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Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

blog.patreon.com

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Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#151

Post by etchalon »

nomel wrote: post #104
awb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody looks like they are going to lose their livelihood over this We don’t know everyone’s unique situation, even if they did go beyond what most companies do.

No. That's not the social contract for employment. It's dangerous to think it is. There's a mutual need from both parties. When that need changes, both parties are free to respond. Forcing a company to keep someone would be just as bad as forcing someone to stay. What we also don't know is the companies financial situation. Keeping people on when they can't be afforded can be a way to make a company completely collap…

There's a difference between "someone will lose their livelihood because of this" and "that's entirely the employers fault."

Recognizing the impact of an action does not mean you're entirely responsible for it.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#152

Post by cbozeman »

ajkjk wrote: post #120
NoFactualActual wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's taking responsibility...and taking corrective action for the long term health and viability of the business. Maybe this is just a language thing, but in my world "taking responsibility" involves some action to personally shoulder the pain of the layoffs beyond saying "my bad". I'd expect it'd at least begin with resignation in this case. Just like you can't just announce "I declare bankruptcy" to shrug off deb…

The post includes tons of details about complicated things Patreon is doing to help out the people affected. Do those count for nothing to you? It feels like you are insisting not on "support" or "generosity" but on "sacrifice".

Here's how the Federal Government defines:

Responsibility

Being responsible means being dependable, keeping promises and honoring our commitments. It is accepting the consequences for what we say and do. It also means developing our potential.

People who are responsible don't make excuses for their actions or blame others when things go wrong. They think things through and use good judgment before they take action. They behave in ways that encourage others to trust them.

People who are responsible take charge of their lives. They make plans and set goals for nurturing their talents and skills. They are resilient in finding ways to overcome adversity. They make decisions, taking into account obligations to family and community.

This guy literally made excuses for his actions: "broader economic slowdown"

"To ensure that we make progress on that roadmap, we are increasing our investment in product, engineering, and design, which means decreasing our spend on other ares[sic] of the company."

So it's not even a money issue. They have the money, they just want to spend it on servers and other people.

And finally, just so we're clear, I don't take umbrage with his decision and his plan for his employees. Hell, it's admirable, frankly. I take umbrage with his words. He's not taking responsibility. Responsibility means he'd cut his pay as much as necessary to keep these people because he misjudged the market and where it's headed post-COVID-19 lockdowns (since there is no such thing as 'post-COVID-19' - it's here forever now).

This is pretty classic example of wanting to have the best of all possible worlds.

"I want to be lauded for my graciousness. I want to be lauded for taking responsibility. I want to be lauded by my investors for a plan that grows the company."

That's why this is a load of horseshit. He's trying to please everyone. I have no doubt he probably agonized over this decision - I really do not; but he made it, and that means there are certain consequences with which he must live, one of those is that it should be clear to his employees that they will always take a backseat when the economic times get tough.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#153

Post by ginger2016 »

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: post #53

This bit from the employee announcement about how they're handling equity vesting [1] is worth highlighting as a pretty classy move, all things considered: > We’re waiving the one-year equity vesting cliff for all departing employees so that everyone has an opportunity to be a shareholder, regardless of your tenure. [...] All departing teammates will qualify for an extended option exercise period of 5 years, and we h…

I am not a user or an employee of Patreon, still I appreciate Patreon being generous about equity vesting.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#155

Post by r00fus »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #86
unity1001 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody looks like they are going to lose their livelihood over this: https://blog.patreon.com/a-note-from-jack 3 months' of pay + longer depending on tenure at the company. Healthcare until the end of the year. Mental care up to 6 months. They contracted a placement company to place the laid off staff to other companies in the sector. A lot of those people will already get hooked up by a company within a week or so,…

Mid-November through December is a hiring no-man's land due to the accumulation of end-of-year vacations and family trips. Most of these employees have about a month and a half before the shutdown begins and they are stuck scrambling to try to find work in the new year.

This viewpoint seems very domain/market dependent. Retail usually explodes during winter months, for example.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#156

Post by skilled »

Interesting... As comments have pointed out already, this might have to do with the fact that companies kept on hiring more people to deal with the influx of customers during the pandemic.

I don't question it, but I most definitely question how many of these companies blindly hired these people without spending a second thinking about consequences of their actions. Shopify was recently in the news for the same reason[0].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32237574

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#157

Post by cbozeman »

davezatch wrote: post #92
dougmwne wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be meaningless virtue signaling. Standard corporate speak.

What would non-“meaningless virtue signaling” look like to you? This seems quite decent as far as these things go.

That's because you didn't come up in a time when people who fucked up like this would step down from their position for their clear and obviously failed leadership. You're not used to seeing what "full responsibility" actually is.

Full responsibility is a samurai killing himself painfully while his best friend cuts off his head to end his suffering. That's full responsibility.

This is, "I fucked up guys, here's 3-6 months pay and some benes... my bad. And yeah I know I fucked up last year too, but I took full responsibility then as well, so it's all good..."

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#158

Post by Ekaros »

bilsbie wrote: post #101

It’s weird these companies grow this big. How many software engineers do you need to monthly bill a list of people and transfer it to a different list? That’s like a single person saas.

1 is bit low with number of customers that is both creators and users. But I would see the right number reasonably be under 100. With some geographical distribution.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#159

Post by cbozeman »

saos wrote: post #50
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.

He said the same thing last year lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV-3GgU6rlo It seems to be what most CEO are saying lately.

It's like people didn't read the statement at all. He clearly says they're going to invest more into engineering and some other shit... so it's not about money. They're going to spend more fucking money. This sounds like a bunch of people got their jobs automated away through algorithms or intelligent systems or just whatever innovation you wanna chalk it up to, and they redundant to the company, so they gotta go.

This is why I will never be a CEO. I'd just come right out and say, "17% of you are expendable and I had your jobs replaced by scripts and a few machines. I'm going to use that money to buy more machines, hire more brilliant engineers, and see what percentage of the company I can replace by next year."

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#160

Post by Ekaros »

rmah wrote: post #110
lxe wrote: post #93

Every SV company: 1. Start a company that does a thing well 2. Hire enough people to do the thing well 3. For some reason, hire more and more people to do more and more random things 4. Hire more managers who hire even more people 5. You are now a complicated mess and can't get anything done 6. Run out of money 7. Fire people and write a sad post. Continue to collect hefty CEO salary. Why not just stop at 2?

Because if you stop at #2... 1) you won't attract any follow-on investment capital; 2) your original investor will be angry that you're sitting on a pile of money that is doing nothing; 3) you will likely grow slower than your other competitors. in some markets, this is death, in other markets, this is fine. Patreon had nearly 500 staff before layoffs. Now has about 400 staff. You may have a hard time understanding w…

Shouldn't point 2) be start paying the pile of money back? Or allow investor to sell the whole thing to someone else who just want to live on dividends.
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