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Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

newsroom.spotify.com

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Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#21

Post by surgical_fire »

vlovich123 wrote: post #12
surgical_fire wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple and Amazon will eventually eat Spotify given enough time, if they don't find a moat to be built I doubt it. Apple is restricted to Apple devices. As for Amazon, the same argument could be made about Prime Video eating Netflix, and that never seemed to happen. On top of that, as far as I know, Spotify is profitable.

Apple Music is not restricted to Apple devices afaik: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...

Oh wow, I didn't know that.

I still wouldn't use it, but I am surprised that I never knew of this.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#22

Post by TapWaterBandit »

rob74 wrote: post #14

> Yet, considering the gap between our financial goal state and our current operational costs, I decided that a substantial action to rightsize our costs was the best option to accomplish our objectives. or, otherwise said: "we fired you to make our bottom line look nicer"

Eh, what's the alternative? Some people have this weird attitude that businesses are not allowed to shrink/fail. Businesses can only ever go one direction and that is more headcount, otherwise give them govt bailout.

Businesses need to be able to grow and shrink. Otherwise we just end up with "too big to fail".

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#23

Post by HideousKojima »

anon23432343 wrote: post #16
mvdtnz wrote: post #7

I wonder how those losing their jobs feel about Spotify's reported $200 million investment in Joe Rogan now.

It was and still is a stupid decision to buy Joe Rogan. I don't get why people listen to him... He is not funny nor smart. It sometimes feels you get better value when watching morning tv shows...

>It was and still is a stupid decision to buy Joe Rogan.

>I don't get why people listen to him...

I think you just contradicted yourself here. Whether or not it was a stupid decision to buy the rights to his podcast is orthogonal to whether or not he's funny or smart or if his content gives "value" to listeners.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#24

Post by mvdtnz »

anon23432343 wrote: post #16
mvdtnz wrote: post #7

I wonder how those losing their jobs feel about Spotify's reported $200 million investment in Joe Rogan now.

It was and still is a stupid decision to buy Joe Rogan. I don't get why people listen to him... He is not funny nor smart. It sometimes feels you get better value when watching morning tv shows...

I feel neither positively nor negatively about Rogan himself (I've never listened to him) but it was plainly a very stupid investment on Spotify's part. Anyone could have predicted (and most of us did) that only a fraction of his audience would follow him behind the paywall and removing him from mainstream free outlets would instantly diminish his cultural relevance.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#25

Post by kevinmchugh »

csunbird wrote: post #5
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They need a bigger cut. 17% will not have a big enough impact to its bottom line. What's stopping them from bigger cuts? We've seen that big SW products can run on lean teams(whatsapp, post-Musk Twitter) and we know many large tech companies are overloaded with way more workers than they need to run(Google), just because they could overhire when money was free. >Apple and Amazon will eventually eat Spotify given eno…

Google themselves? Given the popularity of the YouTube they should have won a decade ago, but they have not. The inefficiency of Google always amazes me.

About a decade ago they had Google Music. A friend of mine really liked it. He was supposed to have a for-life price of $7/month (or something) and then they raised prices and failed to grandfather his price in. Being Google, there was no way for him to complain about this to them, so he cancelled and used a product he liked less, out of spite. At some point they launched a duplicative product, YouTube Music, which they later migrated all customers to.

So you know, the standard Google experience.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#26

Post by rapsey »

ardit33 wrote: post #18
thiago_fm wrote: post #3

They need a bigger cut. 17% will not have a big enough impact to its bottom line. They need to have enough money to invest in other initiatives, as the business they are in is proven to be margin-thin. Apple and Amazon will eventually eat Spotify given enough time, if they don't find a moat to be built

17% is a huge cut. More than that and you end up damaging operations. Look what is happening to X / Twitter. PS. Spotify had already two layoffs, once 6% in Jan 2023 and 2% in June. This combined seems like a 25% ish cut.

It's seeing more use than ever with a fraction of the staff?

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#28

Post by baby »

anon23432343 wrote: post #16
mvdtnz wrote: post #7

I wonder how those losing their jobs feel about Spotify's reported $200 million investment in Joe Rogan now.

It was and still is a stupid decision to buy Joe Rogan. I don't get why people listen to him... He is not funny nor smart. It sometimes feels you get better value when watching morning tv shows...

He’s a great podcaster.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#29

Post by robin_reala »

TapWaterBandit wrote: post #22
rob74 wrote: post #14

> Yet, considering the gap between our financial goal state and our current operational costs, I decided that a substantial action to rightsize our costs was the best option to accomplish our objectives. or, otherwise said: "we fired you to make our bottom line look nicer"

Eh, what's the alternative? Some people have this weird attitude that businesses are not allowed to shrink/fail. Businesses can only ever go one direction and that is more headcount, otherwise give them govt bailout. Businesses need to be able to grow and shrink. Otherwise we just end up with "too big to fail".

I don’t think the complaint was in the action, but the horrible wording.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#30

Post by Mindwipe »

surgical_fire wrote: post #8
thiago_fm wrote: post #3

They need a bigger cut. 17% will not have a big enough impact to its bottom line. They need to have enough money to invest in other initiatives, as the business they are in is proven to be margin-thin. Apple and Amazon will eventually eat Spotify given enough time, if they don't find a moat to be built

> Apple and Amazon will eventually eat Spotify given enough time, if they don't find a moat to be built I doubt it. Apple is restricted to Apple devices. As for Amazon, the same argument could be made about Prime Video eating Netflix, and that never seemed to happen. On top of that, as far as I know, Spotify is profitable.

Spotify had one profitable quarter by fluke. It's not profitable.
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