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Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

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

#581

Post by mycall »

wonderwonder wrote: post #189
cpursley wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overtly willing to attack opposite-party state governments It might be straight-up politics. But there is a real situation where state governments have been financially mismanaged. Should the "working class" person in Alabama without any retirement prospects be forced to bail out (via the Federal Gov't) the state of California's very generous pensions that were not fiscally sustainable in the first place?

Alabama gets ~$3.50 form the federal government for every $1 it contributes in federal taxes. California gets ~$0.97 for every dollar it gives. So the real question is should Californians be bailing out Alabama all the time. Should states like South Carolina, Alabama and North Dakota just be left to die? I mean they are takers in even the best economic situation. The answer is of course not, they are states populated…

> So the real question is should Californians be bailing out Alabama all the time

I would say yes since the brain drain California has cost on other poor states has been significant.

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

#582

Post by raindropm »

hkai wrote: post #483
wonderwonder wrote: post #121

Layoffs are mounting, alternative work is limited, and the unemployment systems in many states are either broken or running out of funding. Add the federal governments indicated desire to let blue states go bankrupt and we are looking at a good combination to enter a depression. Its a pretty sobering time.

Perhaps locking up young people at home due to a disease with a 0.05% death rate for people below 60 was not a great idea after all.

It maybe true, anyway, those young people, full of energy and party-lover is virus's best carrier though, locking in help prevents the spread to others whose vulnerable.

Ultimately, no one knows what the best strategy is, maybe the 'Swedish approach' maybe right, or not...,time will tell.

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

#583

Post by mycall »

notyourwork wrote: post #571
koheripbal wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I miss the news item that confirmed Trump cause covid-19?

No you didn't. Though there appears to be some ignorance in your question regarding the handling of the situation by the current administration. Misleading the public, making false claims, punting all decisions to states, all will be used as a scapegoat to not assume any responsibility for the state of things today. Claiming your inauguration was the biggest ever is funny, misleading the public during a pandemic is u…

You forgot the disbanding of the pandemic task force years ago that could have caught sight of the virus in November and acted swiftly on it.

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

#584

Post by eldavido »

clivestaples wrote: post #572
pbourke wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Fraud is fraud. I'll throw rocks at any grifters stealing from me and my family.

Me too man. Tired of this partisan bickering. Parent obviously doesn't like the GOP, fine, but call a spade a spade.

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

#585

Post by eldavido »

unishark wrote: post #523
hemantv wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The whole thing is so nakedly corrupt. In Illinois, where I'm from, guys like JB Pritzker (governor) and Mike Madigan have made whole careers out of getting elected on the back of organized labor (e.g. AFSCME), and once elected, give them sweetheart deals.

On one hand, it's just part and parcel of politics, but there needs to be some kind of counterbalance to this. Maybe a taxpayer revolt would fix it?

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

#586

Post by eldavido »

lokar wrote: post #500
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…

IMO the issue is pensions are worked out by elected officials who will be long out off office when the bill is due. This encourages dishonest accounting wrt needed present day finding levels. One fix would be to require that all future obligations be funded up front. Make the pension as generous as you like, but deposit the cash now. If you invest the money and do well, the state can just keep that, but don't assume…

So, I've thought about this a lot and concluded democratic governments (democratic, not Democratic) just can't do this. The incentives to cheat are just too strong. Problem is accounting standards? There's always a legal-by-the-letter-of-the-law way around these rules (loophole) you can find if you work hard enough (just look at Illinois -- "pension ramps", "pension obligation bonds", etc), and even if there's not, most voters won't care enough to dig into the discount rate and other assumptions being used to forecast pension liabilities.

Perhaps our political culture has changed and people used to be more honest, or far-sighted. But, given the world we live in today, especially given the pressure state and local governments are under, I think there really is no other option than a fully-funded 401(k)-style defined contribution plan, to finally force the issue into the open. There are plenty of well-managed 401(k)s and it's the only way to get "cash on the barrelhead" that keeps everyone honest, and doesn't allow the sort of absurd can-kicking so many governments (and their electorates) have favored for the past 30 years.

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

#587

Post by vikiomega9 »

amrrs wrote: post #448
vikiomega9 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for Lyft and was part of this cut. I truly worked toward fixing things, and I don't want to sound salty here even though will, there's not much going on with Lyft or Uber to save in terms of tech. It's shoddy and useless. For the most part if Amazon got into the game now, and with their flywheel, they could eat Lyft alive and wait for Uber to bleed dry.

I'm sorry for it. Just wondering and want to know your perspective, if teams like ML and Data Science are more of a luxury than a necessity? They're mostly not a revenue generating team and I constantly see them being part of such layoffs.

They are at Lyft which tries to solve hard problems like Pricing and Dispatch optimization.

For other, perhaps smaller, companies you still need a Data Analyst or someone who can read data and make sense of it, but not a Data Scientist who works in a silo and has a sexy job title.

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

#588

Post by notyourwork »

mycall wrote: post #583
notyourwork wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you didn't. Though there appears to be some ignorance in your question regarding the handling of the situation by the current administration. Misleading the public, making false claims, punting all decisions to states, all will be used as a scapegoat to not assume any responsibility for the state of things today. Claiming your inauguration was the biggest ever is funny, misleading the public during a pandemic is u…

You forgot the disbanding of the pandemic task force years ago that could have caught sight of the virus in November and acted swiftly on it.

The list goes on and on, people need to hold our elected officials accountable for their decisions. That includes our whitehouse and as important is Congress. This includes both parties.

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

#590

Post by tomhack »

vmception wrote: post #74
cracker_jacks wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't this create more share dilution in the short term? Don't layoffs trigger options/RSUs to be executed some time window after the layoff?

LYFT and many recently IPO'd tech companies have been doing monthly vesting, with no cliff. So basically with all their massive hiring, employees have already been dumping shares. The conditions on the unvested portions typically are destroyed. With options are available to purchase for exercise. That's pretty exclusive to startup life, but the same concept in RSUs at big tech where only the vested portion is sellabl…

Lyft unfortunately does not do monthly vesting. There are strict trading windows as well.
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