831–840 of 1001 posts
Square/Block stock peaked at $273 in Feb 2021 and is currently at $54. Taking away the Covid bubble the stock has been completely flat since 2018, almost 8 years, while the S&P 500 returned nearly 200% in that same period. So I'm not buying the whole "the company is doing great! The layoff is just because of AI."
Why is this statement in all lowercase? Is this a tech bro thing I'm unaware of?
This reminds me of the meme of Margaret Thatcher: "And There is No Alternative" - a way to justify the policies she desired to implement and attempt to preempt any other view. We're supposed to believe Jack is a victim of circumstance. He hired all those people, and now he has no choice but to fire them - he wasn't clairvoyant to the future when he hired all those people, or else he'd known he would have had to fire…
> since he is clairvoyant to the future AI software development is the present, not the future. You don't need to be a clairvoyant to see AI replaced (some) developers.
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…
Sorry, but it would only be “ownership” of the decision if he himself resigned for making the terrible decisions that led to than”necessity” in the first place.
Now, why he keeps having to relearn the lesson I couldn't tell you. It's a mystery
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…
I wonder if the lack of capital letters is a clever trick to make this whole annoucement look more humane and natural. Surely it's intentional: only "U.S" deserves capitals, not even his own name in the signature.
My initial gut reaction was "he can't even be bothered to use his shift-key while dramatically altering 4,000 people's lives?"
It's just too casual for what is happening.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Owning it doesn’t make it less of a shit move. Canning people when you do well is just a way to milk the cow that others raised for you. Plus it shows a blatant lack of imagination and foresight. I just hope the remaining employees realize they’re in an ejectable seat and stop working for people like that. It’s only a matter of time the founders sell to Bending Spoons for a final paycheck and everyone else is out.
Yeah but the purpose of a company is not to employ people, it is to make money. The employment is a means to an end. If the money continues to flow without the people, that is better. I can imagine creating a system designed to allocate profits to a broader set of stakeholders, but that's not the system we have.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if the AI piece isn't really true - smaller flatter teams will move faster anyway. I always wonder having worked in a lot of startups with 10-50ppl, what on earth a business does with 10000.
Seconded. My experience has been that -- even while still complying with lots of overhead (e.g. government regulations and compliance) -- smaller teams of 1-3 devs move waaaaay faster than teams of 4-10. Could definitely speak to the overall codebase quality or some other factor, but yeah.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> since he is clairvoyant to the future AI software development is the present, not the future. You don't need to be a clairvoyant to see AI replaced (some) developers.
Nah, if AI were truly revolutionary, those developers would all be twice as productive. So why would you fire them?
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…
> I appreciate the one clean cut vs prolonged bleeding. That's a false dichotomy, you could reduce headcount via attrition which is better in some ways. There's also no reasoning on product impact. Is the strategy to cut products that aren't making money? Is the strategy to cut 40% across everyone because everyone can go faster? > Owning the decision Does it? It came across to me as an inevitability of AI, not "we ov…
I disagree. Slow bleeding just means everyone in the company walks around thinking they are next, never knowing when the next set of cuts are going to happen or when they are finished. Cutting 40% is a quick blow, and everyone that is left knows they are safe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> since he is clairvoyant to the future AI software development is the present, not the future. You don't need to be a clairvoyant to see AI replaced (some) developers.
Nah, if AI were truly revolutionary, those developers would all be twice as productive. So why would you fire them?
AI writes code. It doesn't fix organizational problems.