Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff • Hacker News Board

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#21

Post by subsubzero » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #10

I've heard rumors that Meta and Google have massive layoffs coming as well. Good luck out there

I've heard the same, Meta for sure, and a few folks at Goog have told me as well they are coming. For google this will be the first time they have ever done layoffs in the company history(2009 had 200 folks leave so not really layoffs so to speak) so that tells you the scale of this tech downturn.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#22

Post by browningstreet » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

Patreon's handling of expired cards is terrible.. people I know who used Patreon just lose subscribers because the flow for fixing an expired card basically doesn't exist (or didn't, maybe it's been fixed since). Those people left Patreon and won't be returning.

Their new engineering staff could fix that, for one.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#23

Post by codegeek » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

A blog post was done other than Instagram:

https://blog.patreon.com/a-note-from-jack

"but as the world began recovering from the pandemic and enduring a broader economic slowdown, that plan is no longer the right path forward for Patreon"

So basically, they overhired to meet demands during Pandemic and now as less people are using the platform (??), there is no need for the 17% of people. Interesting.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#24

Post by throwawaymaths » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

sprkwd wrote: post #2

Doing this on Instagram seems… off. Can’t put my finger in it.

This is legitimate feeling, maybe because not all your employees might have Instagram. We can't assume it wasn't also done on internal channels, though?

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#25

Post by bombcar » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #15

What does “taking full responsibility” even mean? Like people lose their livelihood and you can get away with “I take full responsibility”. Taking full responsibility mean taking a pay cut or stepping down or basically taking consequences for yourself first before others have to.

It's a far sight better than some of the "the employees we let go were worse than worthless, likely the spawn of Satan himself" memos you see.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#26

Post by seibelj » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

subsubzero wrote: post #21

seibelj wrote: post #10

I've heard rumors that Meta and Google have massive layoffs coming as well. Good luck out there

I've heard the same, Meta for sure, and a few folks at Goog have told me as well they are coming. For google this will be the first time they have ever done layoffs in the company history(2009 had 200 folks leave so not really layoffs so to speak) so that tells you the scale of this tech downturn.

You can't have your stock down 60% YoY (META) without consequence. There is a whole lot of fat at both of these companies (and really all large firms that never had any bad quarters) and a reckoning has to happen

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#27

Post by bombcar » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

jfasi wrote: post #6

Looks like most of the layoffs are in marketing and sales, and that they're still hiring on engineering and product. Honestly, I'm surprised they had marketing and sales people to begin with. Those sorts of efforts pay off most with big-name, high-end artists who probably don't need monthly patrons to be successful. Focusing in improving the product seems like a smarter move, especially given how janky their product…

These "user generated content companies" spend a lot of time and money marketing to the content creators (Patreon is defending against the built-in platform monetization of things like Youtube and Twitch, et al) and getting big name content creators on their platform (see some of the leaks related to Onlyfans, etc al).

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#28

Post by Scarjit » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 5:28 PM UTC

behnamoh wrote: post #20

bo0tzz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your quoting suggests that you think what people on onlyfans and patreon do aren't "real jobs", but in fact to succeed in those spaces needs very hard work.

> but in fact to succeed in those spaces needs very hard work. But that doesn't make it a job. You could do hard work in moving a mountain but that's not a job. Needless to say, earning money off of your looks (something you didn't work hard to gain in the first place) doesn't qualify as hard-working job.

If you get paid moving that mountain, it would be a job.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#29

Post by stu2b50 » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 5:28 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #15

What does “taking full responsibility” even mean? Like people lose their livelihood and you can get away with “I take full responsibility”. Taking full responsibility mean taking a pay cut or stepping down or basically taking consequences for yourself first before others have to.

It means that the employees are being let go because he did a bad job, not that they were low performing or that other employee performances caused patreon to perform better.

It doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things but it’s just that he is claiming culpability for all of the ills patreon is experiencing.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#30

Post by zimpenfish » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

mike_d wrote: post #16

gobirds321 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was first posted on their blog here: https://blog.patreon.com/a-note-from-jack

Are we supposed to know who Jack is? Sounds like someone is in serious need of an ego check.

> Are we supposed to know who Jack is?

I should imagine the people that blog post is relevant to know who he is, yes.