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Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

reuters.com

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Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#51

Post by monero-xmr »

raincole wrote: post #44
monero-xmr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm c-suite and the most important function of layoffs is to preserve the business as an ongoing concern, preserving what jobs I can. If the business fails, everyone loses their job, which is terrible! Now, if the reason for layoffs is due directly to poor decisions by someone who should not have reasonably made that decision given the variables in front of them, that person should probably be terminated. But layoffs…

Good comment. If you (anyone who reads this) are an employee, remember this is how c-suite people see you. You're cost . You're something that prevents the business from being "preserved". You're like water or electricity bills from the businesses' point of view. You'll be fired not because you did anything wrong: firing you is nothing different from using less water. Water, of course, can't be wrong or right. That's…

Businesses do not exist for making jobs. If we wanted jobs simply for jobs’ sake, then we would pay people to dig holes and fill them in (a lot of government jobs are glorified versions of this).

Businesses exist to fulfill a market need, and every business fulfilling that market need competes in some axis of cost vs. quality.

We are all human. I feel for people laid off. I have been laid off before, and businesses I operated have failed - full stop. I’m talking complicated bankruptcy with the courts and everything. This is not a good outcome for anyone except the court appointed lawyers.

Even when I lay people off, or if people quit on their own for greener pa$ture$, I maintain relationships with people who I respect. More often than not I meet these people again, either hiring them directly or working with them again. The world isn’t zero sum, and being laid off isn’t a sociopathic situation of management vs. labor.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#52

Post by monero-xmr »

vore wrote: post #48
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is your job to anticipate the market No, it’s not. It’s to engage it best. Take two cultures: one that executes leaders for making bad calls and one that judges them according to what they knew when they made the decision. Who wins? We’ve run this experiment hundreds of times because it’s appealing to think steep consequences for bad decisions leads to good decisions. But it doesn’t. It causes caution and indecisio…

Then the compensation model is inherently unfair if the rank and file is forced to bear the brunt of bad leadership.

Anyone can put their hat in the ring and get into management. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon, I had no connections, and I attended a weak school. I worked my fucking ass off and networked everywhere I could. I built a reputation.

If you can convince people that you are deserving of leadership, you have the guts to put yourself on the line in front of tens or hundreds or thousands of people, go ahead. This is your life and the people you are responsible for. If you do this and want to work for peanuts, be my guest. I get paid what the market thinks I’m worth.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#53

Post by bandrami »

monero-xmr wrote: post #25
btbuildem wrote: post #7

Do these layoffs include any of the C-suite / execs / upper management? You know, the people directly responsible for the company's situation? Accountability? No?

I'm c-suite and the most important function of layoffs is to preserve the business as an ongoing concern, preserving what jobs I can. If the business fails, everyone loses their job, which is terrible! Now, if the reason for layoffs is due directly to poor decisions by someone who should not have reasonably made that decision given the variables in front of them, that person should probably be terminated. But layoffs…

> how can you fire the business leader?

Ummm... why wouldn't you fire the business leader in that situation? He locked the company in to a niche market that was subject to the volatility of fashion choices when he could have had his feather techs fletching arrows or stuffing pillows. Had the bet paid off, he'd reap the benefits.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#54

Post by raincole »

monero-xmr wrote: post #51
raincole wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good comment. If you (anyone who reads this) are an employee, remember this is how c-suite people see you. You're cost . You're something that prevents the business from being "preserved". You're like water or electricity bills from the businesses' point of view. You'll be fired not because you did anything wrong: firing you is nothing different from using less water. Water, of course, can't be wrong or right. That's…

Businesses do not exist for making jobs. If we wanted jobs simply for jobs’ sake, then we would pay people to dig holes and fill them in (a lot of government jobs are glorified versions of this). Businesses exist to fulfill a market need, and every business fulfilling that market need competes in some axis of cost vs. quality. We are all human. I feel for people laid off. I have been laid off before, and businesses I…

I absolutely don't think that businesses exist to make jobs. You'll never find me saying so. Continue on my own analogy, thinking businesses exist to make more jobs is just like thinking they exist to use water. It would be crazy if anyone said it out loud this way.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#55

Post by 29athrowaway »

a012 wrote: post #21
starkparker wrote: post #2

Also notable: > Unity will shut down offices in 14 locations such as Berlin and Singapore, pending employee consultation in some countries, and significantly reduce its office footprint for the remaining offices, including in San Francisco and Bellevue, Washington. > Unity will no longer mandate that employees work from offices three a days a week and will reduce "full in-office services" to three days a week in most…

It seems like WFH is a "perk" when company is in cut down expenses mode, and RTO is mandated when it's thriving.

When you layoff large numbers of people, WFH makes it easier.

When you need to start a company or do a hiring push, being in an office can help.

In a company that only hires high seniority employees, WFH vs office doesn't matter much.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#56

Post by BryanLegend »

luaKmua wrote: post #40
initplus wrote: post #31

Unity are spending too much money to develop far too little. New engine features are almost universally half baked (DOTS, UI mess). They acquire in demand features from the community just to let them wither (pro builder). The only thing that's consistent between different Unity features is how unpolished they seem. Notably the mess they have made of DOTS seems to have been partially responsible for sinking Cities Sky…

No love for Unity here, their licensing debacle was horrendous, but I've seen no indications that DOTS is responsible for CS2 perf issues. Everything I've seen points to other things lacking in the engine (a decent LODing system for example), general optimization issues that'd be present in any game shipped too early, and inefficiencies in the rendering pipeline.

No game engine can save a game from someone dedicated to being inefficient, like rendering high poly teeth on pixel tall models.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#57

Post by 3seashells »

seattle_spring wrote: post #8
starkparker wrote: post #2

Also notable: > Unity will shut down offices in 14 locations such as Berlin and Singapore, pending employee consultation in some countries, and significantly reduce its office footprint for the remaining offices, including in San Francisco and Bellevue, Washington. > Unity will no longer mandate that employees work from offices three a days a week and will reduce "full in-office services" to three days a week in most…

Nice! It's nice to see a company make an employee-friendly movement here, as opposed to many of the other big players forcing their employees back into the commute rat-race.

One that has no benefit for employees and employers, beyond tax incentives.. Real planned economy vibes there.. Well.. You can not save economic models based on nost algia with lots of costs for all sides. They just wither and die over time anyway..

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#58

Post by danbolt »

initplus wrote: post #45
luaKmua wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No love for Unity here, their licensing debacle was horrendous, but I've seen no indications that DOTS is responsible for CS2 perf issues. Everything I've seen points to other things lacking in the engine (a decent LODing system for example), general optimization issues that'd be present in any game shipped too early, and inefficiencies in the rendering pipeline.

"Unfortunately a lot of the graphics-related issues are indirectly caused by the game’s use of DOTS" "The cause for unnecessary geometry is both the lack of simplified LOD variants for many of the game’s meshes, as well as the simplistic and seemingly untuned culling implementation. And the reason why the game has its own culling implementation instead of using Unity’s built in solution (which should at least in theo…

I think if a game development team is going to try ECS for gameplay, they need to have the resources to go ensure it’s comprehensive enough for their needs. It can be challenging to “bolt on” a data-oriented design and have it interface with the rest of the code base. Conway’s Law will apply if not everyone’s on board with it.

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#59

Post by kalleboo »

BryanLegend wrote: post #56
luaKmua wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No love for Unity here, their licensing debacle was horrendous, but I've seen no indications that DOTS is responsible for CS2 perf issues. Everything I've seen points to other things lacking in the engine (a decent LODing system for example), general optimization issues that'd be present in any game shipped too early, and inefficiencies in the rendering pipeline.

No game engine can save a game from someone dedicated to being inefficient, like rendering high poly teeth on pixel tall models.

I would have assumed the game engine would be responsible for culling occluded objects. Isn't that one of the most basic parts of a 3D renderer?

Re: Unity Software to cut 3.8% of staff in 'company reset'

#60

Post by kalleboo »

monero-xmr wrote: post #25
btbuildem wrote: post #7

Do these layoffs include any of the C-suite / execs / upper management? You know, the people directly responsible for the company's situation? Accountability? No?

I'm c-suite and the most important function of layoffs is to preserve the business as an ongoing concern, preserving what jobs I can. If the business fails, everyone loses their job, which is terrible! Now, if the reason for layoffs is due directly to poor decisions by someone who should not have reasonably made that decision given the variables in front of them, that person should probably be terminated. But layoffs…

> If you are in the business of making feather hats, and suddenly feather hats go out of style because of shifts in market demand, how can you fire the business leader?

Were you a c-suite at Kodak or something? "There was nothing we could do after people didn't want to shoot photos on film anymore" meanwhile Fujifilm pivoting hard into chemical materials, makeup, medical etc etc (although ironically due to the meteoric rise of Instax, their highest income is once again consumer photo film...)

You fire the business leader because he didn't see the writing on the wall and expand into down comforters, other styles of hats, etc etc.

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