Salesforce will lay off 10% of staff as part of restructuring • Hacker News Board

Re: Salesforce will lay off 10% of staff as part of restructuring

#81

Post by andsoitis » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 3:56 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #71

ubertaco wrote: post #14

Last time they did this, it was _right_ after the window that they had grandstanded and asked other companies to pledge no pandemic layoffs. Benioff did a whole media tour talking about how Salesforce would do no pandemic layoffs to set some kind of example, and said that they didn't expect other companies to follow their example, but asked them to just pledge no layoffs for 90 days, even though Salesforce was going…

Co-heads is always a subtext for executive disfunction. I don't think I've ever heard of it working out long term at any level from division co-head to co-CEO. It's also fascinating the opposite direction is also allowed to persist - the guy who is CEO of 4 companies at once. As a lowly high income IC, I am prohibited from almost any outside business activity and in some cases forced to divest when joining a new firm…

> Co-heads is always a subtext for executive disfunction. I don't think I've ever heard of it working out long term at any level from division co-head to co-CEO

Don’t VC’s generally prefer that a startup has co-founders? Having such a team mate fosters better decisions, acts as cheerleader when one person is feeling down, etc.

I don’t see a material difference between that and having a co-CEO setup…

What do you think?

Re: Salesforce will lay off 10% of staff as part of restructuring

#82

Post by missedthecue » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 3:58 PM UTC

jdhn wrote: post #6

mkl95 wrote: post #5

> Stock rises after company announces broad restructuring plan focused on driving ‘profitable growth’ Could someone explain how layoffs lead to stock rises in layman terms?

Lowering costs --> higher profits.

Why not fire 100% of employees in that case?

Re: Salesforce will lay off 10% of staff as part of restructuring

#83

Post by zippergz » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 3:58 PM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #63

dsaavy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the lock-in is real, there are other platforms that are catching up fast. My firm does Salesforce to HubSpot migrations as part of our services, and it's getting easier and easier to switch. Still takes time to retrain and shift business processes to a different philosophy, but we almost always see better usage of the platform, better data, and happier users. HubSpot is not a replacement for hugely complex orga…

What I like about Hubspot is it doesn't try to eat half your org. Salesforce is the ERP of the product world.

I agree, but Salesforce didn't start out that way, and I'm willing to bet that Hubspot wants to be like Salesforce when they grow up.

Re: Salesforce will lay off 10% of staff as part of restructuring

#84

Post by tomnipotent » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #35

makestuff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

typically you need 1.5-2x a persons salary in revenue to cover their cost in the US.

According to Google the average Salesforce employee makes $115,000/year, so double that and it's $230,000. By those numbers labor would be almost 50% of their revenue.

According to their most recent quarterly report, they had ~$16B in operating expenses on $23B in revenue through Q322. I would imagine a vast majority of opex is headcount.

Re: Salesforce will lay off 10% of staff as part of restructuring

#85

Post by dilyevsky » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

ubertaco wrote: post #14

Last time they did this, it was _right_ after the window that they had grandstanded and asked other companies to pledge no pandemic layoffs. Benioff did a whole media tour talking about how Salesforce would do no pandemic layoffs to set some kind of example, and said that they didn't expect other companies to follow their example, but asked them to just pledge no layoffs for 90 days, even though Salesforce was going…

I think Silicon Valley (the show) did this

Re: Salesforce will lay off 10% of staff as part of restructuring

#86

Post by hotpotamus » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #16

ubertaco wrote: post #14

Last time they did this, it was _right_ after the window that they had grandstanded and asked other companies to pledge no pandemic layoffs. Benioff did a whole media tour talking about how Salesforce would do no pandemic layoffs to set some kind of example, and said that they didn't expect other companies to follow their example, but asked them to just pledge no layoffs for 90 days, even though Salesforce was going…

well sounds like we can expect them next year. What I don’t understand is why they don’t stretch it out over the whole year - less than 1% a month could be relatively easily “hidden” even if people kinda know what is going on. Average churn might be lower than that, even. Which makes me think it’s performative and they WANT the shareholders to see it.

There's a reason that slowly removing people one-by-one is a common horror movie trope.

Re: Salesforce will lay off 10% of staff as part of restructuring

#87

Post by hestefisk » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 4:02 PM UTC

s1mon wrote: post #38

triceratops wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CAC = Customer Acquisition Cost ARR = Annual Recurring Revenue S&M = Sales and Marketing Is that right?

In San Francisco, "S&M" usually has a different meaning. It's not like Folsom Street Fair and Dreamforce aren't often around the same weekend.

Potato, potato

Re: Salesforce will lay off 10% of staff as part of restructuring

#88

Post by mschuster91 » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 4:02 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #71

ubertaco wrote: post #14

Last time they did this, it was _right_ after the window that they had grandstanded and asked other companies to pledge no pandemic layoffs. Benioff did a whole media tour talking about how Salesforce would do no pandemic layoffs to set some kind of example, and said that they didn't expect other companies to follow their example, but asked them to just pledge no layoffs for 90 days, even though Salesforce was going…

Co-heads is always a subtext for executive disfunction. I don't think I've ever heard of it working out long term at any level from division co-head to co-CEO. It's also fascinating the opposite direction is also allowed to persist - the guy who is CEO of 4 companies at once. As a lowly high income IC, I am prohibited from almost any outside business activity and in some cases forced to divest when joining a new firm…

> It's also fascinating the opposite direction is also allowed to persist - the guy who is CEO of 4 companies at once.

That amount is, I think, only applicable to Elon Musk and it looks like this is going to crash sooner or later anyway - the big Tesla investors are all furious about how much wealth Elon's shitposting has cost them and I would not be surprised if they threaten him with the choice of continuing to tweet or getting ousted. In any case, even he was a paper-only CEO at SpaceX anyway, Gwynne Shotwell has run the ship for years now.

Re: Salesforce will lay off 10% of staff as part of restructuring

#89

Post by fatnoah » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 4:02 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #43

"and I take personal responsibility for that." As usual, no accountability for it. Just responsibility. I take it boards are incapable at holding leaders accountable for bad decisioning?

This always gets me. Executive "responsibility" in cases like this is ballooning wealth as a result of the too-rapid growth, and then a further increase when the stock pops as a result of the layoff announcement. A stock gain of currently $2.71/share means Benioff is almost $71 million richer (in unrealized gains).

Re: Salesforce will lay off 10% of staff as part of restructuring

#90

Post by rawgabbit » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 4:03 PM UTC

Scubabear68 wrote: post #27

Whenever I look at client’s Salesforce setups, I always wonder in the back of my mind what they will do if Salesforce has a significant down-turn? The lock-in to the platform appears to be very fierce. Are there viable routes to exit Salesforce if anyone ever needed to? (Note: I’m not saying Salesforce is doomed or anything, just the layoffs got me thinking in that direction theorically).

I have personal experience with other ERPs and Salesforce is the best of the lot in my opinion. With my current company, we have employees in Singapore, Europe, USA, and South Africa etc. who all interact with Salesforce on a daily basis. We use it for CRM, service support (VOIP with call tracking), marketing, financials (questionable decision), and analytics (Tableau). Where it shines in my opinion is that does automate 75% of business processes and if you pay the right fee, it's all seamless. The flow automation low code tool is a step in the right direction. Where it falters, is (a) its own hype machine gets in the way -- your customers are already locked-in, please stop the bullshit, SF is not easy to learn -- its data model requires experience to understand and architect properly (b) Mulesoft sucks, please stop pushing it (c) its web portal (lightning experience communities) needs work -- the security permissions model is hopeless convoluted like the fabled Gordian knot.