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Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

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Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#551

Post by Dalewyn »

sigg3 wrote: post #521
bastardoperator wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If reality hurt's their feelings, maybe they should change their ways.

It might hurt the feelings of HR at the new place where he wants to apply though. No one disagrees with you in principle, but there are realcitrant social practices punishing this kind of feedback. It is always taken as a grudge rather than an observation, and this makes you less attractive as a hire.

This goes the other way too: Generally speaking, companies are expected to refrain from negative commentary when contacted as a reference by subsequent employers. The only exception, and seldom done, is if the employee was terminated due to egregiously bad circumstances.

That is to say, (former) employee doesn't speak ill of (former) employer and (former) employer doesn't speak ill of (former) employee. It's how society keeps itself oiled.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#552

Post by blagie »

SergeAx wrote: post #488
postexitus wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is yes, in all cases, he doesn't need to state in explicitly. So what? Layoffs are being done to save costs or to signal doing so to shareholders. It is not a "let's be meritocratic and only cut the lowest performers" exercise. The overarching question is, with our insistence on remote working etc, how will we ever justify hiring from high CoL areas again?

> It is not a "let's be meritocratic and only cut the lowest performers" exercise. Why not do some extra homework and really cut the lowest performers, while we are here anyway?

Because low-performers are nearly impossible to identify, at least from a CEO level. There are two things one can be doing in a job:

1) Their job

2) Signalling to everyone around how much they're doing, and how hard it is

Universally, as you shift from camp 1 to camp 2, your job security goes up. There is no such thing as perfect transparency, and especially in careers like programming, it's hard to estimate how hard something is (or is going to be).

You can also do things like 360 reviews, which reward people who are good at making friends.

You can look at lines of code, which rewards 1000 lines doing the job of 10.

Etc.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#553

Post by occamsrazorwit »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #497
Apocryphon wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as amusing as it is to riff off of your analogy, your point is still wrong. When studying the behavior of human beings, and corporations are people, friend, it is important to try to fathom the motivations of their decisions. You can’t simply look at the behavior of companies, even in aggregate, and pretend it’s scientific to say, “ah, that is simply how they sustain themselves.” And in this case perhaps what peo…

If it is irrationality, it seems like a huge case of mass-hysteria is happening! When would it be time for you to consider adjusting your framework here? Is there really enough variation in the obervables here to justify seeing each company as its own fully-personed snowflake?

Behavioral economists have ascribed economic bubbles to the same root causes as mass hysteria. Humans may become more sophisticated, but the tendency to believe in collective delusions are rooted deep in our psychology.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#554

Post by redleggedfrog »

aaomidi wrote: post #100
msm_ wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue with analyses like this is they argue that layoffs are a bad idea and it's just companies shooting themselves in a foot. That's what people want to hear, so it gets a lot of clicks and citations. But, this also means that all the big companies (and that's a lot of them) that just announced layoffs made a obviously bad move. Are they all stupid? I find it hard to believe. It's more plausible, that yeah, layof…

Honestly yes. If you’ve been in any high exec meeting you’ll know they’re all stupid. Like, arguably more so than the average engineer.

Ouch with those down votes. Prolly don't say "all" cause absolutes are almost always wrong. But the sentiment is correct. They're not in those positions because they're technically smart, but because they're good at social climbing and empire building. And in my experience exceptionally bereft of integrity. Layoffs are a tool in their C level signaling system. Maybe they're good for the company and maybe they're not, but they're doing what the other C levels are going so they're mostly safe from repercussions and scrutiny.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#555

Post by SergeAx »

blagie wrote: post #552
SergeAx wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not a "let's be meritocratic and only cut the lowest performers" exercise. Why not do some extra homework and really cut the lowest performers, while we are here anyway?

Because low-performers are nearly impossible to identify, at least from a CEO level. There are two things one can be doing in a job: 1) Their job 2) Signalling to everyone around how much they're doing, and how hard it is Universally, as you shift from camp 1 to camp 2, your job security goes up. There is no such thing as perfect transparency, and especially in careers like programming, it's hard to estimate how hard…

Every IC has their direct manager: team lead or something like that. Every decent manager knows who is underperforming in their team and secretly dreams about firing the slacker and hiring someone better instead, but rarely has such freedom. Now, the layoff is suddenly breaking. It's a no-brainer to jump the train and finally make it for the sake of the entire team.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#556

Post by occamsrazorwit »

pwinnski wrote: post #281
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-b…

Yesterday, Gitlab hadn't had a layoff.

While Apple did have a much smaller increase in headcount over the last few years, I wouldn't use Apple as an example while we're still in the midst of everything. In December, people were touting Google as an example of one of the layoff-proof companies. I didn't trust that logic, and I don't trust the logic that Apple is somehow immune when they're so closely tied into the tech industry. For example, I'm theorizing that a non-trivial part of their profits comes from supporting the developer ecosystem (who else buys max-spec Macs at scale?). Regardless of the underlying reason, mass layoffs and tightened budgets are going to dry up B2B profit streams.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#557

Post by gvtek0 »

thwayunion wrote: post #279
nostrademons wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly. My own pet theory about this round of layoffs is as follows. The tech companies spent 2021 massively over-estimating the value of boot camp folks and new grads. They spent 2022 learning a tough lesson. I saw this first hand. So much lost time mentoring low-quality hires. Now they will spend 2023 massively underestimating the value of their senior folks (10+ yoe engineers, scientists with deep domain expertis…

>I also bet you'll guess a different one than me, so maybe more than one ;-)

Only thing I'll say is it won't be Apple, since they did none of the above/didn't get into the "hiring Spree" in the same way all the rest of the tech giants did, which includes what I'd call FAANG-adjacent spots like Uber, etc.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#558

Post by siftrics »

softwaredoug wrote: post #63

Listened to a great podcast about layoffs yesterday ( https://hbr.org/podcast/2023/02/why-many-companies-get-layof... ) The takeaway is that layoffs are extremely trust destroying for employees NOT laid off, and in the end not clear they're a financial net positive. Both with direct and indirect costs (lack of engagement from employees, etc).

> not clear they're a financial net positive

What could possibly be more clear than

"we were spending $X and now we're spending $(X - c)"

> Both with direct and indirect costs

Employees themselves are direct costs that are removed with layoffs.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#559

Post by prepend »

sekai wrote: post #447
prepend wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inflation has been tame over the past six months. No, I don’t think so. 6.5% [0] is still an absurdly high rate compared to the past 30 years. It is nowhere near tame and may still fluctuate quite a bit. [0] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi

It's been trending down for the past 6 months, and markets are always future focused. Inflation is non-issue anymore

Trending down, but still high and high for the foreseeable future.

It’s not a non-issue to people trying to buy things.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#560

Post by skrbjc »

arbuge wrote: post #56

At this point it's beginning to look like tech companies are doing this because it's the trendy thing to do, along with inserting a few words about AI in their websites and pitch decks.

In my view they see a few benefits. If the "market climate" is layoffs, then they can be much less competitive with offers to any candidates they do want to hire. It's an opportunity to let go a contingent of lower-performing workers, and lastly, it's a way for the CFO to send a message to all the managers that they aren't getting the incremental headcount they are always asking for to inflate their team sizes. I don't necessarily think this is a good thing, but I think dismissing it as copy-cat behavior is not digging deeper than the surface layer. Instead of the group of managers making the case they are doing a good job because their team has grown over time, there is a shift in power to the managers saying they have saved the company x number of doll-hairs because they cut xyz budget and team.
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