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Layoffs at Block

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Re: Layoffs at Block

#321

Post by hirsin »

alephnerd wrote: post #306
tombert wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm convinced that these "AI Layoffs" are these companies trying to save face from the absurd overhiring that they did in 2022 and 2023 because apparently they thought that these no-interest loans/free money would just last forever. No one really "knows" how to grow businesses so the easiest way to spend a lot of money quickly is hiring lots of people, whether or not they are "necessary". Then this free money dries u…

> I'm convinced that these "AI Layoffs" are these companies trying to save face from the absurd overhiring that they did in 2022 and 2023 because apparently they thought that these no-interest loans/free money would just last forever. Partially. The first nail in the coffin was the change in assumptions around output. Before 2023, there was an assumption that more bodies means more output. After the massive X/Twitter…

The Twitter layoffs being used as proof of _anything_ is misguided no matter what you're trying to say.

If success is losing half their revenue, reverting to revenue numbers from a decade ago, I gotta know what failure looks like. You might argue that the revenue losses aren't correlated to their headcount changes and probably make a good argument, but I mean... It's not a great one

Re: Layoffs at Block

#322

Post by viraptor »

alephnerd wrote: post #306
tombert wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm convinced that these "AI Layoffs" are these companies trying to save face from the absurd overhiring that they did in 2022 and 2023 because apparently they thought that these no-interest loans/free money would just last forever. No one really "knows" how to grow businesses so the easiest way to spend a lot of money quickly is hiring lots of people, whether or not they are "necessary". Then this free money dries u…

> I'm convinced that these "AI Layoffs" are these companies trying to save face from the absurd overhiring that they did in 2022 and 2023 because apparently they thought that these no-interest loans/free money would just last forever. Partially. The first nail in the coffin was the change in assumptions around output. Before 2023, there was an assumption that more bodies means more output. After the massive X/Twitter…

> After the massive X/Twitter layoffs (60-70% headcount culled) with X/Twitter still standing, this assumption was clearly proven false.

Twitter at the same time removed features to have fewer things to support. And didn't implement anything new (or really fix much) for ages. It's not the same service that was standing afterwards. And the "still standing" ignores the part where they started serving empty timelines, repeated messages from broken paging, broke 2fa for days, messed up whole continent access, etc. etc. They survived (and still had fewer problems than I expected), but it wasn't smooth at all - hardly a success too.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#323

Post by tootie »

daxfohl wrote: post #48

We'll see how much the AI aspect is true by whether they're thinning out teams equally, or just axing whole initiatives. My impression of Block was that it was mostly a one-trick pony (okay, two if you include CashApp) with a bunch of side initiatives that never seemed to pan out, so I'm expecting it to be more of the latter, with this being more of an admission that they're now in "maintenance mode". Either way, I t…

During the massive post-pandemic hiring spree, there were a lot of threads in the vein of "why does [MATURE STARTUP] requires X,000 developers?" and I think those questions were maybe prescient. These companies have been spending free venture funds on whatever and acquiring headcount for the sake of headcount. A lot of them have tried to and failed to be "everything apps" and now they are really sitting on mature, stable and profitable platforms that don't need to move fast and break things. They just need to not crash. And the result is they need far fewer people.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#324

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

_zagj wrote: post #294
MattGaiser wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they are right about quality, people on here vastly overstate the value of quality. From socks to dishwashers to airfares, slop is a valid product as long as it is cheap. Security from a business perspective has been proven not quite optional, but it is hardly catastrophic if it fails.

> Even if they are right about quality, people on here vastly overstate the value of quality I always found the quality argument strange; what software are these people using that makes them think quality is a high priority?

I recognize that my experience may not be typical, but I spend the vast majority of my development time improving the quality of the systems I work on, in response to specific customer demands for it. The last time I had multiple consecutive weeks of greenfield development was in 2021.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#325

Post by teyopi »

slantedview wrote: post #302
senko wrote: post #254

This is one of the best (if not the best) layoff letters I've seen online (no affiliation, don't know anyone working there, purely outsider perspective). * Severance packages upfront because realistically that's what everyone worries about first. * Reasoning second. I appreciate the one clean cut vs prolonged bleeding. * Owning the decision and respecting the people that got you there. Opting for an awkward allhands…

"owning" the decision doesn't mean anything. It's just words.

Agree materially no consequences but still better than many deflection strategies we have seen from others during layoffs.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#326

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

daxfohl wrote: post #48

We'll see how much the AI aspect is true by whether they're thinning out teams equally, or just axing whole initiatives. My impression of Block was that it was mostly a one-trick pony (okay, two if you include CashApp) with a bunch of side initiatives that never seemed to pan out, so I'm expecting it to be more of the latter, with this being more of an admission that they're now in "maintenance mode". Either way, I t…

I think this is pretty spot on. It's already been mentioned a ton before how many of these "we're having layoffs to better utilize AI" stories are really just cover for axing lots of unprofitable projects that were birthed during the ZIRP/early pandemic era.

I think the additional wrinkle with AI is that it's having an impact, just not really in the way these execs are saying. Before ChatGPT, there was lots of speculative investment into SaaS-type products as companies looked for another hit. Now, though, I think there is a general sense that, except for AI, Internet tech (and lots of other tech) is fully mature. This huge amount of investment in "the next big tech" thing (again, ex-AI) is just over, and the transition happened pretty fast. Blockchain, NFTs, the metaverse, Alexa and other voice assistants, yada yada, were all ventures looking for something as big as, say, the rise of mobile, and they all failed and are getting killed basically simultaneously.

I think the scary thing going forward is that, over the past 25-30 years or so, tech provided a huge amount of the average wage growth, at least in the US. Even if AI doesn't result in huge employment reductions due to productivity gains, the number of high quality jobs in the AI space is just a lot smaller than, say, the overall Internet space. Lots of people have commented here how so many of these AI startups are just wrappers around the big models, and even previous hits are looking dicey now than the big model providers are pulling more stuff in house (and I say this as a previous Cursor subscriber who switched to Claude Code).

I'm curious what future batches of YCombinator will look like. Perhaps it's just a failure of my imagination, but it's really hard for me to think of a speculative tech startup that I think could be a big hit, and that's a huge change for me from, say, the 2005-2020 timeframe. Yeah, I can think of some AI ideas, but it's hard for me to think of things beyond "wrapper" projects on one hand and hugely capital intensive projects for training models on the other.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#327

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

paxys wrote: post #273
rco8786 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My impression of Block was that it was mostly a one-trick pony (okay, two if you include CashApp) with a bunch of side initiatives that never seemed to pan out, I worked at Block for ~6.5 years up until 2024. This is mostly correct. They were the first to market for portable CC readers, and segued that into "high tech" POS systems which, to be fair, were significantly better than the available alternatives at the t…

Exactly. Square was the first great checkout system, but now a decade and a half later every other system is good enough that retailers aren't going to pay extra for a flashier app.

And before people like my barber would have had a square reader. With NFC in modern phones, they just use that

Re: Layoffs at Block

#328

Post by veryemartguy »

mekael wrote: post #317
darth_avocado wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is an atheist until the plane starts crashing.

Don’t knock me for deciding “deathbed repentance” is a decent plan. /s Maybe it’s just my background, but I’m starting to feel that a lot of people in the tech industry have never learned empathy.

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Re: Layoffs at Block

#329

Post by veryemartguy »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #158
Ancalagon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wondering, have you been unemployed for 6+ mos before?

Being let go from a job sucks. So does being dumped from a relationship. You might not be able to find another relationship in 6+ months. But I don't think people would seriously propose that people should therefore not be able to leave a relationship.

[flagged]
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