171–180 of 495 posts
I get needing to keep a company lean and that businesses operate to make money... But most of these recent layoffs really make me feel uneasy. Spotify is a little different because AFAIK they are still operating at a negative net income, but still let's take a look at this. They're going to let go 600 people.. that's maybe an annual 90 million in savings (150k salary). The company's revenue is about 9 billion with -3…
I get needing to keep a company lean and that businesses operate to make money... But most of these recent layoffs really make me feel uneasy. Spotify is a little different because AFAIK they are still operating at a negative net income, but still let's take a look at this. They're going to let go 600 people.. that's maybe an annual 90 million in savings (150k salary). The company's revenue is about 9 billion with -3…
You need to use the fully loaded cost of an employee when estimating opex savings, which includes health care costs, retirement funding, etc. Rule of thumb is that fully loaded cost for US employees is approximately 2x yearly salary (although people who've actually run a company can correct my potentially stale or incorrect understanding).
Also I suspect that $150k as the mean TC of those being let go is low. Spotify might be saving up to $500k all-in per employee let go.
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.
Hard disagree, video streaming platforms are a gigantic hot mess where movies and shows constantly appear and expire, you never know where to look, if something is available or not anymore or for how long.
Spotify and friends are constantly growing libraries, where everything is available, at all time, always (modulo the expected lawyer temper tantrums here and there). It boggles my mind how people can feel so entitled that they wouldn't accept paying a bit more for sixty million tracks available everywhere every time all the time.
Spotify is a shit company, with garbage mobile and desktop clients, but the service is absolutely insanely cheap for what it is, I personally would gladly pay double and still be happy about it.
They are worth way more than a stupid Netflix subscription in my book. Vastly.
https://i.imgur.com/wfSka2H.png
More and more playlists are starting to look like this, which is starting to piss me off. I don't really care if it's the record companies fault or whoever, and I blame 100% myself for getting into this situation in the first place.
Started to use Bandcamp more and more lately, and feel a lot safer because of it. I'm hopeful Bandcamp won't ever need to do layoffs either, as they are not trying to take over the world with their SaaS or pivot to focusing on Podcasts, or stuff like that.
But Spotify was really useful for a long time and still discovery is second to none.
This is an unpopular opinion, but history from the DotCom crash tells us that the layoffs are just getting started. Turns out you can’t run at a loss forever, and when the going gets rough the fastest way to increase profitability is to cut costs. Say what you will about Elon and Twitter, but he definitely proved that the majority of the engineers at Twitter were adding no value to the company. That is probably true…
This is an unpopular opinion, but history from the DotCom crash tells us that the layoffs are just getting started. Turns out you can’t run at a loss forever, and when the going gets rough the fastest way to increase profitability is to cut costs. Say what you will about Elon and Twitter, but he definitely proved that the majority of the engineers at Twitter were adding no value to the company. That is probably true…
I guess now's the time to start undercutting?
I get needing to keep a company lean and that businesses operate to make money... But most of these recent layoffs really make me feel uneasy. Spotify is a little different because AFAIK they are still operating at a negative net income, but still let's take a look at this. They're going to let go 600 people.. that's maybe an annual 90 million in savings (150k salary). The company's revenue is about 9 billion with -3…
The layoffs aren’t about actually saving the cost of those specific employees. Instead, the threat of being laid off is being used as a stick to bring the remaining employees in line — productivity has been lower the last few years, and leadership has no real way to measure on an individual level or how to improve it, so putting the pressure on employees is a tried and true tactics. Further, they can make lower TC of…
I dunno, maybe if Spotify wasn't spending hundreds of million on podcast deals and actually focusing on what its users want, they wouldn't need to lay people off. Any way you slice it, there's no way that the Rogan deal pays for itself. Spotify is stingy AF with the artists that drove people to the service, and then firehoses Rogan with cash and tries to shove podcasts down people's throats. I was a happy Spotify sub…
I dunno, maybe if Spotify wasn't spending hundreds of million on podcast deals and actually focusing on what its users want, they wouldn't need to lay people off. Any way you slice it, there's no way that the Rogan deal pays for itself. Spotify is stingy AF with the artists that drove people to the service, and then firehoses Rogan with cash and tries to shove podcasts down people's throats. I was a happy Spotify sub…
If they don't have enough work for their workforce, would you still say they're morally obligated to keep writing paychecks?
If the company hired more people than they have work for, it likely has little to do with a possible recession.
In the case where it is true that they have too many employees, I think there is a moral responsibility to attempt to find profitable work for those employees. Or to at least ride it out and make a smaller profit in the lean years if it doesn’t seriously endanger the health of the company.
Corporations aren’t merely groups of people, they have been granted additional legal rights like limited liability. I’m fine with laws that say something to the effect that in exchange for limited liability, corporations over a certain size must give some consideration to the employee welfare. Many countries require that workers have board representatives.
This is an unpopular opinion, but history from the DotCom crash tells us that the layoffs are just getting started. Turns out you can’t run at a loss forever, and when the going gets rough the fastest way to increase profitability is to cut costs. Say what you will about Elon and Twitter, but he definitely proved that the majority of the engineers at Twitter were adding no value to the company. That is probably true…
Most of these layoffs are driven by shareholder demand. I suspect this will be a bit like 2008 where tech companies pulled back and then realized it was a huge mistake and went on hiring sprees again after a year.
Twitter just posted a 40% or so reduction in income this quarter. It seems way too early to say they didn't need all the people they laid off. From everything I see their ad revenue is cratering from poor targeting, reliability, etc.
