Live data from Hacker News

Elastic lays off 7% of employees

elastic.co

121–130 of 251 posts

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a cousin in Belgium who was laid off following some restructuring and her severance was 52 weeks. Not out of the goodness of the company's hearts, but mandated by law since they gave no notice and she had accrued seniority. US labor laws are a joke in comparison.

I'm sure that level of overhead has nothing to do with the reason Belgian incomes, standards of living, and business outcomes are worse.

It is a delusion that US is rich because of capitalism.

It is an insult to the people that founded the country and people that developed science/tech/finance etc. in it. And ofc the space, natural resources and isolation from wars.

Saying US is rich because capitalism is about as accurate as saying it is rich because it is christian

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know HN is mostly against regulation, but I'm very glad my country restricts mass firings, and particular stricter rules apply for companies that turn a profit. If you're generating benefits, there should be very few reasons you need to let go people massively.

I have a cousin in Belgium who was laid off following some restructuring and her severance was 52 weeks. Not out of the goodness of the company's hearts, but mandated by law since they gave no notice and she had accrued seniority. US labor laws are a joke in comparison.

This is a tough problem because it’s not always great. There is a reason companies largely (not all!) think twice about innovation, hiring and building out new facilities in European countries and part of that are those labor laws. So you miss out on upside but maybe it evens out on average.

This is not me advocating for either side but it’s one of the reasons most startups exist in a country like the US.

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#123
post #2

Makes me sad to read it as an ex-Elastic employee. AI is used to justify the redundancies, and the company still expects to grow in this fiscal year. In the SEC filling the specifically mention more “head count” in “go-to-market” roles [1]. > a reduction of approximately 7% of our workforce > Advances in AI, automation, and technology are reshaping how work gets done, and we're changing with them. (…) That's what thi…

[flagged]

Feels like you're annoyed the company ever tried to make a buck off their labor at all. Give your product away for free and this is what you get.

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now compare your cousin’s yearly salary in Belgium with the average salary of a US employee doing the same job.

Now you compare the all-in cost of living across salary, taxes, housing, healthcare, and everything else.

Really depends on the type of job. Software? You are making bank in the US and partly because companies in the US can move quick because of their labor laws.

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#125
post #2

Makes me sad to read it as an ex-Elastic employee. AI is used to justify the redundancies, and the company still expects to grow in this fiscal year. In the SEC filling the specifically mention more “head count” in “go-to-market” roles [1]. > a reduction of approximately 7% of our workforce > Advances in AI, automation, and technology are reshaping how work gets done, and we're changing with them. (…) That's what thi…

[flagged]

This seems kind of weirdly confrontational? Elastic was founded by the guy who created elasticsearch. Why shouldn't he make a living selling services around the software he created? This is a terrific success story!

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#126
post #18

Why even bother with such a small layoff? Is there a reason to not just dial up your attrition for a while?

i dont understand this either. just dont hire for half a year or so, a generic globocorp gets to that 7% easily.

One challenge is that when the market stops hiring as aggressively, voluntary attrition retracts as well.

Large companies model attrition in their financials, and those assumptions start to break when macro conditions around the job market shift like that.

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also a reason why starting a business in USA is usually better.

Economics is hardly a reproducible science, but an American company has basically instant access to 350 million consumers (and workers) with no language barrier and little inter-state red tape. It's hard to imagine that this isn't a larger differentiator than the ability to fire hundreds at will.

You would be surprised. Don’t think about it as firing but also being overly cautious. If you run a division in the EU you are overly thoughtful for every single HC you add. You don’t take risks because that HC at minimum is going to cost a year of severance. It’s a balancing act, maybe less new jobs but you get less layoffs.

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ex-Elastic here, too. It was a great place to work pre-IPO. It seems the culture has shifted a lot since the IPO, though.

Might've been better if AWS and GCP didn't steal your goodies and take so much meat off the bones. Fair source > Open source. Trillion dollar companies need to pay to play. Open source removes your jobs, your exit equity, and transfers it to the hyperscalers. Sucks that it happened to you guys.

Elastic isn't Open Source though, they abandoned Open Source. It seems to me like this is an example of non-Open Source whatever licensing causing job loss. Or just plain bad leadership.

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might've been better if AWS and GCP didn't steal your goodies and take so much meat off the bones. Fair source > Open source. Trillion dollar companies need to pay to play. Open source removes your jobs, your exit equity, and transfers it to the hyperscalers. Sucks that it happened to you guys.

Elastic isn't Open Source though, they abandoned Open Source. It seems to me like this is an example of non-Open Source whatever licensing causing job loss. Or just plain bad leadership.

They switched from open source when big tech stole their goodies.

It was too late to stop it.

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ex-Elastic here, too. It was a great place to work pre-IPO. It seems the culture has shifted a lot since the IPO, though.

Might've been better if AWS and GCP didn't steal your goodies and take so much meat off the bones. Fair source > Open source. Trillion dollar companies need to pay to play. Open source removes your jobs, your exit equity, and transfers it to the hyperscalers. Sucks that it happened to you guys.

It does actually. I am pro-OSS as sharing knowledge and innovation, I am not sure at this stage I am happy sharing my work with people using LLMs for anything... OSS gonna change for sure.
Post reply on HN