term impact the org. Utilization of most services is down but we did have to buy a lot of ventilators/etc; also, I imagine health insurance membership will decline.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#508

Post by jawns »

fma wrote: post #450
PaulRobinson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is looking 2001-dot-com-crash bad, but much, much faster. It's worth remembering there are plenty of companies not laying people off, and "normal" will return eventually. That said, I was watching The Big Short yesterday, and a line that I had noted before haunted me even more: "For every 1% unemployment goes up [in the USA], 40,000 people die". Stay safe, stay positive.

Meanwhile the Nasdaq is roaring back from a bottom...Someone is making a lot of money on the crash and the government printing press. It ain't me.

You may be interested in the short-squeeze hypothesis, which suggests the current rally was triggered by technical factors and will soon peak and evaporate.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#509

Post by aero142 »

lukifer wrote: post #427
Aperocky wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they qualify, they qualify. If they don't, then they're a fraud. If they shouldn't qualify but they did, then blame the policy makers. Only (2) would have been their fault.

I agree that policy makers bear primary culpability; but that doesn't absolve you morally for your individual choices. This is not "free money", in the sense of "I found a $100 bill on the street"; it comes from the sweat of taxpayers, both present and future. (In self-interested terms, it also doesn't absolve a company from harm to their brand and reputation, if/when it becomes public that they accepted a bailout th…

I'm curious. If a person qualifies for the stimulus check but has enough in savings to get through the next few months, do you believe they should refuse because it comes from the sweat of taxpayers as well?

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#510

Post by texasbigdata »

cannaceo wrote: post #486
e40 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are audited and can't show impact by COVID19, then there might be fines. Big ones. I just signed the loan app for my 36 yr old software company which has been hit by a drop-off in sales.

I didn't see proving harm by COVID19 as a requirement for applying for the loan. The loan is to minimize unemployment claims. Without the loan I would've been looking to make proactive staff cuts immediately despite not being dramatically impacted by COVID19. With the loan I feel comfortable keeping my workforce employed. My understanding is the requirement to not pay back the loan is that you keep 75% of your staff…

It's literally on the form. There's criminal liability for mis-stating.
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