We're in a recession. Any time there's a recession, people become bearish and want to be paid in cash and not stock options. So it's bad times for startups. The good news is, the startups that make it though this will be the ones where people really made a product they were passionate about. Think Square or Skype.
Layoffs at Canadian tech startups
121–130 of 183 posts
Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups
#122Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I mean this is fine if you just abstract away those people being fired as resources without feelings, bills, families, or opportunity cost…
Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You should read Tobi's post about what happened. That's not how it was. I did read that back when it was posted. I hope you recognize PR when you see it? Sorry if it came across like I was saying that companies are being evil or bad or vain about how they're hiring. Quite the opposite, and more dangerously, I think companies see nothing wrong with the boom-then-bust approach to hiring, and that it's going to happen…
I write my own posts, not PR. Don’t be so jaded.
Yeah the point of this entire thread is that your (not unique to you, but you are certainly one of the CEOs that are easiest to vilify when discussing this phenomenon) incentives are so skewed that a given employee should be very cautious about joining your company.
You made a bet on e-commerce penetration. The reason it was so easy for you to make that bet is because if you were correct, you’d be even more fabulously wealthy. If you were wrong (like you were), you could simply lay off the employees you hired and tuck the severance package into one quarter of extraordinary charges.
The employee view of that is that if you were right, they’d be somewhat wealthy and if you were wrong (which you were) their lives would be completely upended.
That’s all. It’s just an attempt to remind people that even CEOs who have good intentions (and author layoff memos in a cerebral tone without the help of PR) can still cause absolute havoc in their lives because of the asymmetry of the power dynamic.
Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You should read Tobi's post about what happened. That's not how it was. I did read that back when it was posted. I hope you recognize PR when you see it? Sorry if it came across like I was saying that companies are being evil or bad or vain about how they're hiring. Quite the opposite, and more dangerously, I think companies see nothing wrong with the boom-then-bust approach to hiring, and that it's going to happen…
I write my own posts, not PR. Don’t be so jaded.
If you only take issue with the PR commentary it is very telling for the validity of the rest of the argument.
Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You should read Tobi's post about what happened. That's not how it was. I did read that back when it was posted. I hope you recognize PR when you see it? Sorry if it came across like I was saying that companies are being evil or bad or vain about how they're hiring. Quite the opposite, and more dangerously, I think companies see nothing wrong with the boom-then-bust approach to hiring, and that it's going to happen…
I write my own posts, not PR. Don’t be so jaded.
It's not personal, but you're the CEO. You're going to put the best possible spin on anything you or the company does.
That's your job, and everyone expects it.
It's like buying a car. I expect the dealer to tell me everything positive about buying the car and nothing negative, because, hey, he's a salesperson.
Even if you were being 100% factual and hiding nothing, nobody will actually believe that. It just comes with the territory.
Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You should read Tobi's post about what happened. That's not how it was. I did read that back when it was posted. I hope you recognize PR when you see it? Sorry if it came across like I was saying that companies are being evil or bad or vain about how they're hiring. Quite the opposite, and more dangerously, I think companies see nothing wrong with the boom-then-bust approach to hiring, and that it's going to happen…
I write my own posts, not PR. Don’t be so jaded.
It isn't not-PR just because you wrote it. It's PR because it's disseminating information to the public for the purpose of image management.
The information is that the company thought it could grow more during the pandemic by hiring new people, and "bet" growth would stick around and those people could stay on in the long term. Is that wrong? Well, that's business. (I have absolutely no doubt, of course, that the "bet"-nature of the employment was carefully communicated during hiring.)
The PR is that this business decision is presented as a story of Shopify's brave history of taking on daring bets, its decision to take on another, its defeat at the hands of unflinching (completely external) factors, its kind treatment of employees that there is no option but to let go in these difficult times, and the new, refocused, decisive organization that will be reborn (after some people who joined 6 months ago get laid off).
It's not all bad. 16 weeks severance seems generous to me, letting people keep their chairs is kind of random but nice, the job referral stuff is a nice gesture, etc. I know all the nice things you did! The P was R'd!
It's just, at the end of the day, it's an obviously-business decision that's being told as something else. People got fucked over by a confluence of factors after the higher-ups decided to take a risk. There's no story here. There's no arc of Shopify History. The job of PR, regardless of the letters after the name of whoever writes it, is to make it seem like there is one when bad stuff happens.
Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups
#128Earlier 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...
In large companies, don't assume that there is a coherent and unified vision on hiring or growth. Different managers/directors/VPs have their own portfolios, their own budgets, their own roadmaps and KPIs. This leads to duplication, inefficiencies, and more.. But tech companies make so much money that in most cases this is accepted as cost of doing business - up to a point. Also in some places, if you don't hire for…
> In large companies, don't assume that there is a coherent and unified vision on hiring or growth
...or indeed a coherent and unified vision on anything at all
Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups
#129Canadian tech startups are hilarious . The domestic media likes to play up Hootsuite in Vancouver like it's a big deal. Maybe in the context of Vancouver's size of tech job market... But it's absolutely nothing compared to what exists in Seattle or anywhere in California or places in NY, Texas, etc. The unfortunate lesson that every Canadian working in the tech field will learn is that if you're really talented and e…
>Canadian tech startups are hilarious. The domestic media likes to play up Hootsuite in Vancouver like it's a big deal.
Don't forget how, after Trump's election in 2016, Canadian media proclaimed at length how hordes of tech companies and employees would flee north of the border. Montreal as "AI superpower", anyone?
Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups
#130A “startup” in Canada is just a dozen guys who stay afloat by chasing $50k government grants full time. It’s very good when these go out of business
Only $50k grants? You must have missed the AI startup wave here in Montreal. They didn't end up producing much, if anything, of value. But they sure knew how to scale those grants/"government investments" to a completely new level.
>Only $50k grants? You must have missed the AI startup wave here in Montreal.
Indeed, I certainly remember the days when Montreal was said to be the next "AI superpower".
How much of that was driven by the media predicting after Trump's election in 2016 that hordes of tech companies and employees would flee north of the border? (And how much of that reporting, in turn, was driven by smug Trudeau government bureaucrats who actually believed what they told sympathetic/gullible reporters?)