Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff • Hacker News Board

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#281

Post by pwinnski » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 4:15 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #264

jlmorton wrote: post #190

> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…

This feels like another semantic argument, this time over what "macroeconomic environment is tough" means. You are correct in everything you say in your first paragraph. That said, it's fair to say that "sharply rising interest rates" are also part of the macroeconomic environment. You can say that it was silly for all these tech companies and investors to think the free money spigot would go on for so long, but the…

It isn't every big company. Apple hasn't, and they're the biggest of all.

I think that is the point: it does not feel accurate to say that "macroeconomic conditions are tough" or that you expect slowdowns while recording record levels of revenue, and yet company after company after company is using these imaginary tough headwinds to justify laying off 6-8% of staff, often while paying dividends or issuing stock buy-backs.

If it really is rising interest rates, then be honest. Say "due to rising interest rates, we are going to lay off 7% of staff... while buying back stock using our record profits."

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#282

Post by kasey_junk » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 4:15 PM UTC

mberning wrote: post #198

jlmorton wrote: post #190

> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…

Record high credit card balances, record low personal savings, 40 year high inflation, rising interest rates and no sign of the fed stopping. Housing affordability at its lowest point since the real estate bubble and crash of 07/08. You are on some very good copium if you believe the economy is in good shape.

This economy is baffling to basically every professional who looks at it.

Just this week we saw a jobs number that absolutely rofl stomped the consensus expectations. At the same time the credit card number came in ism services business purchasing came in 35% over expectations and new orders were way over expectations as well. Businesses are out there doing something!

You could watch in real-time as the markets all did a collective about face on what the narratives should be.

I frankly don’t know if we are in a good economy or not, but there are lots and lots of indicators we are, so saying someone is on “copium” because they espouse that view says a lot more about your biases than theirs.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#283

Post by charcircuit » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 4:15 PM UTC

mplewis wrote: post #256

mberning wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people feel fine right up until the point they get diagnosed with a terminal illness. The point being, this would be like going to the doctor and having high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, etc. etc. The patient can be up, walking around, feeling OK, but in reality they are headed for a nightmare.

The economy is not a human body.

It's an analogy

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#284

Post by tshaddox » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 4:16 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #264

jlmorton wrote: post #190

> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…

This feels like another semantic argument, this time over what "macroeconomic environment is tough" means. You are correct in everything you say in your first paragraph. That said, it's fair to say that "sharply rising interest rates" are also part of the macroeconomic environment. You can say that it was silly for all these tech companies and investors to think the free money spigot would go on for so long, but the…

> This feels like another semantic argument, this time over what "macroeconomic environment is tough" means.

Okay, but it has to mean more than “we wanted to do layoffs” because it’s being used to justify or explain why they wanted to do layoffs.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#285

Post by perlgeek » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 4:16 PM UTC

djkivi wrote: post #169

whatever1 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes long time for the layoff effects to hit the company. The main effect is that you lose the trust of the top performers. These will be the in the lookout for new opportunities the day after the layoffs are done. If you cut 10%, expect 10% from the top to flee within a couple of years. The second effect is related to the fact that companies usually target older people with expensive jobs. In an a big org these…

> The only way you can safely pull off layoffs is if you ensure that anything you do in the company requires the experience of a boot camp. That means that everyone is fungible and you can easily swap them. This is an interesting way to think of the Leetcode style interview. If you don't require any particular experience and you have built your company's systems in a way that any "competent" developer can join and be…

Have you ever seen a company (from the inside) where everything was easy and clean and documented, and you needed no institutional knowledge / context be effective?

If it's really possible, I think it's the very rare exception.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#286

Post by ericd » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 4:17 PM UTC

jlmorton wrote: post #190

> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…

Does this look like a solid economic indicator to you? https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_pmi

Zoom to max.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#287

Post by pwinnski » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 4:18 PM UTC

mberning wrote: post #198

jlmorton wrote: post #190

> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…

Record high credit card balances, record low personal savings, 40 year high inflation, rising interest rates and no sign of the fed stopping. Housing affordability at its lowest point since the real estate bubble and crash of 07/08. You are on some very good copium if you believe the economy is in good shape.

The only economic conditions that matter to any company is whether they will be able to continue earning money the way they have been.

Since most of the companies doing 6-8% layoffs are concurrently reporting revenue growth, it isn't clear why they feel their future revenue is going to suddenly decline. It also isn't clear why, if they truly expect a decline, they'd continue to buy back shares or issue dividends. Seems like they'd want to keep that cash on hand, if they actually had concerns about the future, and weren't just using the social contagion as an excuse.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#288

Post by RA_Fisher » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 4:18 PM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #180

RA_Fisher wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’d be wise for more companies to employ an executive data scientist.

That sounds like an interesting idea. Do you know of any companies that have an executive role like that?

I’ve been performing it informally for many years and more formally for the last year and a half as Zapier’s Principal Data Scientist. I really enjoy combining my advanced technology, business, economic and statistical skills with large scale business opportunities to produce innovation for people and earnings for the company.

My goal is ensuring executives are making decisions using the best information possible. It’s highly collaborative to maximize the amount of pooled information (because executives are deep experts, too). Based on how it’s gone so far, I think it’s innovative and has a strong beneficial affect on the quality of decisions (and output as you’d expect). ie- applying more technology & skills improves output volume and quality.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#289

Post by mythrwy » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 4:19 PM UTC

jlmorton wrote: post #190

> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…

Well if enough people keep being laid off, perhaps the macroeconomic environment does indeed become tough!

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#290

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 4:19 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #179

nordsieck wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main effect is that you lose the trust of the top performers. These will be the in the lookout for new opportunities the day after the layoffs are done. If you cut 10%, expect 10% from the top to flee within a couple of years. I don't know, but I imagine that there's a pretty substantial difference between an isolated layoff and an industry wide layoff. Maybe it hits differently when you get to see the sausage…

Startups. Top performers at Google, if they've been smart about their finances, are sitting on a few million in the bank and have runways between ~10 years to infinity. They can afford to work for equity for a few years to take a slice of the pie when the company takes over another industry.

[deleted]