Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more • Hacker News Board

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#521

Post by grappler » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:38 AM UTC

tiles wrote: post #513

grappler wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The train of thought I'm on now is: why was keeping the Union together back in the civil war such a great thing? Now we have this bloc of red states in the South who are backward, racist, intolerant science deniers, and they've managed to get just enough on the winning side of the electoral map to make the advanced, multicultural, cosmopolitan science-respecting blue states' lives miserable. That chunk of states shou…

The abolition of slavery was worth it. But the failure of Reconstruction allowed the south to backside right where they were.

yeah, abolition of slavery is a noble cause, obviously, but the rhetoric at that time put a lot of emphasis on the importance of preserving the union, as if that in and of itself was a valuable thing. I propose that it wasn't, and isn't.

Humans are happier if they're grouped together with their own tribe, and not with other neighboring tribes they don't identify with. In this way it's like some of the problems in Africa and the Middle East where the groups there had borders imposed on them that didn't follow this simple principle.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#522

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:39 AM UTC

clivestaples wrote: post #478

eldavido wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need to understand, the value of a 100% of final-salary pension for people earning 100K retiring at 55-60 is likely millions . It's even worse with the games people play with PTO and other benefits (where they bump pay 20-30% in their last year to get that pension benefit for the rest of their lives). Look at the average retiree's 401(k) balance for comparison and it gets pretty clear how unfair this is. There…

I saw that a hundred times at a small school district in Southern California. As retirement nears (age 55-59), take a promotion from the classroom to the district office, and a $50-75K pay raise. Three years later, that is the salary used to calculate your pension payments... For life. I live in a neighborhood with two firefighters who were captains, retired at 50, and make over $100K a year. It's totally unsustainab…

[deleted]

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#523

Post by unishark » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:44 AM UTC

hemantv wrote: post #423

Shivetya wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His unwillingness to not solve the state's pension problems should be applauded. the amount of unfunded liabilities is in the hundreds of billions of dollars and approaching a trillion if it has not passed that already. This all happened because the number of public servants who are pulling in over 100k has skyrocketed... 100k+ in retirement.. with millions past 50k! Think about that 50k in pay plus medical. These pe…

This is just crazy to me, this public servants takes unprecedented risks and take lower pays so they can take stable retirement. Now it comes time for due, we don't want to fund these anymore. The entitlement in HN is just too much.

> This is just crazy to me, this public servants takes unprecedented risks and take lower pays so they can take stable retirement.

I didn't realize I was signing up for an "unstable retirement" by working in the private sector.

Perhaps you mean "stable jobs", which indeed was historically supposed to be biggest selling-point of govt jobs, and the trade-off for lower pay. Though now when you count benefits, apparently they get the best total compensation too.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#524

Post by pbourke » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:46 AM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #487

clivestaples wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw that a hundred times at a small school district in Southern California. As retirement nears (age 55-59), take a promotion from the classroom to the district office, and a $50-75K pay raise. Three years later, that is the salary used to calculate your pension payments... For life. I live in a neighborhood with two firefighters who were captains, retired at 50, and make over $100K a year. It's totally unsustainab…

It's generational wealth transfer from the young and poor to the old and relatively rich. It should be called fraud and theft, because that's what it is.

While we're throwing rocks at teachers and firefighters, would you consider the trillions of dollars that the GOP made off with during the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" smash and grab job fraud and theft?

What about the pensions of workers (many unionized) which were obliterated by corporate restructurings during the financial crisis?

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#525

Post by amykyta » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:49 AM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #519

amykyta wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is someone more informed to comment on this but the reason is the Fed. They are buying corporate debt. That’s a pretty drastic thing to be doing. This recent commentary by the Fed chairman describes the scene, the money tap is wide open. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-29/powell-vo...

What I don't understand is, what are the consequences are? If there is no, why didn't this just always happen and we'd all be rich? I've read other articles which say that essentially we're losing the ability to really valuate equities because of all this free money being injected into junk bonds etc hides the true valuation. As far as I can tell, stocks are more valuable, but only numerically, they're actually more…

The real value of the currency is supposed to (at least theoretically) be hurt by this. Printing money to solve problems either leads to hyperinflation in the extreme, a deflationary trap that Japan has been in or some new thing we are creating. Maybe because the whole world is doing it all at once it’ll be ok?

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#526

Post by pbourke » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:51 AM UTC

treis wrote: post #441

hemantv wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you are going to cherry-pick, then so be it. what about the police, fire department?

I don't think the police or fire are taking "unprecedented" risks.

Would you say that to the police or firefighters who responded to 9/11?

There are outsized risks involved in both occupations.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#527

Post by pbourke » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:54 AM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #490

cortesoft wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but people took those jobs in large part because of those pensions. It is part of the entire compensation package. They often times took less money up front in return for better pensions. The problem is that this was not properly budgeted for when funding the pensions.

When you take a job and its benefits are not properly funded or the funding assumptions are insane (8% growth). That's on you.

Are you serious? You expect a 22 year old firefighter to know how well funded the pension system is?

Give me a break.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#528

Post by bamboozled » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:55 AM UTC

amykyta wrote: post #525

bamboozled wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is, what are the consequences are? If there is no, why didn't this just always happen and we'd all be rich? I've read other articles which say that essentially we're losing the ability to really valuate equities because of all this free money being injected into junk bonds etc hides the true valuation. As far as I can tell, stocks are more valuable, but only numerically, they're actually more…

The real value of the currency is supposed to (at least theoretically) be hurt by this. Printing money to solve problems either leads to hyperinflation in the extreme, a deflationary trap that Japan has been in or some new thing we are creating. Maybe because the whole world is doing it all at once it’ll be ok?

Maybe most equities are so hopelessly valuated and there is just so much funny money in the stock market that it hasn't made sense for a long time and this just demonstrates how useless it is except for those who know how to game it?

I'm not saying I believe this entirely, but there needs to be some better explanation for Lyft is up > 2% today after that news?

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#529

Post by vecter » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 4:17 AM UTC

njoubert wrote: post #396

vecter wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain to me how stock comp costs the company money, if it does? AFAICT it just creates equity dilution, but I might be missing something.

There are two ways to compensate with stock: purchasing stock on the open market with cash, or, hand out stock from a pool of withheld shares. The pool of shares might be periodically increased through creating new shares (and diluting) but this must be reported to the SEC and is only done infrequently. GAAP reporting requires that stock compensation is written off as an expense. It does not reduce the company’s cash…

> It does not reduce the company’s cash, but it does reduce the company’s earnings.

If it doesn't cost the company any money, why is it defined to affect the company's earnings?

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#530

Post by rodonn » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 4:19 AM UTC

samfisher83 wrote: post #395

$36mil/1000 employees works out about 36k in severance. What happens to people who got stock grants that vest over 4 years?

RSUs for rank and file employees usually vest over time (e.g. quarterly), so you keep any that have vested but lose the rest.