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Elastic lays off 7% of employees

elastic.co

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Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#161

Post by [deleted] »

jimt1234 wrote: post #96
mik3y wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Layoff announcements are this kinda tricky class of corporate comms where you need to speak to at least 3 different constituents, with 3 different messages, which are often in conflict. It's something like: (A) To the public (e.g. prospects, customers, investors): "This is a good thing and we're going to be an even better bet!" (B) To the remaining team: "This is tough and I feel your pain and will do better." (C) To…

And all 3 messages have to be delivered within very strict legal guidelines, because someone's always gonna sue.

[deleted]

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#162

Post by NetMageSCW »

andsoitis wrote: post #154
Grombobulous wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why I said “many parts” and not “all.” I wouldn’t want to pick up a good number of their practices, but I think a company seeing layoffs as an embarrassing last resort is a positive trait. I also think that concepts like debt to GDP ratio are somewhat detached from corporate policies.

> but I think a company seeing layoffs as an embarrassing last resort is a positive trait. Don’t most companies think of layoffs as a last resort? I don’t think one ought to be embarrassed about correcting course when you have made a mistake. It takes courage.

How many mistakes does it take to layoff 30% of your work force in a few months (Lucid)?

Embarrassment should always be warranted when you make mistake on a scale where you are laying off a percentage of your work force instead of a couple of people.

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#164

Post by NetMageSCW »

ozgrakkurt wrote: post #151
matchbok3 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think those natural resources would have been taken advantage of as well in some other system? Same with the geography and isolation. You are talking about entirely different things. Makes no sense whatsoever. You could make your same argument about any economic system. The natural resources are inputs, not the outcome.

> Do you think those natural resources would have been taken advantage of as well in some other system? What I mean is those factors can obviously effect a country's success. And can be argued that that do much more easier than arguing about religion or ideology. Similarly it is easier to argue that proper nutrition, sleep, drug usage etc. can effect an athlete's performance very positively. But you would find it muc…

When people like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs say they couldn’t have done what they did anyplace else in the world, capitalism seems like it is working.

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#165

Post by grey-area »

puszczyk wrote: 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…

What’s also sad is looking at the quotes you posted GAI was obviously used to churn it out - it’s a simulacrum of thought, signifying nothing. This is what the CEO is trying to claim will save the company, and unfortunately this is the sort of mediocrity relying on LLMs gives you.

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#166

Post by TylerE »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #164
ozgrakkurt wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think those natural resources would have been taken advantage of as well in some other system? What I mean is those factors can obviously effect a country's success. And can be argued that that do much more easier than arguing about religion or ideology. Similarly it is easier to argue that proper nutrition, sleep, drug usage etc. can effect an athlete's performance very positively. But you would find it muc…

When people like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs say they couldn’t have done what they did anyplace else in the world, capitalism seems like it is working.

Many of us see the existence of Elon Musk as a bug, not a feature. I am personally more and more converted to the idea that billionaires should not exist.

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#167

Post by jorams »

mik3y wrote: post #24
nozzlegear wrote: post #3

This announcement spends remarkably few words talking about the what (7% of the company's workforce was laid off), and a great deal of words talking about how bright the future of the company is and how they're going to hire more people.

Layoff announcements are this kinda tricky class of corporate comms where you need to speak to at least 3 different constituents, with 3 different messages, which are often in conflict. It's something like: (A) To the public (e.g. prospects, customers, investors): "This is a good thing and we're going to be an even better bet!" (B) To the remaining team: "This is tough and I feel your pain and will do better." (C) To…

There's really only a conflict between A and the rest, and that's because A is a lie. It's not a good thing, if it were they wouldn't have to say B and C.

They can try to do better and be hopeful, but they also fucked up big time. It's not like the public actually believes the lie, so stop telling it.

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#168

Post by dredmorbius »

Macha wrote: post #47
keithnz wrote: post #9

This just reaffirms my view is that big companies will lose headcount because of AI, but small and medium companies will (or at least have the potential to) leverage AI to do bigger and better things. This is because big companies could always spend big money on getting what they want made while small companies always have to tradeoff what they can realistically do with the resources they have.

Is elastic a big company? I’d put them somewhere between small and medium…

Standards vary, but very roughly:

- Small: - Mid-sized: 100 - 1,500/2,000 employees.

- Large: > 1,500/2,000 employees.

See: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/busi...> https://learn.g2.com/business-size>.

The US Bureau of Labour Statistics identifies nine classes of businesses for employment dynamics, the largest being 1,000 employees: https://www.bls.gov/bdm/bdmfirmsize.htm>.

I'm surprised by the latter as there are many companies with > 10k employees.

The list of 100 largest US companies by headcount ends with Meta at 78,865 employees. The top ten have 309,000 or more employees, two (Walmart and Amazon) over 1 million. The top 5 are all retail, delivery, or both (Amazon).

https://stockanalysis.com/list/most-employees/>

Re: Elastic lays off 7% of employees

#170

Post by ReptileMan »

torben-friis wrote: post #32
tracerbulletx wrote: post #22

Before the 1980s layoffs were seen as a massive failure of the company and almost never happened to tenured employees unless the company was collapsing. Before we are all made to think this is normal and unavoidable behavior.

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.

Limit mass firings and you are also limiting mass hirings.
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