Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce • Hacker News Board

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#491

Post by ryneandal » Tue, May 05, 2020, 11:16 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #199

ryneandal wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the company said that 1,900 employees will be laid off, or 25.3% of its 7,500 workers Thought I misread that the first time through. What did those 7,500 do?

Ugh, to be honest I get tired whenever I see the "Why did company XYZ need so many people, they're just a website!"-type comments. While it is definitely possible AirBnB was bloated, it's not hard for me to imagine at all what all these people did. AirBnB is a relatively high-touch business, so I imagine a huge number of those people were in customer support/customer relations, both for travelers and for property own…

Not at all what I said. I was absolutely surprised and asked a legitimate question. Ignorance is one's default state, hence why we're encouraged to ask questions when we're young.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#492

Post by whymauri » Tue, May 05, 2020, 11:17 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #432

keiferski wrote: post #10

Separated employees will receive 14 weeks of pay, and one more week for each year served at the company (rounding partial years up). The firm is also dropping its one-year equity cliff so that employees who are laid off with under 12 months of tenure can buy their vested options; Airbnb will also provide 12 months of health insurance through COBRA in the United States, and health care coverage through 2020 in the res…

That also means they have no expectation for the market to come back for at least 2 years.

Huh? Curious as to why that is.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#493

Post by sneakypenguin68 » Tue, May 05, 2020, 11:17 PM UTC

xenospn wrote: post #335

lostmsu wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I first misread it as "14 months" (as usually you count in months), but it was way out of bounds.

It's really strange to me that companies in the US can just determine how much severance they're "willing" to pay. Why is it even up to them?

How else would it be done?

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#494

Post by dgoldstein0 » Tue, May 05, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

lonelappde wrote: post #466

_dps wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is in practice just a deferred salary scheme. Since the mandate attaches an unavoidable additional liability to every year of employment, that will get rolled into the total cost of employment by accountants. So yes, when you collect the deferred salary it feels generous. But you were getting less salary up until that point in order to make the system solvent. One may well prefer this arrangement, but one can't…

How is it unavoidable? If the employee leaves on their choice, is severance paid?

I think they mean unavoidable from the company's point of view - they can't make you quit, so when they hire you, they have to assume if they ever need to lay you off, they'll need to afford your severance.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#495

Post by dagnabbit » Tue, May 05, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #326

ferzul wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

really? i've always counted weeks, since every week is the same lenght (and paid fortnights, since every fortnight has the same lenght). i get paid by the month now and it's super weird to me, as if i'm worth more in february than in march.

Larger companies tend to prefer weekly/biweekly as you don't get that month-length variance. On the other hand, many employees don't like it as much because their biggest bills tend to be paid monthly so they'd prefer their paychecks to be aligned.

I've been paid bi-weekly, semi-monthly, and am currently paid monthly.

Semi-monthly wins, hands-down. Bi-weekly aligns strangely with auto-pay. Monthly feels like my money is coming too far into the future.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#496

Post by whymauri » Tue, May 05, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

qppo wrote: post #104

schkkd wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why when a yet another aspiring startup wants to hire me, I ask for a high sign on bonus as an insurance, monthly vesting cycle, at least 200k in base pay and high severance upon termination. Never been given that, but I don't regret: looking back, all those "just 1 year till IPO" companies are underwater.

Are you an engineer or a professional athlete?

I think Netflix has actually likened its engineers to a "pro sports team."

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#497

Post by screye » Tue, May 05, 2020, 11:21 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #10

Separated employees will receive 14 weeks of pay, and one more week for each year served at the company (rounding partial years up). The firm is also dropping its one-year equity cliff so that employees who are laid off with under 12 months of tenure can buy their vested options; Airbnb will also provide 12 months of health insurance through COBRA in the United States, and health care coverage through 2020 in the res…

This makes me think, they value their reputation a lot more than the greedy 'minimize losses' option. This way, they still save money over 2020, while hopefully hitting the ground running when the whole thing clears up.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#498

Post by zxcmx » Tue, May 05, 2020, 11:22 PM UTC

2019-nCoV wrote: post #455

Beldin wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NL: starting point is one month per year of employment. There's more detail to it, but that is the starting point. This compensation does not sound "vastly more generous", but not bad for those that were less than 5 years employed.

You'd be in the top 5% of software engineers in Europe if you pull >$55k after tax ANNUALLY. Let alone as a parting gift.

I think European dev market is a lot more complex than that; if you work in Zurich or London, do contracting, work for a major bank etc then the market is way different for you than if you do (say) PHP as an employee of a non-software company in Berlin.

The baseline is decently middle class with a solid safety net but there's a lot more room at the top than you're making out IMHO.

As always, to make cash as a "working" dev you have to get as close as you can to a gigantic money funnel of some sort. The main difference from the U.S. is that there are fewer and different money fountains, especially missing unicorn and VC money. Finance, FAANG outposts and doing specialised things for huge real-economy companies still pay well.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#499

Post by mschuster91 » Tue, May 05, 2020, 11:23 PM UTC

supernova87a wrote: post #249

If Airbnb is willing to pay 14 weeks (3.25 months) of severance, they must believe this is going to go on significantly longer than that. Or they're using this as an opportunity to cut underperformers at the same time. Because if they believed things would start to recover by fall, wouldn't you just pay the people as normal and make a judgement call around then? You're spending the payroll money either way -- 14 week…

Tourism won't even come close to recover until at least half a year after a corona vaccine gets available, countries will do everything they can to avoid the need for a second lockdown, and that includes drastic border controls. And it is not sure yet how many airlines will survive the crisis, combined with planes being perfect spreading ground for corona... and without airlines there will be no tourists.

The whole industry is fucked and it will probably kill some countries too, a lot have a massive, unhealthy dependency on tourism.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#500

Post by fbourque » Tue, May 05, 2020, 11:24 PM UTC

alfalfasprout wrote: post #157

TulliusCicero wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like it's saying that Airbnb will pay for COBRA for that duration.

Airbnb employee here-- this is the consensus.

If it is the case it seems out of context to refer to this severance benefit as COBRA as it is my understanding this program has been specifically designed by Congress to force employers to offer the "opportunity" for the separated employees to get health insurance at full cost (without the employer subsidy).

Since the Affordable Care Act, it seems to be cheaper to forego COBRA benefit and enroll in one of the offered options. Lost of job let you do so outside of the official enrolment period.