Spotify reducing employee base by about 6% • Hacker News Board

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#61

Post by bfeynman » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #31

dataengineer56 wrote: post #15

The Spotify app constantly frustrates me and I miss the old Google Play Music app. - I listened to 5 minutes of one episode of a podcast once, decided it wasn't for me and stopped, but ever since then I have an entire pane on my homepage dedicated to my apparent love for that podcast. - The first 4 sections of the homepage recommend me exactly the same things - I have the last 6 albums I listened to at the top, then…

"How can such a simple concept (listen to music) get so many basics so wrong and have such glaring bugs?" Spotify internally has a model where they have a large number of small teams where each is responsible for only a tiny part of the experience. Possibly this leads to a lack of a coherent experience. The other factor may be the constant experimentation. Frankly, 20-30 year old media players were better. So what th…

Anecdotally I disagree. I think I have a pretty eclectic taste, and spotify has helped me discover tons of new songs, but also still keeps my daily mixes coherent. I find myself listening to their autogenerated ones most of the time since they are very easy to craft and extend.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#62

Post by cryptos » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #50

krono wrote: post #11

No mention of who is taking full responsibility for the situation! Edit: The CEO takes full "accountability" instead, further down the original announcement[0] [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230123124201/https://newsroom....

In the tech sector, "taking responsibility" means admitting your decisions led to the situation yet you'll externalize the consequences to employees. In other words, it means nothing. Taking actual responsibility could include stepping down, canceling bonuses, reduced compensation for leadership. It could include steps to become better at forecasting rather than randomly guessing. It could include ironing the busines…

You nailed it! I'm always wondering how someone takes responsibility and then absolutely nothing changes for him personally.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#63

Post by fleddr » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:24 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #41

mercwear wrote: post #13

12.184B in revenue for 2022 and they are still cutting headcount, another tech company who could not care less about it's employees.

Profit is what matters, not revenue. You can’t look at revenue numbers alone. Regardless, you shouldn’t assume that any company’s first priority is to continue employing and paying everyone. A business is a business, and the employees are hired to do a job. The working world makes a lot more sense when you accept that jobs are jobs and not a benevolent source of guaranteed income.

Yes, that is a core truth, but doesn't excuse the current behavior. There's a lot of middle ground between "employment for life" and "you're a disposable object".

For sure you can treat employees as disposable objects, but this zero trust situation surely will backlash in one way or another.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#64

Post by bitexploder » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:24 PM UTC

dataengineer56 wrote: post #15

The Spotify app constantly frustrates me and I miss the old Google Play Music app. - I listened to 5 minutes of one episode of a podcast once, decided it wasn't for me and stopped, but ever since then I have an entire pane on my homepage dedicated to my apparent love for that podcast. - The first 4 sections of the homepage recommend me exactly the same things - I have the last 6 albums I listened to at the top, then…

You still cant search for a song in your playlists only either.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#65

Post by rchaud » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #50

krono wrote: post #11

No mention of who is taking full responsibility for the situation! Edit: The CEO takes full "accountability" instead, further down the original announcement[0] [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230123124201/https://newsroom....

In the tech sector, "taking responsibility" means admitting your decisions led to the situation yet you'll externalize the consequences to employees. In other words, it means nothing. Taking actual responsibility could include stepping down, canceling bonuses, reduced compensation for leadership. It could include steps to become better at forecasting rather than randomly guessing. It could include ironing the busines…

Tim Cook had his compensation cut, and Reid Hoffman left the CEO role (becoming exec chairman). AFAIK, all other bigco CEOs did the 'taking responsibility' thing of doing absolutely nothing.

I can see why Spotify is reluctant to dump the CEO. Theirs is a business model that's never been profitable anyway, so keeping the founder on couldn't make things any worse.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#66

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #23

Dave3of5 wrote: post #3

More doom and gloom. Last few years have been terrible.

There's still a ton of jobs out there, depending on where in the world you're able to work. They might not be as exciting, the companies aren't as well known, but they still pay fairly well and it's stable. I do feel bad for those who are losing their jobs, it's not their fault. Many of the companies currently firing people simply had too many employees to begin with. Daniel Elk even admits it: "I was too ambitious i…

[deleted]

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#67

Post by unglaublich » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

dataengineer56 wrote: post #15

The Spotify app constantly frustrates me and I miss the old Google Play Music app. - I listened to 5 minutes of one episode of a podcast once, decided it wasn't for me and stopped, but ever since then I have an entire pane on my homepage dedicated to my apparent love for that podcast. - The first 4 sections of the homepage recommend me exactly the same things - I have the last 6 albums I listened to at the top, then…

Podcasts are interesting for Spotify because they keep the listener attached to the service while their (royalty and license) costs are minimal. Just like they inject all kinds of cheap music from unknown artists in your recommendations.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#68

Post by niij » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

krono wrote: post #11

No mention of who is taking full responsibility for the situation! Edit: The CEO takes full "accountability" instead, further down the original announcement[0] [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230123124201/https://newsroom....

Do we have to have this same conversation on every single one of these threads?

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#69

Post by nivenkos » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #23

Dave3of5 wrote: post #3

More doom and gloom. Last few years have been terrible.

There's still a ton of jobs out there, depending on where in the world you're able to work. They might not be as exciting, the companies aren't as well known, but they still pay fairly well and it's stable. I do feel bad for those who are losing their jobs, it's not their fault. Many of the companies currently firing people simply had too many employees to begin with. Daniel Elk even admits it: "I was too ambitious i…

It really depends where, outside the US pay is pretty terrible usually.

In Europe for example, as a senior developer you get maybe $70-90k in FAANG and big companies, and $50-70k in smaller companies.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#70

Post by wittycardio » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

gadders wrote: post #14

I got asked to do a survey when I opened the Spotify app last week. All the questions were of a "What would you do if this price rise happened?" and most of the varieties had the family plan going to £20.99. I don't know what they are smoking to think that they're worth more than a Netflix subscription. Video > audio. If they put the family plan price up I'll cancel it and use Prime Music or something.

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