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Patreon laying off 20% of staff

patreon.com

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Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#221

Post by SoftTalker »

prepend wrote: post #111
happytoexplain wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if he actually cares, and this is him being honest? I know it's not usually true, but this is Jack Conte, not Mark Zuckerberg. Maybe he's one of the few CEOs who still has a human brain. I know I would feel legitimately horrible and sympathetic if I had to lay off a bunch of people.

I don’t buy that he cares. Patreon is profitable. He doesn’t have to fire anyone to continue operations. He just wants more money. If he cared about them as beautiful people, he wouldn’t fire them. It’s one thing if you’re bleeding cash and have to cut. Another when you discover a cheaper way to do things and don’t want to retrain and grow in new ways where you’d need people. Patreon CEO is full of horse apples.

Businesses don't exist in a vacuum. If you discover a cheaper way to do things, and don't do it, a competitor probably will, and you will then find yourself in the "bleeding cash" scenario (or, more likely, starving for cash).

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#222

Post by happytoexplain »

SoftTalker wrote: post #221
prepend wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t buy that he cares. Patreon is profitable. He doesn’t have to fire anyone to continue operations. He just wants more money. If he cared about them as beautiful people, he wouldn’t fire them. It’s one thing if you’re bleeding cash and have to cut. Another when you discover a cheaper way to do things and don’t want to retrain and grow in new ways where you’d need people. Patreon CEO is full of horse apples.

Businesses don't exist in a vacuum. If you discover a cheaper way to do things, and don't do it, a competitor probably will, and you will then find yourself in the "bleeding cash" scenario (or, more likely, starving for cash).

Generally, but this is also an exaggeration we tell ourselves about the cut-throat world of business. In reality, you don't have to be number one in any given metric to be profitable.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#223

Post by maxehmookau »

Barbing wrote: post #167
maxehmookau wrote: post #116

> First, the people who work at Patreon are special, beautiful humans, through and through. If you're calling me "special" and "beautiful" and removing my ability to pay my mortgage in the same sentence through no fault of my own, you can absolutely get in the bin. Fundamentally weird behaviour.

You could divorce a special and beautiful partner, and be making the right decision. A business decision that wrecks your life does not necessarily speak to any faults of your own. “It's not personal Sonny. It's strictly business!” The CEO probably believes it, which would make the difference to me. I think I would skim that line but perhaps it would have a subconscious benefit. Feels more human than weird to me.

We'll agree to disagree on that one. Feels more like a CEO trying to absolve himself of the human cost of a strictly business decision. Instead, he should own that business decision openly.

Being told I'm "special" and "beautiful" by my boss feels strange enough, but to have it paired with my termination? The dissonance is too much.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#224

Post by Barbing »

maxehmookau wrote: post #223
Barbing wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could divorce a special and beautiful partner, and be making the right decision. A business decision that wrecks your life does not necessarily speak to any faults of your own. “It's not personal Sonny. It's strictly business!” The CEO probably believes it, which would make the difference to me. I think I would skim that line but perhaps it would have a subconscious benefit. Feels more human than weird to me.

We'll agree to disagree on that one. Feels more like a CEO trying to absolve himself of the human cost of a strictly business decision. Instead, he should own that business decision openly. Being told I'm "special" and "beautiful" by my boss feels strange enough, but to have it paired with my termination? The dissonance is too much.

Have we ever had a boss like that?

It’d be weird if a boss were super rude to me but for those who worked for Steve Jobs, it would’ve tracked.

Maybe still have to agree to disagree!

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#225

Post by Gud »

fourseventy wrote: post #158
dylan604 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then figure out a way to NOT fire them like reduce the salary of the c-suite staff by 50% so they are only making 300% more than the average workers. or reduce c-suite salary to the lowest wage while allowing them to live off of their stock and other benefits like company cars, expense accounts, etc. granted, that's for the larger companies, but the bigger companies never do anything like that

1.) The c-suite is like 6 people, reducing their salary isn't going to make much of a dent. 2.) The c-suite are compensated at market rate the same as anyone else. If the CTO at Patreon is making 400k/yr you can't just cut his salary to 200k, he will leave and take a job somewhere else.

Many of the C suite are just nepo babies.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#227

Post by UmYeahNo »

dewey wrote: post #208
UmYeahNo wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let 'em have em. They already messed up this company, let them go mess up the competition now. Sounds like a plan. Encourage the lowest performers to go.

There's perfectly fine reasons for a company to fail that are not the fault of anyone working there. Small startups relying on revenue from a bigger client at the beginning that shifts their spend, market changing quickly etc.

Which I think are all in the domain of the C-Suite to anticipate and handle, aren't they? If they aren't preparing for those situations then maybe they aren't the right folks for the job.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#228

Post by [deleted] »

K0balt wrote: post #70
codegeek wrote: post #42

The only possible positive thing out of this cringy article is that the severance is decent (for a US company). 4 months of pay and healthcare coverage through Year end. Everything else could have just been a couple of sentences. Companies need to stop doing this melodrama every time they decide to fire people. Everyone knows the goal is to make money and keep a company profitable for their shareholders. Why these me…

It’s because, and I say this as a person who has made these calls, some leaders do feel a genuine responsibility for the people that work for them. Perhaps too, the ones that don’t, want people to think that they do. But as a founder and CEO by far the most emotionally taxing thing I have ever had to do is cut staff for the good of the company. You want to treat people the way you would want to be treated if you were…

[deleted]

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#229

Post by john_strinlai »

buellerbueller wrote: post #181
fourseventy wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.) The c-suite is like 6 people, reducing their salary isn't going to make much of a dent. 2.) The c-suite are compensated at market rate the same as anyone else. If the CTO at Patreon is making 400k/yr you can't just cut his salary to 200k, he will leave and take a job somewhere else.

>1.) The c-suite is like 6 people, reducing their salary isn't going to make much of a dent. It makes much more than a dent to the ~20 people not laid off, and a likely morale boost to everyone remaining. Edit: who are the sociopaths who downvote this? You don't think that someone not being laid off isn't going to have a much better outcome than had the been laid off? At least make an argument to the contrary...

>Edit: who are the sociopaths who downvote this?

there are some people on this venture capital company forum that are venture capitalists. layoffs to boost profits is just another monday

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#230

Post by scottLobster »

roenxi wrote: post #213
scottLobster wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? Another is that modern society has created a system where advancing to the top ranks of corporate and political leadership requires mediocrity, and excellence is actively discouraged past a certain level of authority. The mediocre have just enough capability to do something right, but little enough that they're constantly surpassed by their more talented peers and never feel safe. So they go into "soft skills"…

> So they go into "soft skills" that their more talented peers aren't interested in, and sandbag themselves with authority once they get it. Maybe their more talented peers should learn some of these soft skills and take an interest in authority positions instead of acting like losers? Is there some smart-person conspiracy to put idiots in charge that nobody has clued me in to? I don't want to be going too far in tel…

In my experience, when someone (not being euphemistic, I've witnessed it many times) too mission-focused tries to get beyond program-level leadership they inevitably get sidelined and either coast to retirement or demote themselves back down. At a certain level making good products on time and on budget is no longer the game, and feeling an obligation to do so is looked down upon as naive. Additionally, failure is not punished in any material sense.

Boeing's leadership doesn't care about their aircraft quality beyond legal liability, Meta hasn't cared about the quality of the facebook newsfeed in over a decade, Elon Musk doesn't care about making cars or colonizing Mars anymore, and rest assured Pateron's leadership will be just fine in every material sense, the worst they have to worry about is reputational loss that will likely be short-lived.

Put it all together and you get an incentive structure where outside of small companies/divisions, and the rare exceptional leader, the people who care about the products the least are the ones that make it into leadership, and good luck convincing that club to change their priorities.

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