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Tell HN: DigitalOcean is doing layoffs

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Re: Tell HN: DigitalOcean is doing layoffs

#121

Post by jpgvm »

I don't really get the motivation for this beyond personal greed on behalf of executives that are only seeking to prop up the share price in the short term.

The market forces at work will force all technology companies down in valuation pretty much regardless, what is the difference of a few extra million market cap to handicap your ability to grow during the next expansion phase?

I can understand it if you have brought on a lot of fat and you want to lean out your team and need an excuse but outside of that rather narrow situation I really don't understand cutting stuff like technical writers etc during these periods.

Why handicap yourself in the future just to make one quarter look better? Surely if you have faith your stock options will be worth more if you play the longer game?

Re: Tell HN: DigitalOcean is doing layoffs

#122

Post by ejb999 »

vitaflo wrote: post #75
ihatepython wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you can get a 5% risk-free return from treasuries, even 7% rate of return is unattractive when compared to the safest asset on earth returning 5%. I got news for you. The riskiest place to park your money right now is government bonds. Long-dated US treasuries are risky. You will end up losing everything. But if you insist on US treasuries, be my guest. I need someone to trade against.

Treasuries return exactly what is printed on the coupon, no more, no less. Short of government default, they are as risk free as you can get.

and if the government every truly defaults, you are pretty much screwed no matter what you own.

Re: Tell HN: DigitalOcean is doing layoffs

#123

Post by driverdan »

der-erlkonig wrote: post #48

Hearing that a lot of Community teams were let go, including the teams responsible for tutorials. Seems obvious DigitalOcean doesn't care about developers anymore. But this has been obvious for a while now. I guess their value "Our Community is bigger than just us" only matters when profits are up. Pour one out for DigitalOcean. It's the end of an era.

Good content was always a marketing strategy. For a while DO's content ranked high for a lot of tech searches. Rightfully so too, it is high quality.

Then another Google algo change pushed high quality content, like DO's tutorials, down in ranking. No need to spend money on something that isn't having the intended effect.

I worded this a bit tongue in cheek but seriously, search results have gotten really terrible in the past few years. At least DO's stuff was helpful. Now the first page is full of spun garbage just because it follows the new outline format that Google loves.

Re: Tell HN: DigitalOcean is doing layoffs

#124

Post by bad416f1f5a2 »

stonecharioteer wrote: post #85
bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my company did layoffs recently I got to peek behind the curtain a bit. It started with an all-hands video call from the CEO announcing the layoff. HR had loaded emails to send immediately following the call directly to your company email that either said "you are not fired" or "you are". For those who were fired, infosec ran a script during the CEO call to pull their access packages for production systems, cran…

what happens to your equipment? especially if you're remote?

The Helpdesk didn't know until after the RIF happened as some of them lost their jobs too. But every fired employee will get some return-labeled boxes shipped over to them, and are asked to pack up their equipment & send them back. Most companies who do these layoffs still count you as an employee for the duration of your severance, and your only real job requirement is to pack up your equipment and drive it to the UPS store.

Towards the end of their severance time, Infosec will run a remote wipe so if their endpoint ever connects to Wifi it'll get nuked. They tend to wait a bit to ensure there's not something on the laptop that needs to be recovered for the company – or the employee says they had some critical personal things on it. Either way the only way they get it back is by sending it back and letting the Helpdesk pull the data.

Worst case, an employee doesn't send stuff back and we write it off. It's really not a big deal. Mandatory FDE + device wipes when a laptop comes online means any data is protected, which is 100% of what we're concerned about. No one cares if an employee gets a "free" MacBook that's a few years old.

Re: Tell HN: DigitalOcean is doing layoffs

#125

Post by itake »

stonecharioteer wrote: post #85
bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my company did layoffs recently I got to peek behind the curtain a bit. It started with an all-hands video call from the CEO announcing the layoff. HR had loaded emails to send immediately following the call directly to your company email that either said "you are not fired" or "you are". For those who were fired, infosec ran a script during the CEO call to pull their access packages for production systems, cran…

what happens to your equipment? especially if you're remote?

Some companies let you keep it, some companies want you to mail it back so they can pay for it to be recycled properly or stored in a closet.

Re: Tell HN: DigitalOcean is doing layoffs

#126

Post by edude03 »

stonecharioteer wrote: post #85
bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my company did layoffs recently I got to peek behind the curtain a bit. It started with an all-hands video call from the CEO announcing the layoff. HR had loaded emails to send immediately following the call directly to your company email that either said "you are not fired" or "you are". For those who were fired, infosec ran a script during the CEO call to pull their access packages for production systems, cran…

what happens to your equipment? especially if you're remote?

They send you a box and you send it back basically. Though, the last company I left they made me pay for box and shipping (fine) but are refusing to reimburse me for the ~$200 shipping (no so fine)

Re: Tell HN: DigitalOcean is doing layoffs

#127

Post by johannes1234321 »

steve-atx-7600 wrote: post #45
arcturus17 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very sorry to hear that, though you seem to have a fairly good outlook about it. Excuse me if it's callous to ask this at this time, but as I've been observing layoffs and been hearing that people are immediately shut down from their systems, I'm wondering: how do they communicate it to you if you can't access your email? Do they reach out to your personal email, call you, send you a letter? I might understand revoki…

I don't understand why it's necessary to treat employees with such sudden distrust. It is necessary to immediately cut off all access? These employees aren't being fired because they are suspected of perpetrating a crime, right? I I understand the need for layoffs, but I can't respect an organization/leadership that treats people so coldly. This behavior also affects non-fired employees that may have a need to ask kn…

If you fire 1000 people and just 0.5% go crazy over the firing you got 5 people abusing their remaining permissions. Being strict makes it easy for the company. Especially those where employees are just a number for the executives.

Re: Tell HN: DigitalOcean is doing layoffs

#129

Post by [deleted] »

Nadya wrote: post #68
eigenhombre wrote: post #49

Have been a mostly happy DO customer for some time. Would be interested to know if the layoffs were carried off skillfully/compassionately or messily/carelessly.

Never lose your 2FA backup codes or you're locked out of your account forever if you lose your 2FA device - despite support having a verification process to remove 2FA in the event you lost your codes - the support tickets are ignored or unmonitored. I was also a happy DO customer for the last 5 years or so. But now I'm locked out of my account. My fault for losing my codes (DO are the only backup codes I can't seem…

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: DigitalOcean is doing layoffs

#130

Post by der-erlkonig »

jpgvm wrote: post #121

I don't really get the motivation for this beyond personal greed on behalf of executives that are only seeking to prop up the share price in the short term. The market forces at work will force all technology companies down in valuation pretty much regardless, what is the difference of a few extra million market cap to handicap your ability to grow during the next expansion phase? I can understand it if you have brou…

Seems like sociopathic tendencies are a requirement for C-Suite Execs
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