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Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

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Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#251

Post by code_biologist »

coredog64 wrote: post #228
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, it avoids a perception problem which may be far worse: the hypothetical perception that the people drawing up the layoffs were racist and that they disproportionately affected minorities. They wrote "Layoffs like this can have a more pronounced impact on marginalized communities, so we were particularly focused.." on making sure they did not. If they ignored race entirely, and just laid off people at random,…

The EEOC will have something to say if your layoff disproportionate effects a protected group. The right thing here is for management to keep their mouth shut and point people to the EEOC if they believe this layoff was disproportionate.

The issue is that the layoff will disproportionately affect protected groups. Engineering is disproportionately male, east asian, south asian, and white. Companies with explicit diversity targets make up for this by compensating in other company orgs (HR, marketing, sales, admin) making them disproportionately female, black, and hispanic.

This means when you keep good engineers but lay off HR, marketing, sales, and admin employees, the layoffs look really bad in terms of affected protected groups.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#252

Post by peckrob »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #110

>Twilio had 7,867 employees as of Dec. 31, 2021. Every single layoff story stupefies me. Confuses. Flabbergasts. What are these companies doing with so many people? What are they doing? Like, what are their day-to-day tasks? My employer has more people but we build nuclear reactors and spacecraft. Our revenue per employee is nearly double Twilio's and is low for a "tech" firm due to the extremely high capital costs a…

I am glad I'm not the only person who has had this thought, and I think it every time I see how many people some of these random tech companies employ. Those are the kinds of employee numbers I would expect from a much larger company than Twilio.

For reference, in the past I worked for an immensely profitable eCommerce business and I don't think our entire engineering department ever reached more than 40 people at its absolute largest.

I know all those employees aren't engineers, and I've been around long enough to know that what we see from the outside is just the tip of the iceberg. But if we assume even 25% of them are engineers directly working on the product, that is still nearly 2,000 people. That must be a huge iceberg.

So what on Earth are all those people doing? I am not being sarcastic or obtuse, I am genuinely curious because the only organization that I have ever worked for that was that size or larger was the US government. Is it administrative/managerial bloat? Are there a bunch of different pivot projects going on? What does Twilio have going on that needs nearly 8,000 employees?

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#253

Post by skyyler »

claudiawerner wrote: post #250
skyyler wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you recommend some texts responsible for the change in scope? My understanding of CRT is that race is entirely a social construction, and that the laws and attitudes surrounding race are primarily informed by this social construction and not anything with real biological basis. When did that change?

That's not really a good understanding - it may seem pedantic, but legal theorists and sociologists have very little to say about the 'real biological basis' of race; it's simply not within their purview. However, it may be used as an assumption or presupposition or not considered at all. You mentioned 'and that the laws and attitudes surrounding race are primarily informed by this social construction' which correctl…

I appreciate the feedback... Can you recommend any texts on CRT? My view is that of a layperson, I've never interacted with scholarly theory beyond reading shitposts about Hegel on telegram.

But this is actually an interesting topic to me and I'd love to learn more.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#254

Post by silent_cal »

John23832 wrote: post #34

(I am a black man) I feel like the statement that the layoffs "were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens" puts a target on the backs of the people who you claim to be helping. If you're affected by layoffs described this way, you then question whether that was because of who you are. That then makes it harder for the minorities you claim to be "helping" to stay in the room anywhere else because of…

I agree with you but it's nothing new. The same thing happens all the time during hiring and college admission decisions. I think the unintended consequence of all such programs will be resentment and mistrust.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#255

Post by slt2021 »

the_doctah wrote: post #237
blockwriter wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the first problem not the immediate implication of laying people off through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens? You have to assume that the lens selected not exclusively on merit, but also on factors like race, gender, orientation, or creed, in some measure, or in at least one instance. Otherwise, the lens could be said the exist, ever vigilant in its purpose, and yet was not required in this particular batch of…

They say anti-racist but they really just mean racist. They are taking race into account when making staffing decisions. It's as illegal as the extra "side pot" of raise money my company has for diverse employees.

Companies care about diversity numbers when they have a lot of cheap funding.

When funding is tough, pure capitalism takes over woke values and it is up to whether your monetary value to the company>your monetary cost to the company.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#257

Post by replygirl »

taurath wrote: post #245
replygirl wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

woke came out of aave and was more widely popularized in 2014 via blm edit: parent edited from "woke" to "woke culture gone wild" after i posted this

It’s literally in the platform of the Republican Party to “fight woke culture”

it's also in the platform of many leftists. woke culture debases woke politics and gives cover to neoliberals' authoritarian, anti-worker policy

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#258

Post by the_doctah »

Blackthorn wrote: post #161
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> better, more fair Imagine being a white guy, just laid off... it's not better, it's not fair, it seems like pure racism (even if you'd get fired anyways), and in a normal country, would be a basis for a discrimination lawsuit.

> it's not better, it's not fair It's also probably not true in the first place. Which is the point of my post.

Your post is pure speculation and just kind of excuses this behavior. We should be asking why this corporate entity feels the need to casually dip into racism to virtue signal about the perceived positives of this layoff.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#259

Post by Ensorceled »

Antrikshy wrote: post #241
Ensorceled wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, more charitably, "We avoided laying off racial/oppressed minorities for racist/bigoted reasons"

That should be a given. Why even bring it up? It's like saying "I'm not racist" before doing something unrelated.

> That should be a given. Why even bring it up?

It should be; but I think it's naive or disingenuous to imply that hiring/layoff decisions are usually fair and unbiased, especially in multiple departments in a large organization.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#260

Post by slt2021 »

ransom1538 wrote: post #244
John23832 wrote: post #34

(I am a black man) I feel like the statement that the layoffs "were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens" puts a target on the backs of the people who you claim to be helping. If you're affected by layoffs described this way, you then question whether that was because of who you are. That then makes it harder for the minorities you claim to be "helping" to stay in the room anywhere else because of…

"I feel like the statement that the layoffs "were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens" puts a target on the backs of the people who you claim to be helping." How do they know who is what race though? If I am 50% latino / 50% asian what does that mean? Do you get to pick? Or do they test my skin color? Do they have forms to fill out what race you are? Do they do genetic testing? Depressing racism i…

your race is saved in HR system once you apply for the job
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