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Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

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Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#61

Post by __turbobrew__ »

mabbo wrote: post #47
sbarre wrote: post #7

This part at the end of the article is probably the real true nugget in here: > But implicit in that risk, Mr. Nayyar points out, is a lot of downside. Many executives thought, “but didn’t say out loud, that if demand disappeared or changed course – sometimes even slightly changed course – those people we brought on, it might not make sense to have them around any more. … You’re just a number on the page; whatever ha…

> Shopify, hired like mad during the pandemic boom knowing full-well that they would end up laying off a bunch of those new hires once things got "normal" again. You should read Tobi's post about what happened. That's not how it was. https://news.shopify.com/changes-to-shopifys-team# > Before the pandemic, ecommerce growth had been steady and predictable. Was this surge to be a temporary effect or a new normal? And s…

So they made a bet and if it doesn’t pay off the devs get fired but the execs making the bet get to stay?

Its not like shopify is even that good of a job for developers, they pay well below FAANG. Checking levels, Senior SWEs are only getting like 15k/year in grants which means you are taking on the start up risk without the potential 10x or 100x payoff.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#62

Post by negamax »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #57
negamax wrote: post #50

Unpopular opinion with some truth in it. Many of the SWEs and other product people in these companies left at the peak of pandemic due to burnout, but mostly due to cheap money. Many senior leaders cashed out their stock and went into the sunset. Companies responded with mass hiring as money was everywhere. They grossly underestimated the complexity of running an engineering org and now the bill is due. I think until…

Most Canadian companies don't want to pay the salaries to have the "old guard." I suspect a lot of people left during COVID not just because they were burnt out but because they could get better pay working remotely for US companies. They better hope we end up in a deep recession, because they're not fit to compete for talent when there's employers out there hiring remote at competitive rates.

That's exactly the narrative I want to address. Because I have seen this first hand. When the stocks were booming. Old people left. They didn't took another job. They left. Some cashed out $x millions.

Lot of indiscriminate hiring happened to puff up the leak. Companies were flushed with money. But that was a failing strategy. Companies can continue to go down that path, it will have further diminishing returns

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#63

Post by Apocryphon »

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #48
cardy31 wrote: post #21

Calling Shopify a Canadian Tech Startup is really getting old. At 10k+ employees the term “startup” should really stop being applied to it. It is really big, and many of its execs are from huge American banks. So even “Canadian” may soon cease to be a valid label for it.

As a non-SVer, this has always been something that confused me. What is the actual definition for "startup"? It doesn't seem to be tied to age, funding level, employee counts, user counts, revenues, or really anything else at all. Honestly, it seems like a mostly self-selected tag used to indicate culture -- e.g., expectations of working conditions (hours, for instance) that in "normal" business we have long ago real…

Open offices, beer kegs, and ping pong tables.

Which, frankly, at this point might very well include every company founded since Facebook and including FB. Maybe every tech company post-dot com bubble is spiritually a startup.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#64

Post by hw »

boringg wrote: post #40
valzam wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand about this: What's the point of bringing on so many engineers with the expectation of firing many of them? It takes time to get productive and especially when you hire lots of engineers they will probably work on new projects. Spending a lot of money on an engineer and then firing them before they start to really produce value is very odd...

I dont think they intended to have to lay off people. If everyone recalls during the core of the pandemic people really thought that this was the new normal. Im sure they thought that this was a full time step change in demand. I doubt they anticipated a recession (much like most companies). The executives at most companies aren't that smart on long term macros, much more reactionary to immediate needs

I doubt anyone would do it differently if put in Tobi’s place. If you see a bump in demand and growth for your product, do you just wave it off and hope the existing team can handle the increase stress on infrastructure, product needs, customer support, sales, etc?

Why not capitalize on it while you can, and if it doesnt pan out just reverse course and fire fast.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#65

Post by kart23 »

dehrmann wrote: post #30
mjr00 wrote: post #4

This isn't a uniquely Canadian problem at all, it's just Canada experiencing the pain of the wider tech sector. Ultimately, it's the same issue as what's happened (and happening) in the US: the VC fun money dried up, and it's no longer cool to be an unprofitable business with a lot of "growth potential". Now tech leadership is being forced to balance a budget and figure out a path to profitability instead of just per…

Shopify is publicly traded and is an e-commerce platform. It isn't dependent on VC money to run, and neither are its customers. What happened was people shifted discretionary spending to e-commerce during covid, and between things reopening, having a fully-stocked home gym, and inflation, they cut back on buying stuff. Wealthsimple might have funding issues (I'm not sure), but it lost a lot of use because again, its…

…shopify is losing more than 1 billion a quarter.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#67

Post by michaelcampbell »

barkingcat wrote: post #27
cardy31 wrote: post #21

Calling Shopify a Canadian Tech Startup is really getting old. At 10k+ employees the term “startup” should really stop being applied to it. It is really big, and many of its execs are from huge American banks. So even “Canadian” may soon cease to be a valid label for it.

Shopify was also launched in 2006, making it a 16 year old company. While not all startups are young in time-age, calling shopify a "startup" is a misnomer.

I've seen this a couple times; a startup makes it past whatever threshold you'd consider a startup, but doesn't want to let go of that "culture" or zeitgeist, or whatever romantic notion they had of yore.

In one case they were bought, so now they were part of a 75k+ employee behemoth. But still, with only some irony, called themselves "scrappy".

In another they're still privately owned, but are over 7 years old, with close to 500 employees, and allegedly #1 in their space. I feel they like to hide behind this "startup" idea because it relieves them of putting on the big-boy pants and accepting that the expense of moving fast being the #1 priority is actually something they're having a hard time paying.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#68

Post by michaelcampbell »

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #48
cardy31 wrote: post #21

Calling Shopify a Canadian Tech Startup is really getting old. At 10k+ employees the term “startup” should really stop being applied to it. It is really big, and many of its execs are from huge American banks. So even “Canadian” may soon cease to be a valid label for it.

As a non-SVer, this has always been something that confused me. What is the actual definition for "startup"? It doesn't seem to be tied to age, funding level, employee counts, user counts, revenues, or really anything else at all. Honestly, it seems like a mostly self-selected tag used to indicate culture -- e.g., expectations of working conditions (hours, for instance) that in "normal" business we have long ago real…

> mostly self-selected tag used to indicate culture

This is _precisely_ how I've seen it (mis)used; a (IMO very creepy) need to hang on to those wonder-years that got you there. It's also when you typically see the "visionary" type leaders start heading out and doing it over again.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#69

Post by cmrdporcupine »

negamax wrote: post #62
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Canadian companies don't want to pay the salaries to have the "old guard." I suspect a lot of people left during COVID not just because they were burnt out but because they could get better pay working remotely for US companies. They better hope we end up in a deep recession, because they're not fit to compete for talent when there's employers out there hiring remote at competitive rates.

That's exactly the narrative I want to address. Because I have seen this first hand. When the stocks were booming. Old people left. They didn't took another job. They left. Some cashed out $x millions. Lot of indiscriminate hiring happened to puff up the leak. Companies were flushed with money. But that was a failing strategy. Companies can continue to go down that path, it will have further diminishing returns

I mean, I did that. I left Google and cashed out. I'm not old, but I'm mid-life. I'm not able to retire. I just couldn't handle the bullshit anymore. But now I'm working again (for less $) because I need the money :-)

But TBH the hiring frenzy was happening long before that. When I left (end of last year), I heard Google had hired something like half its staff just during the pandemic period. Not sure if I believe that, but if so, that's crazy. None of those people even saw the inside of the office.

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