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Zoom lays off 15% of employees

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Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#451

Post by superfrank »

andrekandre wrote: post #429
gitfan86 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people are always "protected" how do you deal with low performing companies? If Zoom becomes unusable because it is crashing all the time and everyone switches to another service where do you think the money is going to come from to pay these "protected" employees? Fire the CEO, sure, but where is the money coming from for the thousands of other employees?

> If people are always "protected" how do you deal with low performing companies? mentor them? help them find a better position? change managers? lots of things you can do before firing... also i think the word "protection" the previous commenter means is 'protection from random/mass firings/layoffs without cause' not firing for being lazy/sabotage etc

> mentor them? help them find a better position? change managers?

None of those help if you just need less people on payroll.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#452

Post by gitfan86 »

andrekandre wrote: post #429
gitfan86 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people are always "protected" how do you deal with low performing companies? If Zoom becomes unusable because it is crashing all the time and everyone switches to another service where do you think the money is going to come from to pay these "protected" employees? Fire the CEO, sure, but where is the money coming from for the thousands of other employees?

> If people are always "protected" how do you deal with low performing companies? mentor them? help them find a better position? change managers? lots of things you can do before firing... also i think the word "protection" the previous commenter means is 'protection from random/mass firings/layoffs without cause' not firing for being lazy/sabotage etc

Mentor a company?

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#453

Post by cpncrunch »

moduspol wrote: post #419
cpncrunch wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Janus gateway and webrtc in general has encryption as well, so I wouldn't say that is a major engineering problem. It just requires a certain amount of hardware to be thrown at it.

I don't just mean encryption--I mean end-to-end encryption. That means you can't throw hardware at it. You're limited to the hardware end users are using. Every client needs to be able to meet the needs of every other client, when each could be on a flaky cellular connection, or on a Raspberry Pi, or on a high-end PC with dedicated bandwidth. And how much CPU / memory / bandwidth / latency you have will often change…

Well Zoom does have a lot of limitations on E2EE:

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360048660871-End-t...

No recording and no whiteboard, which for most people in my business (tutoring) would be a complete deal breaker.

How well does E2EE actually work in terms of video quality and coping with poor connections? I can't find any info on that. Bear in mind that you have to enable E2EE, so the vast majority of sessions will NOT have it enabled. I'm guessing it will just be in small sessions with good internet connections.

I don't use Zoom very often, but I had a meeting on it a few days ago and it wasn't great. When I logged into the meeting it had to download the new .exe at 10Mbps, even though I have a 500Mbps connection, then it spent another minute installing it. Not terribly impressed with that, either having to use a .exe in 2023, or the painfully slow connection to their servers.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#454

Post by kerkeslager »

EMM_386 wrote: post #343
madamelic wrote: post #86

This sucks but something like COVID should normalize the idea in the minds of workers that all workers are disposable regardless of education or skill. If you don't own 51% of the company, you are disposable. Zoom had a use for you during COVID, now they don't: bye-bye. You were used, they got what they needed and now it is time to go. That's how workers are treated and people should understand that. You are not Geor…

> You were used, they got what they needed and now it is time to go. That's how workers are treated and people should understand that. I can't tell if all of this is due to the age of people who have joined the workforce over the last decade, when we were in a constant uphill swing. Markets go through cycles, boom and bust. We happen to be in part of the cycle where interest rates are rising, inflation is high, profi…

> You go to work to earn a paycheck. I'm not sure how many people bought into the whole "we're a family" stuff, but obviously these are for-profit corporations and they are beholden only to their shareholders.

That's "You were used" with extra steps. Why are you trying to rebrand this?

> There was never the illusion otherwise, unless you truly believed that now that you're in, you're in.

Just because people knew it was happening doesn't mean it's consensual or okay. Workers know that a system beholden only to shareholders isn't good for them, but they can't exactly go work elsewhere.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#455

Post by PantaloonFlames »

deltree7 wrote: post #121
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.

Ah, but as a pro-union crowd, you love terms like Teamster, Brotherhood, right?

per wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Brotherhood_of_T...

...the international brotherhood of Teamsters was founded in 1903. The term teamster pre-existed, since the 1840s, referring to people (men usually) who drove teams of horses. And in 1903, it still referred to those people, since motor-powered trucks did not yet exist on a large scale and teams of horses were still used to deliver most goods.

You are probably aware, but, ... "brotherhood" was a self-chosen term, intended to imply mutual support and protection among the members, _against_ the employers. In contrast the demonyms that companies choose are chosen BY the employers, and there is no mutual support intended. In fact many large companies (Amazon, Google) actively resist labor union efforts.

In summary, your comment is sort of off-base for a couple reasons.

and members chose to join that

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#456

Post by kerkeslager »

BurningFrog wrote: post #269
madamelic wrote: post #86

This sucks but something like COVID should normalize the idea in the minds of workers that all workers are disposable regardless of education or skill. If you don't own 51% of the company, you are disposable. Zoom had a use for you during COVID, now they don't: bye-bye. You were used, they got what they needed and now it is time to go. That's how workers are treated and people should understand that. You are not Geor…

> You were used, they got what they needed and now it is time to go. Both sides got what they needed. The company got work done, and the employee got paid. Calling either side "used" makes no sense to me. Employment is always a temporary relationship that can be ended by either side at will.

> Employment is always a temporary relationship that can be ended by either side at will.

No one is confused about this.

The disagreement is whether this is how it should be.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#457

Post by [deleted] »

lkrubner wrote: post #412
speby wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? What 'fairness' exactly is it people want when companies do layoffs? "Hey, we are laying off 3,000 people. Because of that, I am firing myself and the company will no longer have a CEO and will have to find someone else, starting immediately. In addition, I plan to donate all of my life's savings and file for unemployment like everyone else and, if needed, live in my van down by the river. I hope this make…

"Because of that, I am firing myself" A team does terrible for awhile -- should the coach be removed? A company does terrible -- should the CEO be removed? This is what accountability means. Just this year I was hired by a Board Of Directors, of a startup with 150 people, to do an evaluation of the technology and code, and I found epic levels of tech debt and irresponsible decision making. When I gave my report to th…

[deleted]

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#458

Post by jameshart »

kerkeslager wrote: post #454
EMM_386 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You were used, they got what they needed and now it is time to go. That's how workers are treated and people should understand that. I can't tell if all of this is due to the age of people who have joined the workforce over the last decade, when we were in a constant uphill swing. Markets go through cycles, boom and bust. We happen to be in part of the cycle where interest rates are rising, inflation is high, profi…

> You go to work to earn a paycheck. I'm not sure how many people bought into the whole "we're a family" stuff, but obviously these are for-profit corporations and they are beholden only to their shareholders. That's "You were used" with extra steps. Why are you trying to rebrand this? > There was never the illusion otherwise, unless you truly believed that now that you're in, you're in. Just because people knew it w…

"You were used" implies you didn't get anything in return. But if you got paid, maybe you came out ahead on the deal?

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#459

Post by faangiq »

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…

Well I give them some credit for trying. Too bad all their comp is in stock.

Re: Zoom lays off 15% of employees

#460

Post by pjot »

paxys wrote: post #417
nunez wrote: post #364

> 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 FY23 corporate bonuses. Eric is probably already wealthy and can withstand a 98% cut to his base, but I definitely respect him more for doing that than the nothing other exec…

I have greater respect for him for reducing executive pay by 20% and cutting their annual bonuses to 0.

I wonder if employee bonuses were cut to 0 as well.
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