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Grindr Loses Almost Half Its Staff on 2-Day RTO Requirement

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Re: Grindr Loses Almost Half Its Staff on 2-Day RTO Requirement

#231

Post by piece_of_mind »

calimoro78 wrote: post #38

(1) You can't assume losing half of staff is a downside. RTO is a great solution for bloated companies which overhired during the pandemic. (2) On the flip side, RTO is only a lever for large tech companies who pay great salaries. Startups' advantage is that they can compete for talent by offering remote work that large companies are not willing to offer due to their large real estate commitments. You may just be bet…

> You can't assume losing half of staff is a downside. RTO is a great solution for bloated companies which overhired during the pandemic.

Grindr didn't have a bloated staff. It had less than 200 employees, half that sw engineers. Tech stack is modern, solid and has no legacy code in it. It wasn't stripped to the bone, but now the company lost any fat it had, lost all muscle, and some bones in the process too.

The salaries were not high, but people enjoyed working there because they were at the same time helping the LGBT+ community which majority of employees were a part of.

Re: Grindr Loses Almost Half Its Staff on 2-Day RTO Requirement

#232

Post by giantg2 »

r00fus wrote: post #230
giantg2 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, plenty of rules exist. The real test is in how those get enforced.

NLRB just changed a key rule so a lot of union-busting by the employer now essentially automatically forces recognition of the union. https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-revises-...

Again, that's a nice rule. But how is that enforced? It still has to be proven that RTO is intended to union bust. That's the tough part.

Re: Grindr Loses Almost Half Its Staff on 2-Day RTO Requirement

#233

Post by r00fus »

giantg2 wrote: post #232
r00fus wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NLRB just changed a key rule so a lot of union-busting by the employer now essentially automatically forces recognition of the union. https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-revises-...

Again, that's a nice rule. But how is that enforced? It still has to be proven that RTO is intended to union bust. That's the tough part.

To my understanding if 50% (a majority) of the employees signs up (ie, union cards) for the union prior to any vote, if the employer takes a union-busting act, the union is automatically legitimized and the employer must negotiate with them.

Most major corporations are all already doing union-deterrence (not illegal) as operating practice so they likely won't see an impact unless there is a black swan event that causes workforce and management to come to loggerheads.

Re: Grindr Loses Almost Half Its Staff on 2-Day RTO Requirement

#234

Post by dghlsakjg »

vuln wrote: post #212
callalex wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I should have been less brief. I don’t deny that the ADL has been campaigning against xitter, I just hold extreme doubt that they are the main reason xitter lost half of its ad revenue. I think that is more likely caused by other factors.

Do you have insider knowledge of the _other factors_ you _think_ is more likely the cause of revenue loss? Isn’t almost all of twitters revenue pre paid blue check, advertising? Where else are they generating income? Wasn’t twitter losing money before? Has twitter ever been profitable? I’ve linked to proof of boycotts and the ADLs position in convincing advertisers to drop twitter due to the ADLs “research.” You prov…

You've proved that the ADL is calling for an advertising boycott, which is a 1st amendment protected right. You haven't proven anything in regards to the effectiveness of that action.

Here's some vetted research from reputable institutions unconnected to any boycotts showing a demonstrable increase in hate speech on twitter https://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.04129.pdf.

I don't have insider knowledge, but I would be perfectly willing to believe that advertisers find it untenable to risk advertising alongside hate-speech, or to be associated with a platform that has failed to signal that they won't tolerate hate speech, and as a result they have pulled their campaigns.

Whether that is because the ADL alerted them to the increase in hate speech, because it is their job to understand cultural phenomenon and trends, or because they have web browsers and eyes, I would not be able to tell.

Re: Grindr Loses Almost Half Its Staff on 2-Day RTO Requirement

#235

Post by philipov »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #181
munificent wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A matchmaking service.

alright but stay with me here... what do they use to matchmake?

I think the distinction the original person was trying to make is that to be a software company you need to sell the software someone would use to offer such a service instead of offering the service yourself. They would stipulate that a tech company is specifically a company that sells technology to others, not any company that uses technology. Otherwise, all companies are tech companies.

You can not buy the software that Grindr uses to do matchmaking; you can only buy their matchmaking service.

Re: Grindr Loses Almost Half Its Staff on 2-Day RTO Requirement

#236

Post by bhdlr »

boringg wrote: post #84
mjhay wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Higher-performing employees generally have more options than lower-performing ones, so they aren't desperate enough to go through a disruptive and expensive move in order to keep their job. For similar reasons, I'd expect senior-level employees to be over-represented, because they're more likely to have kids, a spouse, and an existing mortgage.

True but the switching costs are still quite high for higher performing employees and it seems like the pool of tech companies requiring working in an office presence is also gaining share (ie pool of companies to switch to without in office work is low).

I imagine if tech companies continue to force the rto issue they will continue losing talent to other companies

Anecdotally I'm currently in the process of leaving a tech company and joining a legacy fortune 500, where I'll be full time WFH.

Re: Grindr Loses Almost Half Its Staff on 2-Day RTO Requirement

#237

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

spacemadness wrote: post #43
paxys wrote: post #24

Grindr went public via a SPAC acquisition last November and has lost 90% of its value since. I'm gonna go ahead and say it's a bad move to make RTO demands from your staff when they already see no future at the company and have one foot out the door. The company's problems will be solved by better leadership, decision making, product vision, adaptability and faster execution...not more butts in seats at the office.

Unfortunately the “leaders in tech” are MBA brains that have no idea what they are doing long-term and when the going gets tough they turn to the age old strategy of making life miserable for their employees. This is true in the United States, anyway, where we have very little in the way of labor protection.

I don't think the problem is "MBA brain", at least not directly. MBA types may have earned a reputation of being distinctly out of touch with the "factory floor" and the end user, but their actions are often rational if viewed through sufficiently Excel-tinted glasses. To me, the RTO push does not seem rational in that way.

I fully admit that this is a half-baked hypothesis based mostly on vibes, but I suspect that a lot of execs operate more than they'd admit on "ape brain" concerns of social dominance, and feel threatened by the prospect of not having underlings in a contiguous physical territory. Part of what makes the cubicle (never mind the open layout) such a cultural touchstone for corporate soullessness is that the physical space you inhabit distinctly belongs to the company; it is not "your" space. Conversely, WFH takes that space from the company and gives it to the worker, at least metaphorically. Perhaps this is even the post-postmodern, meta-ironic, lazy-teenager version of "seizing the means of production", although I'll leave that argument to people who have actually studied the likes of Gramsci, Adorno and Deleuze.

Re: Grindr Loses Almost Half Its Staff on 2-Day RTO Requirement

#238

Post by dwaltrip »

asveikau wrote: post #220
dwaltrip wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staffing costs >> server costs, generally, is my understanding.

I'm not even implying the opposite, I'm merely saying it is a cost.

>> Unless a company is doing a computationally expensive thing [...] then the opex should be an inconsequential amount

> I don't think that has much bearing on my question of ranking server costs with other costs

Take another look at the comment thread. It seems to me there is some sort of miscommunication or misunderstanding.

Re: Grindr Loses Almost Half Its Staff on 2-Day RTO Requirement

#239

Post by wvenable »

wly_cdgr wrote: post #132
jq-r wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a software tech company. They make the Grindr app. Nothing else.

No, they are a matchmaking connections-as-a-service company that happens to do it through an app.

...and Adobe is an artist tool company that just never stocks any paints or canvases.

Re: Grindr Loses Almost Half Its Staff on 2-Day RTO Requirement

#240

Post by paxys »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #237
spacemadness wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the “leaders in tech” are MBA brains that have no idea what they are doing long-term and when the going gets tough they turn to the age old strategy of making life miserable for their employees. This is true in the United States, anyway, where we have very little in the way of labor protection.

I don't think the problem is "MBA brain", at least not directly. MBA types may have earned a reputation of being distinctly out of touch with the "factory floor" and the end user, but their actions are often rational if viewed through sufficiently Excel-tinted glasses. To me, the RTO push does not seem rational in that way. I fully admit that this is a half-baked hypothesis based mostly on vibes, but I suspect that a…

I agree. If a company asked its team of MBAs to figure out the ideal work situation, they'd run the numbers and conclude that saving on expensive office space, expanding the talent pool, being able to hire in cheaper regions, keeping employees happier and reducing attrition etc. made remote work the more favorable option. The problem is instead power tripping execs who ignore this advice and go nah, what we really need is to go back to the good old days where I could boss people around.
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