Stack Overflow reduces global workforce by approximately 15% • Hacker News Board

Re: Stack Overflow reduces global workforce by approximately 15%

#51

Post by dgellow » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:18 AM UTC

cyberferret wrote: post #41

dylan604 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

35 whole people with no fractional people isn't that large o a number. If you use a period for the thousands mark, what do you use for the decimal part a semi-colon?

In Europe, the "." and "," characters in a number have the complete opposite meaning to when used in US/UK/Australian etc. numbers.

Not everywhere in Europe, it’s something country specific.

Also, a funny note: In Switzerland we have 3 formats depending if it is a currency, not a currency, or hand written :p

Re: Stack Overflow reduces global workforce by approximately 15%

#52

Post by cvaidya1986 » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:22 AM UTC

Assuming there was enough runway for a rainy day, this could be a great time to invest in some R&D projects that will pay off dividends when the sun starts to shine again.

Re: Stack Overflow reduces global workforce by approximately 15%

#53

Post by irrational » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:22 AM UTC

BoysenberryPi wrote: post #12

nikanj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are cutting down on advertising and non-mandatory spending. Plus paid job ads are probably not making much money right now

The post directly says they are seeing growth in their advertising business.

Does stackoverflow have ads? I would imagine that a large percentage of their technically savvy user base would be using an ad blocker.

Re: Stack Overflow reduces global workforce by approximately 15%

#54

Post by megadeth » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:23 AM UTC

Hate to see this business speak from a company I admire. Bad market to be in as a software engineer, with so many talented folks available.

Re: Stack Overflow reduces global workforce by approximately 15%

#55

Post by taurath » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:26 AM UTC

CameronNemo wrote: post #26

nrb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the post, it’s due to contraction with their talent sourcing product: > This week, we reduced our global workforce by approximately 15%. Most of the affected employees were furloughed, except for employees and contractors in regions where furloughs were unfortunately not an option. These actions primarily affected sales and customer success teams within our Talent business, which is dependent on the hiri…

What I find notable is that close to 15% (at least 7.5% if "most" means what everyone thinks it means) of the workforce is sales and marketing for a service that is not even core to their business.

Yup they took the money and now they need to grow grow grow and they’ll suffer for it.

Re: Stack Overflow reduces global workforce by approximately 15%

#56

Post by kahlonel » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:27 AM UTC

That's a whole lot of bullshit for a proactive backlash protection.

Re: Stack Overflow reduces global workforce by approximately 15%

#57

Post by villgax » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:30 AM UTC

SO is gonna be gobbled up by Github Issues altogether.

Re: Stack Overflow reduces global workforce by approximately 15%

#58

Post by dehrmann » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:31 AM UTC

abiogenesis wrote: post #24

KingOfCoders wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have thought better of Stack Overflow than this business speak.

They've been like this since Joel left and the new CEO stepped in. Obviously their mission is nothing but to increase their valuation by tenfold now. Edit: This is not my guess, it has actually been said by Joel Spolsky, the founder and the previous CEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMfxd9y0cMY&t=952

Hopefully they're careful going down this road. Remember SourceForce? Experts Exchange? If I were them, my secret (because what gets measured gets gamed) metric would be how many tech workers list their Stackoverflow profile on their resume/website/Linkedin. It's a proxy for reputation, and that's the thing they need to protect.

Re: Stack Overflow reduces global workforce by approximately 15%

#59

Post by unishark » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:31 AM UTC

Trasmatta wrote: post #2

> This is a key moment in our company’s history, as the whole world is dealing with significant uncertainty. Know that you are not alone. We are facing this situation together. Our goal is to stay focused on living our core values and actively connect with teammates, our community, and our customers. The phrase "We are facing this together" must sound really hollow if you're one of the people who has been laid off...

85% of us are in this together.

Re: Stack Overflow reduces global workforce by approximately 15%

#60

Post by 411111111111111 » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:33 AM UTC

johnvanommen wrote: post #44

noncoml wrote: post #15

I have some karma to burn, so here it goes: Be shitty to people and they will turn their back to you. I am ashamed to admit it, but I am happy to see companies that embrace being shitty to users, fall like a house of cards. Yes, SO embraced being shitty to users and creating a toxic environment for far too long, despite their latest weak attempts to fix it. I hope eBay, Paypal and Yelp are next. Also somewhat Reddit.…

> I hope eBay, Paypal and Yelp are next. For ten years I sold things on eBay about 5-6 times a year. It wasn't a business at all. Basically if I had an old phone or a laptop, I'd put it on eBay and get a few bucks for it. Around 2008 or so, I noticed that eBay's policies had shifted, so that sellers were at the mercy of the buyers. My last straw was when I sold a phone to someone. I'd paid $500 for the phone. I'd use…

about 10 yrs ago, i went through my old tech and thought to myself: maybe somebody can still use any of this stuff? things like a joystick, old ddr-ram for the first gen iMac and similar. i expected to make no money from it at all, basically just wanted to give it away.

people did bid on it, so i thought to myself: nice, i don't have to feel bad about throwing working tech in the bin...

well, after the second article with retarded complaints about shipping (i used old packaging from amazon deliveries iirc) i just thought to myself: screw this! I cancelled all other pending auctions and threw them away. Just not worth the effort. especially if you're only doing it for moral reasons.