HR wranglers? Damn, that’s simultaneously hilarious and terrifying
Restructuring Announcement
101–110 of 249 posts
Re: Restructuring Announcement
#102From an alternate universe: I apologize for my erratic behavior which has tarnished our brand and created unnecessary turmoil within our organization. Regrettably, we will need to implement a 16% reduction in headcount to address the financial challenges we now face. I have decided to step aside and hand over control to my deputy, who I believe will provide the steady leadership needed to rebuild trust and restore ou…
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Re: Restructuring Announcement
#103Huh. >> There are no layoffs plans at Automattic, in fact we're hiring fairly aggressively and have done a number of acquisitions since this whole thing started, and have several more in the pipeline. https://old.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1hxnh73/automatt...
It's not uncommon for companies to be in a hiring mode until they're very much not in a hiring mode any more.
Re: Restructuring Announcement
#104Huh. >> There are no layoffs plans at Automattic, in fact we're hiring fairly aggressively and have done a number of acquisitions since this whole thing started, and have several more in the pipeline. https://old.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1hxnh73/automatt...
It's not uncommon for companies to be in a hiring mode until they're very much not in a hiring mode any more.
Yeah. I was made a manager in Feb 2022 with 5 directs and 9 headcount to fill. Hired 5, and then by June 2022 all remaining headcount was cut. In January 2023 we had our first-ever layoffs in the company's 25-year history.
Re: Restructuring Announcement
#105From an alternate universe: I apologize for my erratic behavior which has tarnished our brand and created unnecessary turmoil within our organization. Regrettably, we will need to implement a 16% reduction in headcount to address the financial challenges we now face. I have decided to step aside and hand over control to my deputy, who I believe will provide the steady leadership needed to rebuild trust and restore ou…
If only we had real leaders...
Re: Restructuring Announcement
#106Not especially surprising, but there’s an awfully large elephant in the room that likely directly contributed to this necessity that goes completely unmentioned.
Drupal's sudden popularity?
Re: Restructuring Announcement
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
wait, did he put his name in the company name? if so, that's what we in the narcissist-identifying business call a "tell".
Or it just sounded like a fun joke for a good company name... I mean you are not wrong, but pretty much any successful young entrepreneur must have some degree of excessive appreciation for themselves, and this one was already achieving that status at 19.
Knowing a number of successful entrepreneurs, many having hit success early as well - most don't need to enshrine themselves in the company name. It is indeed a tell.
If that wasn't enough of a tell, his behavior in the last few months spelled it out clearly, circled the relevant parts with a big fat red marker, and installed a blinking neon sign saying "narcissist".
Re: Restructuring Announcement
#108Huh. >> There are no layoffs plans at Automattic, in fact we're hiring fairly aggressively and have done a number of acquisitions since this whole thing started, and have several more in the pipeline. https://old.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1hxnh73/automatt...
How infuriating for anyone recently hired caught in this trap. It seems to me the obvious, from both a business & human perspective, is to stop hiring at first signs of trouble, before layoffs. To do so otherwise is cruel. I doubt Matt had zero idea about this possibility two months ago.
The business world changes direction faster than companies can adapt. That was my biggest lesson as an entrepreneur: entrepreneurs don't really pivot into product-market fit, the market pivots into them. The reason capitalism works is because there's this huge sea of dream-chasers out there, most of whom will go bankrupt, so that when the market's needs change there is somebody out there to service them, and everybody who's not effectively servicing them goes to hell and gets another job.
Corporations and management basically exist to buffer this uncertainty. Employment is actually a really bad deal in good economic times; owners reap almost all the windfall of having a successful product. But in bad times, the company keeps paying you even if they're losing money, at least up until they don't. You get a raw deal, but not as raw a deal as the people paying you.
Likewise with strategic direction. The market's needs change faster than senior executives can adapt: if they always produced what the market was actually clamoring for, the company would run around like a chicken with its head cut off (this actually happens when the CEO panics, and a key CEO skill, and part of the reason they're paid so much, is the ability to ignore every piece of market data saying "You're not hot anymore. Nobody wants you, and the market has moved on" and keep doing what you're doing even though your intuition is telling you that you're doomed and going to lose your cushy $20M/year job). Much of the job of middle management is to buffer senior management's freakouts and tell the ICs "Keep calm and carry on; let's see if he still cares about this new hotness next week."
Re: Restructuring Announcement
#109Given what I know of the situation (which admittedly isn't much), wouldn't the best course of action be to shitcan the CEO?
From Reddit discussions, if they can be trusted, there is nobody who can remove Matt from any position. It's a private company and the investors were given non-voting shares.
I am confused -- so if investors don't like the CEO, there is nothing they can do? Other than maybe taking their part of the money out?
Re: Restructuring Announcement
#110on the positive side, it's a small thing monetarily, but retention of company laptops is a nice goodwill gesture
Worth maybe $1000, not even half a month's rent in almost any major US city