Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Layoffs at Block

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

961–970 of 1001 posts

Re: Layoffs at Block

#961

Post by DirkH »

poszlem wrote: post #856
singpolyma3 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong? A company doesn't owe anyone a job. Either they need the employee or they don't.

You can believe that only if you don't care about getting a revolution in your country or extreme populist movements gaining traction. When large numbers of people feel economically disposable, the issue stops being about an individual firm’s right to hire and fire and starts becoming a systemic stability problem. But if you are okay with getting some heads chopped off with a guillotine from time to time, feel free t…

You sound like you are laying blame at the feet of companies following employment laws when you should be complaining to the government that makes the employment laws the company is abiding by.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#962

Post by veryemartguy »

EdiX wrote: post #710
ulfw wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And twitter hasn't launched one single meaningful anything since. If your definition of success is 'let's keep the codebase running and make sure servers don't go bust' then yes twitter is doing great with fewer people

> And twitter hasn't launched one single meaningful anything since. Longer tweets? Analytics? Premium? Grok? AI autogenerated news summaries? Livestreaming? I honestly have a harder time trying to think of features launched between 2011 and 2022, besides spaces.

lol there’s no way you’re this delusional

Re: Layoffs at Block

#963

Post by heathrow83829 »

KittenInABox wrote: post #112
singpolyma3 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong? A company doesn't owe anyone a job. Either they need the employee or they don't.

I feel like the idea that X doesn't owe you Y is fundamentally at odds with the fact that humans are a cooperative species and survive the best when they are cooperating. A choir can hold a note together because individuals can stop singing to breathe, safely covered by peers who will take their turn to breathe later. What is the point of organizing socially if not for the benefit of all society members? I know we ha…

that's not the job of a company. companies are suposed to be profit centered, their purpose is to make money.

what you're talking about is the role of government. govt should be supporting policies like you are suggesting, by for example allowing for universal basic income or uniersal basic land or services, etc.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#964

Post by torben-friis »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #882
torben-friis wrote: post #120

>we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. In my country, this action would be literally illegal. Even in countries where it isn’t, it feels highly immoral. “I’m not in any kind of pressure to do this but I’m choosing to shed the people who created my wealth for greater…

Are you glad to have people spending their lives on jobs that don't contribute to society, just because the business is already profitable? Wouldn't it be better to have those people move into whatever job would contribute more to society? Have you considered that allowing people to remain in jobs that contribute less than they could in other jobs is the reason why your per-capita production lags the US? The goal of…

I am amazed to learn from you that usefulness and profit generation are interchangeable terms.

I’m guessing that by that logic, narcos and casino owners should be celebrated, and running a charity should be a crime.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#965

Post by bigyabai »

mistrial9 wrote: post #520
wmf wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jack Dorsey looks like a homeless person and he spends his time meditating and talking about Bitcoin. People knew what they were getting into.

> looks like a homeless person I have heard this once in a while.. really it refers to a hair grooming aesthetic that is disallowed somehow, perhaps. > he spends his time meditating said like it is a bad thing. Of course yes, this is a bad thing to many people, I agree.. but among very smart people in California, if he really does that well, it is a plus actually.. > talking about Bitcoin very polarizing, with grands…

Admittedly, Dorsey is nowhere near Ellison or Musk levels of evil. Maybe he's too stupid, maybe he's not ambitious enough. Who knows. But he is an unprincipled chud with a track record that makes his contemporaries look like Einstein by comparison.

The guy's a grifter, Block spent $68 million on a single party and we're all supposed to believe that the executive leadership is blameless? I wasn't born yesterday.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#966

Post by littlexsparkee »

missedthecue wrote: post #289
singpolyma3 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong? A company doesn't owe anyone a job. Either they need the employee or they don't.

This used to be the accepted standard but it seems today that people think any amount of profit should primarily be directed toward paying wages. (either bigger wages to existing employees, or to new employees, or both). You have multiple sub-conversations in this very comment section wondering aloud why Block didn't invent make-work or "new projects" to keep the 4,000 employed. The idea of a job being some task that…

> that corporate profits would rise while consumer spend dropped are literally incompatible realities

on a macro-level yes; CEOs are only thinking about firm-level though (other tech firms will act differently or tech is small part of total economy, many ways to rationalize). they should be assuming others will follow in their footsteps but they are not incentivized to model that or think in the longterm.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#967

Post by kortilla »

shimman wrote: post #861
kortilla wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies grow and shrink. That’s not “a massive failure”.

You're right, it's worse. It's hurting people's lives, maybe it should be considered a crime in America due to how intertwined having a job is with also having access to healthcare, social services, government services, the ability to eat, the ability to have a place to sleep; it all seems extremely dramatic in this context. All the more reason to tax tech companies more to provide better welfare for the nation becau…

This is extremely naive. A huge portion of industries are cyclical by the nature of the markets they target.

Mining, farming, oil, solar, construction, child care, elder care, etc all have waxing and waning demand.

It’s completely detached from reality to think that once someone is hired for a job that the job will be around for 10+ years.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#968

Post by kortilla »

grey-area wrote: post #732
kortilla wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies grow and shrink. That’s not “a massive failure”.

Cutting staff by half is an admission of massive management failure. Their planning was terrible. Their hiring was terrible. They can’t think of any new projects to put these staff on.

Not really. Sometimes markets fail.

It was not a management failure when construction companies had to lay people off during the GFC.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#969

Post by acjohnson55 »

malfist wrote: post #836
acjohnson55 wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So we shouldn't call it a shit move? I'm not sure what your point is.

I think it's fine to call it a shit move.

It's this part:

> Canning people when you do well is just a way to milk the cow that others raised for you.

I don't think people should reasonably expect to be employed if a company doesn't need them for its future plans.

> Plus it shows a blatant lack of imagination and foresight.

It seems to me Block has tried a whole bunch of different things. Imagination isn't their problem. I'm not deeply familiar with their business, but my hunch is that it's more that they're giving up on some of their pie in the sky ideas and consolidating on what's working.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#970

Post by fireant »

ezfe wrote: post #568
vessenes wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot attrite 40% of the company in 5 months, without creating an incredibly toxic environment. Dorsey knows this; ultimately he lost Twitter over his inability to right size it. I would bet dollars to donuts he promised himself he wouldn't do it again - under no circumstances is 40% cut over six months preferable to a clean fast cut.

Voluntary severance/ERO is possible without a bad culture. I’ve seen it done, people love it.

Doesn't that make people with best opportunities (most skilled workers) leave and people with least opportunities (least skilled workers) stay?

Personally if I was offered 6+ months of severance I just couldn't justify staying even in the best companies I've been at.

Post reply on HN