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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%

#101

Post by kvonhorn »

Roritharr wrote: post #59
anon23432343 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Would you say that about any other type of media/culture/art you dislike? "I don't get why people like the Mona Lisa, the painting is neither original nor particularly well done" Is just as much a subjective statement. JRE is, by most released figures the top interview podcast on the planet, his interviews regularly move Charts of third party media like Book Bestseller Lists and Music Charts. There obviously is a hug…

> "I don't get why people like the Mona Lisa, the painting is neither original nor particularly well done"

And it's so small, too.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#102

Post by maxglute »

Should have fired 80% of their employees years ago when service was reasonably feature complete. Not that I don't sympathize with people getting laid off, but feels like past a certain point, more heads changes products faster than can be fixed, and sometimes moving fast degrades what shouldn't have been changed in the first place. NPR acquisition drama aside, pocketcast has like 25 employees that makes the service slightly better every year while fixing obvious bugs.

Sometimes I don't understand how jumping from winamp to spotify goes from a handful to 10000 employees. Winamp + audiogalaxy (ah memories) probably covers 90% of spotify use case with probably 10 engineers, then just get some suckers to curate playlists for free.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#103

Post by wombat-man »

jaymzcampbell wrote: post #99

I wonder how much of this is led by the likes of paying $200 million to sign up Joe Rogan or $25 million for Harry and Megan. That's a big chunk of change. 9,000 employees too - 17% of the workforce out the door.

Sure, but they’re also probably planning work for 2024. They may just figure they have more people than they need at the moment.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#105

Post by badcppdev »

jaymzcampbell wrote: post #99

I wonder how much of this is led by the likes of paying $200 million to sign up Joe Rogan or $25 million for Harry and Megan. That's a big chunk of change. 9,000 employees too - 17% of the workforce out the door.

Spotify made a gamble that having some headline Podcasters would build the listener market. Podcasters release regularly and have a different potential for becoming viral compared to musicians so it's a valid commercial decision to make.

Seems like their headline gambles didn't work but googling suggests that the podcast listener market increased 10% in the last year so I think they'll probably try again.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#108

Post by danpalmer »

badcppdev wrote: post #105
jaymzcampbell wrote: post #99

I wonder how much of this is led by the likes of paying $200 million to sign up Joe Rogan or $25 million for Harry and Megan. That's a big chunk of change. 9,000 employees too - 17% of the workforce out the door.

Spotify made a gamble that having some headline Podcasters would build the listener market. Podcasters release regularly and have a different potential for becoming viral compared to musicians so it's a valid commercial decision to make. Seems like their headline gambles didn't work but googling suggests that the podcast listener market increased 10% in the last year so I think they'll probably try again.

Anecdotally, most of the podcasts I listen to advertise as being on Spotify, especially the ones that skew towards a more mainstream audience. I think Spotify's podcast play has largely worked to gain the mindshare, it's really just them and Apple Podcasts.

I suspect this means that Spotify subscribers are listening to plenty of podcasts, but perhaps podcasts failed to bring new listeners into Spotify.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#109

Post by 1letterunixname »

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...

[flagged]

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#110

Post by 1letterunixname »

10u152 wrote: post #20
anon23432343 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

You don’t listen to Joe Rogan to listen to Joe Rogan. You listen because he has the most interesting guests on.

Joe Rogan isn't an insightful, active listener like Charlie Rose was and with actual interesting guests at a higher signal level.
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