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Zoom lays off 15% of employees

blog.zoom.us

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Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#221

Post by lazide »

phtrivier wrote: post #181
credit_guy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goalpost moving. The people who complain that CEO's don't show any accountability, will then complain that whatever consequences the CEO's face (or self impose) are insignificant. Would you like this guy to commit hara-kiri?

Of course no ! We want him to resign. (I meant some people will, I personally don't expect anything, and don't really care - none of this is in my power in any way, shape or form.) Or at least, to give the rough date at which he will resign, so that someone more competent will run the company, avoiding the mistakes that brought it so bad that it has to lay off 15%. There are mistakes that you can recover from, and yo…

So you want the guy who is doing less bad than others to quit (aka take the heaviest hit), because some small portion of the company needs to be laid off (15%), even though he is giving up far more than 15% of his compensation?

And by quitting, giving up any power or doing that job he is doing less bad than others?

How did that work out for Senator Franken? Or the Democrats in general?

I swear, it’s like folks can’t help but cut their nose off to spite their faces.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#223

Post by cwkoss »

trynewideas wrote: post #107

> On September 1, 2020, Yuan's net worth was estimated to be US$16.4 billion, a figure 360% higher than his net worth at the beginning of the year. In March 2021, Yuan transferred $6 billion worth of Zoom shares to a grantor retained annuity trust, for which Yuan is a trustee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Yuan Fun trivia: Six billion divided by 1,300 is 4,615,384.62

executive compensation is pretty disgusting

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#224

Post by adrianmonk »

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…

The best case I can make is that their reasoning might have been like this:

(1) Permanent or not, right now the pandemic is clearly generating huge interest in videoconferencing.

(2) Our big competitors (Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, etc.) can afford to speculatively invest heavily into their products just in case it does take off, remote work really is the future, etc.

(3) For us, things are unlikely to ever go back to how they were before the pandemic. If we do nothing, we risk getting left behind. If we invest heavily too, although it may turn out badly, at least we're giving ourselves a fighting chance. We are betting the company on something; it's just a matter of choosing what to bet it on.

It's hard to evaluate the risk of getting left behind. Network effects (don't want to ask all your friends who have Zoom set up already to switch technologies) might be a big enough moat that they never even needed to worry. Or maybe not.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#225

Post by unethical_ban »

roughly wrote: post #198
mynameisvlad wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

In gaming we call that "mod support" and it usually helps improve the product by allowing 3rd parties to innovate on the core.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#226

Post by JohnFen »

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! I have a habit of ignoring claims of accountability because so often, the "accountability" seems to be nothing more than saying "I accept the accountability". Empty talk. It's nice to see at least a gesture towards making it mean something.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#227

Post by givemeethekeys »

brk wrote: post #78

"Zoomies" Just fucking stop with this already. Quit pretending like your employees are so aligned with the company that some kind of special terminology is needed, or even logical. The recent tech layoffs have clearly demonstrated, again (again, as in we've seen this play out a few times in the 2000's), that employees are basically assets that are scaled up and down as needed, like all the rest of corporate infrastru…

"Zoomies", "Googlers", "Softies"

As part of their compensation package, they receive a diminutive pet name, like a child would.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#228

Post by msoad »

par wrote: post #7

He is taking a 98% paycut on salary and foregoing his bonus, but I wonder what his equity based comp is as a % of his total comp. My guess is he is mostly compensated in equity.

The value of his $4b equity went up by about 5% after release of this news.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#229

Post by orangesite »

lazide wrote: post #210
HollywoodZro wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big thing would be for Mr. Yuan to forgo his equity grant for FY23 and also take his equity grant from FY22 and distribute that as severance for the employees who lives are impacted negatively due to the decisions of executives in the organization. That truly means "taking ownership" of what happened. The individuals leaving were not the ones who hired or authorized the hires without the evaluation of long-term v…

That isn’t taking ownership, that’s falling on your sword. There is a difference.

Falling on your sword is literally exactly what accountability used to be.

…and the stakes are even higher today if you count the number of people impacted by poor decisions.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#230

Post by f311a »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #74
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…

> 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.

How would you imagine 1-2k of engineers working on this problem?
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