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I grew up in communist USSR. You have no idea how grotesque things can be without a free market.
why is that the only alternative?
Spotify CFO cashes in £7.2M in shares after value surges on news of job cuts
81–90 of 203 posts
Re: Spotify CFO cashes in £7.2M in shares after value surges on news of job cuts
#82Isn't this considered insider trading? You'd think there should be a blackout period around any kind of layoff, similar to how they do with earnings.
He traded on publicly available information, didn't he? Like, literally, what's the difference between him or you logging into a trading platform and issuing a sell on Tuesday morning?
He had shares prior and he didn't sell them before layoffs which he could have.
I think that would be the difference.
Re: Spotify CFO cashes in £7.2M in shares after value surges on news of job cuts
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not like the CFO has any more information than they do.
Well, he had to sell them _after_ the fact. But it does sound like his opinion on the cut downs is different than the market.
Didn't the stock price go up _after_ the fact?
It's about being able to predict what happens in the future that matters, unless you're supposing that he would have bought immediately before the announcement and sold after.
Re: Spotify CFO cashes in £7.2M in shares after value surges on news of job cuts
#84It’s kind of weird to see people want to work at big corporations but then act surprised or salty about layoffs. It’s nothing personal. You’re a line number even if you’re some leet coder. It’s a business, and it’s a strategy game of utilizing resources. You might have 400k TC but you’re not god you’re a resource. If you think these things aren’t fair or suck, then you should try to move out of the leet coder path an…
I used to have this attitude in my early 30s when I first made >500k. I thought I was indestructable, irreplacable and had an ego to match it. What a humbling experience it was to be laid off, in fact I think it was one of the best things to have happened to me. My relationship to work and business is much healthier now. I just smile at the silly games tech employers and their staff play.
What’s your TC now?
Re: Spotify CFO cashes in £7.2M in shares after value surges on news of job cuts
#85It’s kind of weird to see people want to work at big corporations but then act surprised or salty about layoffs. It’s nothing personal. You’re a line number even if you’re some leet coder. It’s a business, and it’s a strategy game of utilizing resources. You might have 400k TC but you’re not god you’re a resource. If you think these things aren’t fair or suck, then you should try to move out of the leet coder path an…
"If you think these things aren’t fair or suck, then you should try to move out of the leet coder path and get on the capital owner or business operator side." Some people like engineering and don't want to have to do an entirely different career. I would love to be treated as a human as an engineer (which is why I'm trying to leave the big companies but it's hard to find a company much better)
Then unfortunately they will always be at the mercy of their employer. Whether that employer is paying them 400k plus or a govt job paying 70k.
Re: Spotify CFO cashes in £7.2M in shares after value surges on news of job cuts
#86Instead of speaking about his right to do this or not, I think this conversation should be about the rise in C-suite executive compensation and Jack Welch style business decisions.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/07/was-jack-welch...
Re: Spotify CFO cashes in £7.2M in shares after value surges on news of job cuts
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a legal matter, no, he can't really sell his shares when he feels like it. (Disclaimer: IANAL and this is not advice.) The Spotify insider trading policy [1] prohibits transactions during "blackout periods," which start with the last month of the fiscal quarter (so December 1, in this case) and end after earnings are released. These share sales were presumably executed pursuant to a 10b5-1 plan, so he did somethin…
Wouldn't he have presumably had some input as to the timing of the layoffs?
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Re: Spotify CFO cashes in £7.2M in shares after value surges on news of job cuts
#88Spotify is a for-profit enterprise and if laying people off is the right financial choice then he's doing his job well. He can sell his shares when he feels like it.
Of course he can. Still makes him an asshole.
Capitalism, where you are happy to profiteer while it works for you, and people are assholes, when it doesn't.
Re: Spotify CFO cashes in £7.2M in shares after value surges on news of job cuts
#89Spotify is a for-profit enterprise and if laying people off is the right financial choice then he's doing his job well. He can sell his shares when he feels like it.
> He can sell his shares when he feels like it. I thought that as a corporate officer he kind of can't sell his shares when he feels like it? My layperson's understanding is that people like him have to decide in advance when they're going to sell shares and tell the SEC (by filing a 10b5-1 with a preset sales schedule and cooling-off period before sales start). I thought that the most control he would get is choosin…
As I understand it, the law is that they're not allowed to trade while in possession of material, non-public information, but beyond that most of the practices are there to just entirely avoid the suspicion or appearance of foul play. Sometimes executives are allowed to trade during windows immediately after announcing results, etc. The law would still dictate that they do not trade if they know about upcoming acquisitions or changes, etc. but someone would still have to prove that, and it's a risk that is removed if the executive just follows a preset schedule.
Re: Spotify CFO cashes in £7.2M in shares after value surges on news of job cuts
#90Spotify is a for-profit enterprise and if laying people off is the right financial choice then he's doing his job well. He can sell his shares when he feels like it.
> He can sell his shares when he feels like it He, in fact, cannot. As a C level executive he is going to trade on a 10b5-1 schedule.
Thanks for the insightful comment.
I guess they can still conveniently schedule when the layoffs are announced and make it happen right before the 10b5-1 schedule?
All the previous layoffs announcements were followed by the stock rising up.