weren't they paying data scientists 500k?
Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%
511–520 of 1001 posts
Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%
#512Anytime I see layoffs like this, All I hear is "We hired for the sake of hiring when money was cheap and we wanted to signal 'growth', But now reality has set in and we need our employees to serve a purpose beyond simply headcount". In my opinion they did these employees a disservice by hiring them in the first place. We need our companies to act more responsibly regardless of the price of capital. Innovate sure, but…
What's the consequence for doing your employees a disservice? Maybe a few of the best and most important employees get jaded and quit. Morale company wide takes a hit. These companies don't seem to care and I guess I'm not sure they should.
For me, it's not just morale that's gone to shit, but I feel like I've woken up to the nature of the employer/employee relationship with all these layoffs. I was blind but now I see, we ARE human resources, and it's very likely none of us are irreplaceable, none of us matter really all that much to our employers and the cost cutting via offshoring/remote employee replacement / no backfill is probably just getting started.
Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%
#513Earlier quoted context omitted.
For what it's worth Spotify is the most popular podcast platform in the US, with 25% of the userbase: https://explodingtopics.com/blog/podcast-listeners#podcast-p... I'd say that gamble in particular worked. Not so sure others will though, audio books feels like it will be a dud.
25% market share is a bit lackluster, though? Podcasting has also been called the slowest growing new medium in the history of new media. I can't imagine it's earning its keep, relative to those big initial payouts. Meanwhile, the shows that are brought into subscription-only world systematically fail to attract new listeners; it is hard to use podcast exclusives to grow market share. Especially the talking head vari…
Apple and Google have 20% and 16% respectively. Considering the amazing platform boost that those two giants have I think 25% is very impressive.
But I agree that podcastings growth has been very slow. I think that there are a lot of factors influencing that. The biggest in my opinion is that listening to a podcast is more intimate than any other media (including broadcast radio) and that factor both slows uptake and decreases churn. Not a marketer though so just making that up.
Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%
#514Post-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 poor today are the middle class of 15-20 years ago and the kings of 300 years ago. It’s not perfect but a rising tide does raise all ships. Regarding the ultra wealthy, the disparity was actually greater in the past. All that said, you distribute wealth by reducing taxes on the poor and increasing it on wealthy. Alternatively, shifting the growth differential such that the poor grow faster than the wealthy (hard…
The poor of today (2023) are the middle class of 2003-2008? That's a hard comparison with the housing crash of 2008, but I don't think the tide has risen enough for that comparison to be accurate.
Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%
#515Earlier quoted context omitted.
sure, but call a spade a spade instead of making the layoffs seem mandatory. there are inputs to financial goals - including executive greed.
What would your plan be to stop Spotify from losing tens and hundreds of millions of Euros per year?
Raise prices to a point where the company can be a going concern without needing to find new financing to buy every podcast under the sun.
Spotify is one of the few companies that raises prices every year but somehow get further away from making a profit.
Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%
#516Anytime I see layoffs like this, All I hear is "We hired for the sake of hiring when money was cheap and we wanted to signal 'growth', But now reality has set in and we need our employees to serve a purpose beyond simply headcount". In my opinion they did these employees a disservice by hiring them in the first place. We need our companies to act more responsibly regardless of the price of capital. Innovate sure, but…
And they were still hiring too! My first day was last Monday haha, last day today
Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%
#517Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The severance package seems quite generous as well. I guess it depends a bit what they mean by `the average employee receiving approximately five months of severance` (and also where you are seeing it from, maybe its seen as more generous when seen from the US). In Sweeden the notice period for the employer is between 1 and 6 months, depending on how long the empoyee has worked there. If they count that period in a…
Yeah you're not entitled to anything in the States. There are no employment contracts and you can be fired for any reason without notice. The only reason to give severance is to avoid bad publicity. There isn't any mandate that the company has to offer anything. There really should be though especially when the company in question was able to afford $1 billion in stock buybacks just 2 years ago, and when the CEO has…
That's not entirely true, the US has the WARN act which requires 60 days notice for large layoffs.
Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%
#518Anytime I see layoffs like this, All I hear is "We hired for the sake of hiring when money was cheap and we wanted to signal 'growth', But now reality has set in and we need our employees to serve a purpose beyond simply headcount". In my opinion they did these employees a disservice by hiring them in the first place. We need our companies to act more responsibly regardless of the price of capital. Innovate sure, but…
I wholeheartedly agree. It's about time governments started signalling to employers that this sort of behaviour will not go unpunished. After all, it's the state that will have to pick up the tab for the rampant over-hiring in the form of social security and healthcare.
What should the punishment be? Fines for layoffs?
Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%
#519All things considered, the note seems honest - lays out the facts and considerations. The severance package seems quite generous as well.
I agree, but this part bothered me.
"Today, we still have too many people dedicated to supporting work and even doing work around the work rather than contributing to opportunities with real impact. More people need to be focused on delivering for our key stakeholders – creators and consumers. "
While this is likely partly true, this is mostly management's fault. I didn't see anything in the email that talks post-mortem about the root cause and how it will be prevented going forward.
Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%
#520I consider Spotify like Hulu - existing as a puppet to give "the industry" a centralized distribution service. I don't ever expect them to make a profit, unless they decide to pivot and sell what's left to another corp. Am I wrong?