Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#51

Post by hiddencost » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 2:01 PM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #41

lifeisgood99 wrote: post #2

"As CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision" Oh hey another one that takes responsibility by taking on 0 consequences.

Genuine question: what do people want from a CEO in this situation? What consequences do you want the CEO to face? A token reduction in pay? Being fired?

50% pay cut

putting an employee elected representative on the board

negotiating the layoffs and severance with employees (e.g., giving folks the opportunity to voluntarily take layoffs to reduce the number of involuntary layoffs).

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#52

Post by Jleagle » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 2:01 PM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #41

lifeisgood99 wrote: post #2

"As CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision" Oh hey another one that takes responsibility by taking on 0 consequences.

Genuine question: what do people want from a CEO in this situation? What consequences do you want the CEO to face? A token reduction in pay? Being fired?

How about not getting a bonus? Last year he got around $1M in bonuses.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#53

Post by bhouston » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 2:01 PM UTC

If you look at its earnings they have appeared to plateau and there isn’t a major offering planned that will change this.

I am reminded of Slack which has a similar history of rapid growth followed by a very competitive market and then significant slowing. Maybe Salesforce could acquire Dropbox and bundle it into their offerings or some other similar company?

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#54

Post by randomdata » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

josefritzishere wrote: post #28

Dropbox makes over 600 M per quarter and about $2.53B per year. They dont need to do layoffs. This is a choice to desctroy jobs to temporarily enrich shareholders to the detriment of the company itself. Classic short-term decision making. https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/dbx/revenue/

Financially, perhaps not, but maybe the product is now done? I mean, what more can you really add to the service at this point? There is still work to do with maintenance, support, etc. but that doesn't require the same level of employment as when you are still building.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#55

Post by brk » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

josefritzishere wrote: post #28

Dropbox makes over 600 M per quarter and about $2.53B per year. They dont need to do layoffs. This is a choice to desctroy jobs to temporarily enrich shareholders to the detriment of the company itself. Classic short-term decision making. https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/dbx/revenue/

How is it to the detriment of the company? I've been a dropbox subscriber I think since they launched. Over the years they've added some nice features here and there, but I feel like at this point they could scale all the way back to server admins and sustaining engineering and be perfectly fine. This is another case of I can't imaging what all of those people actually DO day to day.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#56

Post by triceratops » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #41

lifeisgood99 wrote: post #2

"As CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision" Oh hey another one that takes responsibility by taking on 0 consequences.

Genuine question: what do people want from a CEO in this situation? What consequences do you want the CEO to face? A token reduction in pay? Being fired?

Meaningful reduction in pay, especially stock.

If they overhired so much the CEO has wasted a ton of shareholder money. Pay for performance, right? Perform poorly, you should expect less pay.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#57

Post by BossingAround » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

absoluteunit1 wrote: post #29

The severance package is great! I don’t think I would be upset (unless I was extremely passionate about a project I was working on)

Really? 16 weeks of salary, or 4 months of pay. In my country, you get 3 months of pay as standard when you're fired from your job. Doesn't seem that great to me to be honest.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#58

Post by pizzathyme » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 2:03 PM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #41

lifeisgood99 wrote: post #2

"As CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision" Oh hey another one that takes responsibility by taking on 0 consequences.

Genuine question: what do people want from a CEO in this situation? What consequences do you want the CEO to face? A token reduction in pay? Being fired?

I ask this myself. What is the point of both doing layoffs, and then also firing the CEO? That next person will probably be worse, won't have the learnings of the layoffs, and would probably increase chances of layoffs happening again.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#59

Post by aprilthird2021 » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 2:03 PM UTC

pizzathyme wrote: post #43

lifeisgood99 wrote: post #2

"As CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision" Oh hey another one that takes responsibility by taking on 0 consequences.

Unpopular opinion, but I don't understand this type of comment. It sounds like people want executives to get some kind of punishment or pain as a consequence of laying people off. But what would that even look like? A fine? That would probably make no practical difference, and would discourage them from making changes that need to be made. Fire them? Then you would probably get a worse decision maker in the driver se…

Why can't the executive taking responsibility also take a pay cut and tighten their belt the way they expect the company to and the people who they've fired do?

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#60

Post by trmanb » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 2:03 PM UTC

Crowded space, macro headwinds and too much middle management. It was difficult to foresee in 2020, but regarding the macro headwinds (elephant in the room) perhaps some billionaires should adjust their donation patterns:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2021/02/17/here-...