Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17% • Hacker News Board

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#481

Post by rchaud » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 2:46 PM UTC

ethbr1 wrote: post #418

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the question? They were able to use money more freely as it was more abundant, so they were able to take more risks. Now that money is more expensive, they need to be more careful about it.

I think parent might be overemphasizing strategic in that quote. >> This is not a step back; it’s a strategic reorientation. We’re still committed to investing and making bold bets, but now, with a more focused approach, ensuring Spotify’s continued profitability and ability to innovate. "Strategic" could be replaced with "efficient". They were previously optimized for growth -- now, they're optimizing for growth:kro…

When a company is publicly traded, mass firing announcements are no longer buried, it's red meat for shareholders.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#482

Post by Aurornis » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

nojvek wrote: post #472

Post-pandemic, the trend of Corporations raking in higher and higher profits, while needing fewer and fewer staff scares me. The most obvious and likely outcome is it drastically separates the ultra wealthy from middle class. With rise of AI and automation, that trend will likely accelerate. The top 10% hold more than 50% of wealth. It's likely in a few decades, the top 1% will hold more than 50% of the wealth. They…

The pandemic trend at many of these companies was to aggressively overhire. If you look at headcount for many of these companies it’s still significantly above 2020 levels and even often above the old trend lines.

If you hire an unprecedented number of people in short period of time, you’re almost always going to have to cut a significant number of them later. Hiring is hard and even during good times a rapid expansion like we saw during COVID hiring is going to bring in people and departments that don’t work out.

> The most obvious and likely outcome is it drastically separates the ultra wealthy from middle class.

I think this doesn’t obviously follow. Like I said, hiring trends aren’t all that distorted if you average out the recent layoffs with the excessive COVID hiring.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#483

Post by slig » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

bede wrote: post #66

mvdtnz wrote: post #7

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

As a scientist working in public health, this decision burned my faith in Spotify. They were taking down conspiracy theory podcasts daily while bankrolling Rogan to provide a platform with insane reach for cranks like Robert Malone. I cancelled my subscription for a few months in protest.

> I cancelled my subscription for a few months in protest.

Good for you, I'm sure that made a huge impact.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#484

Post by xdennis » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 2:48 PM UTC

coryrc wrote: post #81

Roritharr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 can only assume their agreement over 200M was based on some pretty solid math. Working at Microsoft during the Ballmer era and seeing the number of multi-billion-dollar acquisitions written-down to nothing, I would never assume corporations spend large amounts wisely.

I think, sometimes, buying the competition and killing it is the intended effect. Especially if you're as anti-competitive as Microsoft.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#485

Post by slig » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

jzb wrote: post #252

TMWNN wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that investing in Rogan did what Spotify hoped it would (driving enough subscriptions to make a profit), not having made the investment would have meant more layoffs now.

Opposite for me. I cancelled because of that. Partially because I didn’t like Spotify endorsing his content, but also because I subscribed to Spotify for music , not podcasts. I wanted to see them invest more in features around music and work on better compensation for artists - not spend my subscription money on shoving podcast content at me.

I wonder why they force podcasts so much. I've never listened to them, and I'm sure they have that data, and the recommendations are way, way off anything I'd consider listening to.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#486

Post by next_xibalba » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

nojvek wrote: post #472

Post-pandemic, the trend of Corporations raking in higher and higher profits, while needing fewer and fewer staff scares me. The most obvious and likely outcome is it drastically separates the ultra wealthy from middle class. With rise of AI and automation, that trend will likely accelerate. The top 10% hold more than 50% of wealth. It's likely in a few decades, the top 1% will hold more than 50% of the wealth. They…

> Corporations raking in higher and higher profits,

To what is this claim responding? Spotify only turned a profit in 1 of the last 5 quarters. It has never turned an annual profit.

I actually think the story is quite different here. Tech companies had been hiring like drunken sailors leading up to the pandemic. They're only in the last year rationalizing down to levels that are necessary and productive. I have close friends at a few FAANGs and the stories of bureaucracy, bloat, and entitlement are mind blowing. Meta/Facebook made the right move by taking a hatchet to middle management. Let's hope the other big ones do the same before the plague spreads further.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#487

Post by Y-bar » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #356

ctvo wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single engineer is 400k in total costs, and they hired thousands for initiatives that didn’t pan out. Thinking cloud costs come anywhere close to being a factor here is nonsense and not supported by anything in the article. You extrapolated that costs meant cloud costs vs. them overhiring during the pandemic and investing in things like podcasts, which haven’t had the expected returns. You did this in an attempt to…

Five things wrong 1. I didn't edit my comment to remove anything like that, so I'm not sure what you're suggesting. 2. I didn't perceive injustice, I thought it was a bit brainless to not associate company costs with long term survivability. 3. An engineer being 400k TC is an anomaly, Spotify does not pay any of it's Swedish engineering force nearly that much, and since we don't know the demographics of the layoffs i…

> Citation here says the avg was 125.000[0]

My comment you are referring to.

For the record, I used Glass Door, checked mostly Stockholm, but Paris, Barcelona, and Helsinki all seems to be in a similar range.

which lists most roles (including managers and senior engineers) as making less than SEK 1M ($98k) per year, most in the $75-$87k range it seems. Add on office space and equipment and other costs of roughly $30k per year and you got something like the above number.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#488

Post by starcraft2wol » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

bede wrote: post #66

mvdtnz wrote: post #7

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

As a scientist working in public health, this decision burned my faith in Spotify. They were taking down conspiracy theory podcasts daily while bankrolling Rogan to provide a platform with insane reach for cranks like Robert Malone. I cancelled my subscription for a few months in protest.

I feel a lot of my faith in public health scientists was also burned.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#489

Post by rchaud » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

maxglute wrote: post #178

madeofpalk wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's at least one team devoted to screwing up the homepage, pushing content that I don't want like podcasts. Will not miss them.

200m on Rogan has caused more than few of my friends to drop spotify permanently because they couldn't get him off their home screen recommendation for months. If only one engineer added a dismiss button.

When you overpay massively for IP, you have no choice but to shove it down people's throats in the hope that even 1% decide to subscribe.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#490

Post by Closi » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

maxglute wrote: post #176

piva00 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The complexity is not the player, it's the whole business... Winamp didn't have recommendations, tack on another 100-200 people working on data to surface…

No need, I was being flippant. I don't work in tech but dealt with large orgs. Broad point is, by all means, have your headcount for signing labels, localization, maintaining physical infra. But past a certain amount of brains and you get feature/vision creep that starts degrading core product. Where/when that point is of course highly subjective. But how many employees does a music streaming service need? I don't kn…

Well I just googled and Valve has 1,139 employees, and Spotify will now have 7,800 - It's nowhere near 20x.

Still a big gap, although I suspect they are very different offerings and companies. Differences include:

* Spotify needs to sell ads (to support it's free tier). This requires engineering and people to sell the ads.

* Spotify is in a more competitive market than Steam (who have a nearly de-facto monopoly) so more advertising/marketing effort is required.

* Interfacing with the entire global music industry takes time and resource.

There may also be differences to the extent these companies outsource and use contractors which could make it more difficult to see actual headcount.