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Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

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Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#131

Post by Gareth321 »

yrgulation wrote: post #118
vouaobrasil wrote: post #45

I interviewed at a startup once in Canada. They offered 40K per year (Canadian) and asked late working hours right in the interview process. No thanks...

Few years before the pandemic i researched moving to canada from the uk. I was shocked at how low tech pay was. Basically it was lower than in some east european countries for my level of experience. The way i see it, canada will follow the path denmark went after the 2008 crash. The software tech sector all but vanished and has not recovered since.

While it's hardly as dynamic as the U.S., Denmark seems to be doing just fine in the tech space. It's fair to say that a lot of tech talent is in larger organisations rather than startups. Denmark is a very sticky place to live (the quality of life is amazing, particularly for families), so people are reluctant to leave even if wages are not excellent. That said, wages are very good for Europe (there is only one or two countries where I could earn more).

All in all I see plenty of tech talent, it's just that, internationally, tech talent doesn't see Denmark as an obvious choice to which to relocate. Nine times out of 10, that's the U.S.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#132

Post by yrgulation »

Gareth321 wrote: post #131
yrgulation wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few years before the pandemic i researched moving to canada from the uk. I was shocked at how low tech pay was. Basically it was lower than in some east european countries for my level of experience. The way i see it, canada will follow the path denmark went after the 2008 crash. The software tech sector all but vanished and has not recovered since.

While it's hardly as dynamic as the U.S., Denmark seems to be doing just fine in the tech space. It's fair to say that a lot of tech talent is in larger organisations rather than startups. Denmark is a very sticky place to live (the quality of life is amazing, particularly for families), so people are reluctant to leave even if wages are not excellent. That said, wages are very good for Europe (there is only one or t…

I left denmark because tech wages were quite low compared to the uk after _all_ taxes have been factored in. The tech job market was basically non existent around 13 years ago. Still seems small upon a quick check as of today. Schools and universities are free but nowhere near the quality the uk offers. Public healthcare is ok but you still need to queue up or go private. It is a cool stable country, i like it, and danes are super friendly, but tech is dead.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#133

Post by throwawaylinux »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #119
throwawaylinux wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lower investment rates, spend less on R&D, have an ultra-risk averse culture Why do those make it worse? Lower investment rates means less money to lose, R&D is often trimmed first, and investment should go to lower risk in this kind of environment. And costs shouldn't be much higher than USA. I think the problem is actually the opposite. People say the US is willing to take risks which is why their tech and startu…

Higher investment rate means when prices go down/a recession happens, people invest in new businesses which means a recovery happens quicker and is more robust. Just look at Canada's GDP per capita over time versus the US'. Or the fact our only job growth since the pandemic started has been in government jobs. Our private sector is dying because it's more profitable to simply move money to the US or to put it all int…

> Higher investment rate means when prices go down/a recession happens, people invest in new businesses which means a recovery happens quicker and is more robust.

I mean you have lower rates so the downturn will have a smaller impact in an absolute sense.

> Just look at Canada's GDP per capita over time versus the US'. Or the fact our only job growth since the pandemic started has been in government jobs. Our private sector is dying because it's more profitable to simply move money to the US or to put it all into unproductive real estate.

Sure. If the downturn has a disproportional impact despite the sector's small size (investment), then it's because it was a far riskier investment than others.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#134

Post by friendzis »

b112 wrote: post #115
tobyjsullivan wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree that's a gross mischaracterization. For reference, the exact wording from Tobi Lutke is: > Was this surge to be a temporary effect or a new normal? And so, given what we saw, we placed another bet: We bet that the channel mix - the share of dollars that travel through ecommerce rather than physical retail - would permanently leap ahead by 5 or even 10 years. In other words, it was a gamble that an unpre…

Were the chances still extremely small? Also, absolutely. This is an extreme case of hindsight. You can only say so, definitively, looking back.

No, period. Pandemic e-commerce boom was direct consequence of people not going out, which comprised three major categories: back office employees going WFH and manufacturing/customer facing jobs getting shut down on one end and people needing some line of work / shops needing revenue on other end.

Were the chances that WFH proliferation will remain at pandemic levels high? No. Were the chances that opportunistic eshops will remain once prior corrects high? Debatable.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#135

Post by friendzis »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #72
tobyjsullivan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the bet had paid off… There’s the rub. The parent’s suggestion was that, probably, the new hires weren’t told anything along the lines of “Hey, this is a crazy gamble and it might not work out. Sign here to play.” Yes, it’s implied in “startups”. But companies as large as shopify aren’t generally hiring people from the startup scene anymore. People are (were?) leaving good, stable jobs to go there. Only they kno…

> "Hey, this is a crazy gamble and it might not work out. Sign here to play." That's a gross mischaracterization, and it weakens your argument. It wasn't a "crazy gamble." It was a calculated risk, one that I think even in hindsight looks like a reasonable one to make at the time. I think the overall question is whether it would have been better for those jobs never to have existed in the first place , rather than ha…

> It wasn't a "crazy gamble." It was a calculated risk

The theme of this thread is risk taken by employees. Sure, it can very easily be characterised as "calculated risk" for the company. Was that risk calculated for employees?

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#136

Post by barrenko »

friendzis wrote: post #135
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Hey, this is a crazy gamble and it might not work out. Sign here to play." That's a gross mischaracterization, and it weakens your argument. It wasn't a "crazy gamble." It was a calculated risk, one that I think even in hindsight looks like a reasonable one to make at the time. I think the overall question is whether it would have been better for those jobs never to have existed in the first place , rather than ha…

> It wasn't a "crazy gamble." It was a calculated risk The theme of this thread is risk taken by employees . Sure, it can very easily be characterised as "calculated risk" for the company. Was that risk calculated for employees?

Employees, like capital, are a component of the bet. Work is a lever just like money. Always is, always will be, that's how we have anything in capitalism. We might as well call it capitalaborism.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#137

Post by honkdaddy »

vgel wrote: post #127
xal wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "b…

> disseminating information to the public for the purpose of image management.

This is pretty much the definition of anyone ever making any kind of public statement. Choosing ones words carefully with the knowledge that what they're saying will affect others perception of themselves and the situation at hand. I don't think anywhere in Tobi's post was it implying this _wasn't_ a business decision, I figured that went without saying. Shopify's a business, hiring decisions are an enormous consideration for businesses. Were you under the impression Shopify was a charity?

> I know all the nice things you did! The P was R'd!

As much as this is the way you cynically expect others might interpret Tobi's post, I think anyone with experience working in or running a business will have no problem understanding that businesses are not people and that messages from a CEO are not meant to be treated as blogposts or emotional diary entries.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#138

Post by finikytou »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #72
tobyjsullivan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the bet had paid off… There’s the rub. The parent’s suggestion was that, probably, the new hires weren’t told anything along the lines of “Hey, this is a crazy gamble and it might not work out. Sign here to play.” Yes, it’s implied in “startups”. But companies as large as shopify aren’t generally hiring people from the startup scene anymore. People are (were?) leaving good, stable jobs to go there. Only they kno…

> "Hey, this is a crazy gamble and it might not work out. Sign here to play." That's a gross mischaracterization, and it weakens your argument. It wasn't a "crazy gamble." It was a calculated risk, one that I think even in hindsight looks like a reasonable one to make at the time. I think the overall question is whether it would have been better for those jobs never to have existed in the first place , rather than ha…

tbh betting on the fact that you will have explosive growth in the future while you are at the best economical time of your life at an exceptional time where most of the industries but e-commerce are suffering due to a worldwide pandemic and hoping that while millions of people died, countries debts increased, well gamgling that people will buy more after this time is a "Crazy gamble".

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#139

Post by djbebs »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #61
mabbo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, when demand for what you're selling decreases, you will be selling less of it.

Doesn't matter if it's labor, or widgets.

Re: Layoffs at Canadian tech startups

#140

Post by b112 »

friendzis wrote: post #134
b112 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were the chances still extremely small? Also, absolutely. This is an extreme case of hindsight. You can only say so, definitively, looking back.

No, period. Pandemic e-commerce boom was direct consequence of people not going out, which comprised three major categories: back office employees going WFH and manufacturing/customer facing jobs getting shut down on one end and people needing some line of work / shops needing revenue on other end. Were the chances that WFH proliferation will remain at pandemic levels high? No. Were the chances that opportunistic esh…

Were the chances that WFH proliferation will remain at pandemic levels high? No. Were the chances that opportunistic eshops will remain once prior corrects high? Debatable.

This is just more hindsight being employed.

It is so easy, so simple to look back, and proclaim one superior and correct.

Did you have these thoughts, and think all these precise things when people were hiring for pandemic booms?

Did you proclaim this loudly, put your reputation on the line, emphatically state that everyone was wrong, wrong!?

I doubt it.

I further doubt you, and the other poster, would have staked capital either way too. And you know why?

Because you didn't know with surety. Because this is all hindsight.

Heck, I'm willing to bet you had no opinion at all about this specific topic at all a year ago. None.

Unless you looked at this, thought about this, you're looking back.

Hindsight.

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