Zoom lays off 15% of employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#51

Post by MuffinFlavored » Tue, Feb 07, 2023, 5:56 PM UTC

anon7725 wrote: post #37

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #5

> We have made the tough but necessary decision to reduce our team by approximately 15% and say goodbye to around 1,300 hardworking, talented colleagues. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ZM/zoom-video-comm... Zoom Video Communications total number of employees in 2022 was 6,787, a 53.48% increase from 2021. Zoom Video Communications total number of employees in 2021 was 4,422, a 74.64% increase from 2020. Zo…

There is no way that 60% are engineers. This kind of scale up is usually in sales and customer support roles, and moderation if applicable.

What's a better guess for all in number related to engineering staff? Engineers, QA (if any), resource managers, product managers to work with engineers to develop new features/ideas, project managers to manage "sprints" or "agile" or "waterfall" or "kanban" or whatever

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#52

Post by 2b3a51 » Tue, Feb 07, 2023, 5:56 PM UTC

mertd wrote: post #11

I really dislike the trend of calling employees by some nickname. "Googler" may have been cute back in the day. Zoomies is pure cringe.

For people in my age group (old) Zoomie sounds very close to Zoonie...

https://gerryanderson.fandom.com/wiki/Zoonie

Good luck for those looking for work now as a consequence of this

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#53

Post by ghaff » Tue, Feb 07, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

ketralnis wrote: post #31

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #5

> We have made the tough but necessary decision to reduce our team by approximately 15% and say goodbye to around 1,300 hardworking, talented colleagues. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ZM/zoom-video-comm... Zoom Video Communications total number of employees in 2022 was 6,787, a 53.48% increase from 2021. Zoom Video Communications total number of employees in 2021 was 4,422, a 74.64% increase from 2020. Zo…

> Did they really think COVID lifestyle was going to stay forever and their business would be gangbusters forever? It's easy to feel superior with hindsight, but possibly, yeah. Maybe it's not the right bet but it's not totally crazy to think that companies shifting to working from home might continue to work from home after trying it out. I can certainly think of some "they should have known" examples but this isn't…

Zoom is actually a company where it wasn't unreasonable to think there was really a "new normal" and Zoom was well-positioned to capitalize on that shift. As it turned out, things reset to be more like pre-pandemic than many thought--especially outside the tech bubble--and Google and Microsoft were probably better able to capitalize on an overall increase in videoconferencing as part of their office suites.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#54

Post by anonymouskimmer » Tue, Feb 07, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

jeffwask wrote: post #33

ActionHank wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is tragic for those involved, but I really don't understand how there were 6700+ people working on Zoom. I feel like the CEO should be under review by the board for allowing this to happen and there should be further investigations into how they even arrived at this point because this is just bananas.

This is one of the layoffs where I go... yeah you really did over hire WTF were you thinking. How do you even effectively onboard that many people as a percentage of existing staff?

I've never worked in customer support, but if they're customer support people wouldn't they just get something like a binder with questions and answers, and some flowcharts?

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#55

Post by pictur » Tue, Feb 07, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

You should change this ridiculous title to summarize the article. Don't waste people's time.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#56

Post by chazeon » Tue, Feb 07, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #5

> We have made the tough but necessary decision to reduce our team by approximately 15% and say goodbye to around 1,300 hardworking, talented colleagues. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ZM/zoom-video-comm... Zoom Video Communications total number of employees in 2022 was 6,787, a 53.48% increase from 2021. Zoom Video Communications total number of employees in 2021 was 4,422, a 74.64% increase from 2020. Zo…

Speaking from inside Academia, Zoom remains an important part of communication. We never used Zoom or any form of video chat before COVID, but even after COVID, Zoom is here to stay now. We meet in Zoom because it has unmatched quality and stability for video-conferencing / screen sharing compared to Skype etc. Office hour have Zoom sessions, etc.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#57

Post by stagger87 » Tue, Feb 07, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

ActionHank wrote: post #24

mertd wrote: post #11

I really dislike the trend of calling employees by some nickname. "Googler" may have been cute back in the day. Zoomies is pure cringe.

I've seen a few using "Xoogler" on LinkedIn after being laid off and it just smacks of Stockholm syndrome.

Does it also bother you when people have bumper stickers of the college they went to?

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#58

Post by outworlder » Tue, Feb 07, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

ActionHank wrote: post #13

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #5

> We have made the tough but necessary decision to reduce our team by approximately 15% and say goodbye to around 1,300 hardworking, talented colleagues. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ZM/zoom-video-comm... Zoom Video Communications total number of employees in 2022 was 6,787, a 53.48% increase from 2021. Zoom Video Communications total number of employees in 2021 was 4,422, a 74.64% increase from 2020. Zo…

This is tragic for those involved, but I really don't understand how there were 6700+ people working on Zoom. I feel like the CEO should be under review by the board for allowing this to happen and there should be further investigations into how they even arrived at this point because this is just bananas.

How is it difficult to understand? It's not 6700 engineers, it's all the support staff. I can easily budget 1k people just to support all compliance activities and sales in order to be able to sell to governments.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#59

Post by pastor_bob » Tue, Feb 07, 2023, 5:58 PM UTC

haswell wrote: post #8

> As the CEO and founder of Zoom, I am accountable for these mistakes and the actions we take today– and I want to show accountability not just in words but in my own actions. To that end, I am reducing my salary for the coming fiscal year by 98% and foregoing my FY23 corporate bonus. Members of my executive leadership team will reduce their base salaries by 20% for the coming fiscal year while also forfeiting their…

I agree, but it's a lot easier for a Founder CEO with 22% ownership of the company to do.

It's completely not comparable to a CEO hired with no initial equity stake.

Just for illustration. The 10% stock price jump this message caused just earned him $500+ million

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#60

Post by anon7725 » Tue, Feb 07, 2023, 5:58 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #22

luismedel wrote: post #14

I find the use of infantile terms like 'zoomie' insulting. Please, treat your employees with due respect. You're giving them life-changing news.

Changing jobs should not be life-changing.

Layoffs are life changing. Not everyone who is laid off is an in-demand engineer. “Tech jobs” obscure the fact that most roles are non- or light-technical jobs that are common at many companies (HR, sales, support, etc).