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Patreon laying off 20% of staff

patreon.com

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Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#31

Post by sokoloff »

> A $1,500 stipend to replace your company laptop.

It seems like a wild choice to give a specific figure as additional cash rather than just letting them keep their (wiped) laptop. That additional cash will be taxed (as should a laptop that is left with the ex-employee, but the used laptop can be valued and taxed as a used laptop rather than a $1500 cash payment [and frankly would often be, um, overlooked...).

It seems like it's better for Patreon (cheaper, less IT labor) and approximately as good for the ex-employee to make this be in the shape of the used laptop than a $1500 payment.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#32

Post by angiolillo »

tombert wrote: post #6
spwa4 wrote: post #2

What is it with companies doing mass-layoffs and stating no reasons whatsoever, in fact giving reasons why there's no need: > Second, Patreon’s core business is healthy and strong, and we’re going to be a rock for creators for decades to come. Hundreds of thousands of creators rely on Patreon for their livelihoods, businesses, ... > We’re reducing the size of our team by 20%, or ...

I think that they must teach in business school or something that you never, ever, EVER acknowledge or admit that things have ever or will ever go bad in your business. I’ve worked for startups that will show massive customer churn, tell us that this is “actually a good thing”, do massive layoffs the next week because of the churn, and even while talking about the layoffs say that they’re stronger than ever. I’ve bee…

> have just accepted that business people have neither the ability nor desire to ever be honest about anything

Another plausible explanation is survivorship bias: if businesses that are publicly honest when things are going poorly are less likely to survive then eventually surviving businesses are more likely to be dishonest irrespective of the "abilities" or "desires" of individual business people.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#33

Post by coliveira »

tombert wrote: post #6
spwa4 wrote: post #2

What is it with companies doing mass-layoffs and stating no reasons whatsoever, in fact giving reasons why there's no need: > Second, Patreon’s core business is healthy and strong, and we’re going to be a rock for creators for decades to come. Hundreds of thousands of creators rely on Patreon for their livelihoods, businesses, ... > We’re reducing the size of our team by 20%, or ...

I think that they must teach in business school or something that you never, ever, EVER acknowledge or admit that things have ever or will ever go bad in your business. I’ve worked for startups that will show massive customer churn, tell us that this is “actually a good thing”, do massive layoffs the next week because of the churn, and even while talking about the layoffs say that they’re stronger than ever. I’ve bee…

Business schools teach advertising, not business management. In modern business it is a crime to tell the truth about the dire situation a business is in, unless a CEO is starting anew to fix a situation left by another, and even then it rarely happens.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#34

Post by thomasmarcelis »

apical_dendrite wrote: post #17

There are so many contradictions in this statement that either the person who wrote it is completely muddle-headed, or just a bad liar. > Nothing about our core business has changed – it remains strong and consistent a few paragraphs later > But our transformation is going to take time and the next paragraph > At the same time, the market in which we operate has undergone profound change over the last 6 months. We ne…

If we throw all the arguments at the wall, one must stick right?

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#35

Post by bflesch »

I don't understand why this is problematic for some:

They lay off 93 people so the total # employees before layoffs is 465 and it will be 372 employees remaining after layoffs.

In same post they state there are 300k creators making money on their platform, so the ratio of employees to creators is 1:645 before layoffs and 1:800 after layoffs.

It's a mature business and VC funding has significantly dried up for these kind of middlemen business models.

Why wouldn't 372 people having thousands of meetings between them per week be enough to run such a company?

Edit: If you downvote this without explanation I'd wager you never ran a company.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#36

Post by spacebanana7 »

officialchicken wrote: post #19

Bottom line: How do these layoffs increase the successful outcome of product launches on the platform in any way?

The negative metric is more important - if you can cut staff costs by 20% with only 5% reduction in revenue/innovation that’s a win from an investor’s perspective.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#37

Post by [deleted] »

sokoloff wrote: post #31

> A $1,500 stipend to replace your company laptop. It seems like a wild choice to give a specific figure as additional cash rather than just letting them keep their (wiped) laptop. That additional cash will be taxed (as should a laptop that is left with the ex-employee, but the used laptop can be valued and taxed as a used laptop rather than a $1500 cash payment [and frankly would often be, um, overlooked...). It see…

[deleted]

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#38

Post by coliveira »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #29
tombert wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that they must teach in business school or something that you never, ever, EVER acknowledge or admit that things have ever or will ever go bad in your business. I’ve worked for startups that will show massive customer churn, tell us that this is “actually a good thing”, do massive layoffs the next week because of the churn, and even while talking about the layoffs say that they’re stronger than ever. I’ve bee…

> say that they’re stronger than ever. Well let’s play out the alternative then: a CEO comes out and says everything is not ok and you’re laying off people because you are in dire straits. I admire the honesty, but what do you think happens next?

A society that doesn't value honesty deserves to be deceived.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#40

Post by KomoD »

cybrox wrote: post #15
password54321 wrote: post #7

[flagged]

I don't know (I don't browse Patreon but just back some creators individually) but what would be the issue about that? Patreon is a content distributor and payment router between fans and creators, I don't expect or want them to police what creators do with that service.

> I don't expect or want them to police what creators do with that service.

Well, they do actually. They have a lot of restrictions on what 18+ content you can publish.

Like you can't publish "real" porn, or that's how I interpret this at least:

> Works depicting sexual activity between real, adult participants are not permitted.

https://www.patreon.com/policy/guidelines#adult-works

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