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Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

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Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#421

Post by Ferrotin »

yojo wrote: post #403
choko wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not claiming that there aren't some people in positions of authority that don't make prejudiced assumptions. What I'm saying is that you can't assume every time something like this happens it's due to race. Statistics without context are often misleading. I read the article and it's hardly objective. I would prefer to see the dataset as well as other demographics and details of who was stopped, the kind of cars t…

It is hard to think of any rational to stop a well-dressed person engaging in no shady behavior and immediately escalate to “lie face-down with your hands over your head.” There are other news reports of similar incidents with black men. If race is not a factor, we would expect to see many more white than black men wrongly treated in this way, as they are a larger share of the population. I’m not aware of similar rep…

Now ask yourself why black traffic deaths are up a lot more than other races’ the past couple of years.

When you are hitting cars with a radar gun — that’s how most speeding tickets happen — you in fact cannot see the race of the driver.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#422

Post by terryneo3 »

Well. Job cuts are a serious problem right now. A report from CouponBirds shows that the US unemployment rate rose to 3.7 percent in August of 2022, the highest since February and above market expectations of 3.5 percent. The number of unemployed people increased by 344 thousand to 6.014 million, while employment levels went up by 442 thousand to 158.732 million. And according to the survey, the District of Columbia had the highest unemployment rate in August at 5.2 percent, followed by Alaska and New Mexico, both at 4.5. Minnesota had the lowest unemployment rate, at 1.8 percent.

https://www.couponbirds.com/research-center/data/unemploymen...

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#423

Post by xeromal »

mod wrote: post #299
pc86 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So of the 29,800,000 other businesses "without a CEO," how many of them still have one person making the majority of the decisions? I'd venture to say 80-90% of them. And how many of the largest, most economically successful companies have no CEO? Zero.

> 1. We shouldn't have CEOs, in which case most businesses today wouldn't exist. I was just responding to this. Sounds like you agree we'd have "most" of the 30M businesses left.

They're saying that even though small business owners may not technically be CEO, they are the business owner which is just another title for CEO. lol. You're being too technical. Their point is sound.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#424

Post by xeromal »

guywithabike wrote: post #206
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #72

Why do these companies blow their load and lay people off at the slightest sign of trouble? Layoffs should be a last resort because of the pain that they cause.

TWLO is down 80% from its 52 week high, even after today's 10% rise. Do you really believe that this is the "slightest sign of trouble"?

So I'm a big dummy, but I STILL don't understand how current stock price affects companies. They've already raised their money. How does the stock going down make them lose money other than lowering their chance at another seed round?

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#425

Post by drc500free »

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…

Every layoff I've seen is analyzed for a disparate impact against protected classes. This is straightforward defense against a discrimination lawsuit, where the demographics of the layed off population and the retained population will be compared as exhibit 1.

I suspect this is just Twilio trying to get social justice credit for standard HR practices.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#426

Post by nonethewiser »

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…

They should clarify that race, gender, etc. was not a factor in their decision making process. Although then it would be hard to make sense of their statement.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#427

Post by codefreeordie »

OJFord wrote: post #393
lr1970 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it plain illegal. For employment purposes Race is a protected class (at least in USA) and racial discrimination while hiring or firing violates federal law. How would they get away with this?

It's so vague and weasel-wordy - if it's genuinely 'anti-racist' then (why mention it‽ and) it doesn't disproportionately affect white people, or anyone (race-based). I agree the implication seems very much like an intended 'affirmative'/'positive' action role-selection policy though. (I think such things are stupid - whether hiring/firing/anything - and bad for everybody, but I am white, so I try to keep that a 'lig…

No post body was provided.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#428

Post by codefreeordie »

nonethewiser wrote: post #426
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…

They should clarify that race, gender, etc. was not a factor in their decision making process. Although then it would be hard to make sense of their statement.

No post body was provided.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#429

Post by nonethewiser »

lr1970 wrote: post #209
crackercrews wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This creates three problems. The first is that some white people who were affected will believe it was because of their race. The second is that minorities who were not affected may be assumed to have been kept because of their minority status. But the most harmful is for minorities who were laid off. That signals that they were really subpar, even more than the average laid off person. It seems like this policy has…

But is it plain illegal. For employment purposes Race is a protected class (at least in USA) and racial discrimination while hiring or firing violates federal law. How would they get away with this?

Lack of enforcement. And the ubiquitousness of racism in hiring and admissions.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#430

Post by drc500free »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #155
crackercrews wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This creates three problems. The first is that some white people who were affected will believe it was because of their race. The second is that minorities who were not affected may be assumed to have been kept because of their minority status. But the most harmful is for minorities who were laid off. That signals that they were really subpar, even more than the average laid off person. It seems like this policy has…

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,…

> f they ignored race entirely, and just laid off people at random, there's a chance that someone later would say "Twilio employees are 35% female, 33% Asian, 9% Latino, and 6% Black, but the laid-off employees were 11% Latino! Racism!"

It's not a chance, it's a guarantee. Every layoff gets lawsuits claiming discrimination and has so for decades. Which is why virtually every company does this analysis as a normal part of executing a layoff... and has done so for decades.

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