Wow... doing the math on the layoff count, 100k employees total, that's a lot of employees for a video chat app
Think you might have forgotten to carry a one somewhere (approx 8.5K total)
Zoom lays off 15% of employees
191–200 of 596 posts
Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s shouldn’t but when your health insurance relies on it , it pretty much is
but they're statement was it shouldnt. They shouldnt be downvoted for what they didnt say.
Without additional context on which parties the "shouldn't" applies to, and why it shouldn't, the comment doesn't add to the conversation. Seems like a reason to downvote to me.
Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees
#193Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees
#194How quickly times can change. A few years ago a CS degree and software job seemed like the most secure and easy way to a guaranteed high paying job while everything else was harder. Now it seems every software company is laying people off while the overall job market outside of tech is stronger than ever. Sucks to be a new CS grad this summer
Seems like there's always been a boom and bust in the tech world though? In all markets of course, but i am old enough to remember the first dotcom bubble?
Yeah, maybe this will have the same impact as well and we see a decline in people getting CS degrees and going into other (much-needed) professions.
I know some older people who started off in software and after the dotcom bust switched to a trade for more reliable work.
And I know I'm a big hypocrite for saying this but I really feel like a lot of places need less software developers building social media or video chat code and more nurses/teachers/trades-people/etc .
Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees
#195> 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…
> 4200 engineers to work on an app that at its core is... video conferencing? Low latency video in general is an extremely hard problem to get right. Video conferencing is that, and more. Is the number of employees likely overinflated? Clearly as they just had layoffs. But let's not pretend the problem space is some super easy thing that can be handled by one engineer in their basement.
At some point you reach diminishing returns and can call that aspect of your product finished.
Given the changes from Mac OS 12 to Mac OS 13 of the photos app (and other parts of the OS), there is no way Apple has as big of a team on Photos as they once did. Companies have a terrible problem perpetually funding teams, despite the impact of the team's work naturally diminishing as things get to a "good enough" state.
Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees
#196> 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…
> What % of their 7000-8000 employees (ignoring any contractors I guess) are engineers? 60%?
>
> 4200 engineers to work on an app that at its core is... video conferencing?
If you think 4200 is an absurd number of engineers, why did you use that number as your estimate? Maybe it's 90% sales and customer support.
Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees
#197a Lattician, a Flexporter, a Scalien, a Relativian, a Plaid, a Swyftxer, an Elastician, a Krakenite, a Dragon, an Asana, a Wistian, a Nuron, a Bird, a Twilion, a Pitcher, an Olivian, a Snyker, a Panda, an Astronaut, a Superhuman, a VTEXer, a Klarnaut, a Lacer, a Mozillian, a Paddler, an Oyster, a SoundHounder, a Vimean, a Zoopligan, a Motive, a Stasher, a Plerker, a Lokaliser, a Courserian, a Udacian, a Racker, a Git…
I think they're fun. Feels like summer camp, or college "Go banana slugs!" . But please never call us family, unless you're going to back it up with what a healthy family does. Else, That's just psychological abuse.
They're fun when you work there. Every one of those titles was used in a layoff letter addressed to employees or a press release announcing layoffs. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSdHsrGdZPnI...
Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees
#198> 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…
> 4200 engineers to work on an app that at its core is... video conferencing? Low latency video in general is an extremely hard problem to get right. Video conferencing is that, and more. Is the number of employees likely overinflated? Clearly as they just had layoffs. But let's not pretend the problem space is some super easy thing that can be handled by one engineer in their basement.
I wouldn’t have had a problem if Zoom had been focused on the core product, but they added a goddamn App Store.
Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees
#199> 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…
"The average person has more business sense than the CEO of Zoom and its entire board of executives who allowed rampant hiring because I could've guessed during COVID, despite the surge in demand given all of the work-from-home during lockdowns, my company most likely won't grow forever, therefore I won't triple my staff over the next 3 years and then need to just end up laying them off" I don't mean this to be snark…
> I don't mean this to be snarky but this is like saying its stupid for a department store to hire in the lead-up to Christmas.
You aren't wrong, I'd say the only subtle difference there is, when you are hired for a Christmas seasonal job, you're informed that it's seasonal and are expected to be laid off, right?
Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees
#200Lol at this point it's just comical. Not fun for those laid off, but this is a great life lesson for all those people who have given "loyalty" to their employer. We - the people who you often view as cynical and negative - live by the following rules: - People at work are not your friends. You can have friendly relationships, but they ain't your real friends. You will only know if they can become your real friends on…
I agree with the spirit of your comment, but not with the particulars. Yes, employees and contractors both have to deal with job uncertainty, but not to the same degree. An employee is unlikely to be laid off with anywhere near the frequency that a contractor's gig ends and for a lot of people, the tradeoff of the extra stability is worth potentially less earnings. Similarly, while shares are often worth nothing, sometimes they aren't, and the payoff can be big. It depends on what risks you are willing to take. Maybe I've been lucky, but I've actually managed to get value from options/RSUs that exceeded what I'd likely have earned more often than not. Finally, I think it's a terrible idea to take a second job if you don't like your pay. Doing a shit job for two companies may make you some money but is no way to live. If you are being underpaid, go find a job that pays. If you can't find one that pays better, maybe you aren't being underpaid.
That said, I agree with your essential point that loyalty is not owed to your employer. It's a tool an employee can sometimes use for career purposes, but that's it. Your employment is a business arrangement and needs to be treated as such. Employers will talk as though they see it otherwise, but when times get tough, those pretenses are revealed for what they are. I really wish we could dispense with this "we're a big family with a mission" crap as it makes the whole thing more painful than it needs to be.