Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
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Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
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Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#2Typical post deal RIF, but bigger question - what do people think of the "observability" space from here? My sneaking suspicion is that outside vertical integrations like this.. they are going to see some revenue issues in this downturn.
Outside of huge FAANG infra, paid observability seems like a "nice to have" rather than a "must have".. the type of thing you cut before you cut engineering staff, and extend your runway.
You can cobble together something worse with FOSS.. And biggest question is - who cares about p99 latencies anyway when your 2 year runway has shrunk to 6 months, ZIRP is over and you are doubtful of your next funding round.
I can't imagine another whale like Coinbase writing a $65M/year check to a Datadog at this point... "Things you only see at the top"
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#3Company gets acquired. Company lays off employee. Typical.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#4Typical post deal RIF, but bigger question - what do people think of the "observability" space from here? My sneaking suspicion is that outside vertical integrations like this.. they are going to see some revenue issues in this downturn. Outside of huge FAANG infra, paid observability seems like a "nice to have" rather than a "must have".. the type of thing you cut before you cut engineering staff, and extend your ru…
I get to peak into a few different financial services org's IT strategies (and where infosec overlaps) and in every org I have seen ruthless cutting (hundreds of millions of dollars in one case) if there is any hint of overlap or the ability to go without. Have also seen aggressively playing VARs/reseller off of each other to drive down cost.
I would not want to be someone attempting to GTM in this space right now unless you are very confident in your value prop and your ability to communicate that your customer absolutely cannot live without your product.
Top passed, winter is coming.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#5Typical post deal RIF, but bigger question - what do people think of the "observability" space from here? My sneaking suspicion is that outside vertical integrations like this.. they are going to see some revenue issues in this downturn. Outside of huge FAANG infra, paid observability seems like a "nice to have" rather than a "must have".. the type of thing you cut before you cut engineering staff, and extend your ru…
I get to peak into a few different financial services org's IT strategies (and where infosec overlaps) and in every org I have seen ruthless cutting (hundreds of millions of dollars in one case) if there is any hint of overlap or the ability to go without. Have also seen aggressively playing VARs/reseller off of each other to drive down cost. I would not want to be someone attempting to GTM in this space right now un…
Yes, and Splunk is likely the most overpriced offering across all vendors, both in terms of absolute cost and in in terms of how overpriced it is relative to how good it is. So easy to see how it would be on the chopping block.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#6Cisco buying your company should be considered a worst case scenario for most employees. The important thing to remember is not to trust a word they say.
I was at Kenna Security when Cisco bought them (I was only there for a month too, so Kenna hired me knowing the purchase was going to happen). They lied through their teeth about the process. They promised every resume would be reviewed for leveling, but then gave out the worst offers I've ever seen. They were literally dropping people by multiple levels, and if anyone complained they told them they couldn't make personal exceptions. They wouldn't even listen to people's managers about it, it was just a bunch of anonymous resume reviews.
At the same time Kenna leadership said they'd pay for Cobra for me if I didn't want to stay. The VP of Eng, David La France, at Kenna promised me that to my face. Then once they sale went through he refused to talk to me and told me to cover it myself. Ultimately they did back down, and were "kind" enough to give me a whole two weeks severance. However it made me realize that Cisco views it's acquisitions in the worst way possible, and if I ever work at a company that Cisco purchases I will immediately start looking for a new job.
It's worth noting that I've kept in touch with a lot of the Kenna people who stayed (at least initially), and according to my old manager more than half of the people who stayed on are gone now.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#7Typical post deal RIF, but bigger question - what do people think of the "observability" space from here? My sneaking suspicion is that outside vertical integrations like this.. they are going to see some revenue issues in this downturn. Outside of huge FAANG infra, paid observability seems like a "nice to have" rather than a "must have".. the type of thing you cut before you cut engineering staff, and extend your ru…
It’s hard to get application performance monitoring (APM) tools using FOSS because of the complexity of writing libraries.
You could ideally work most things with FOSS. Use opentelemtry extensions to a time dries DB of your choice. Use elk or opensearch for logs, osquery for Linux, native cloud monitoring tools that come out of the box, etc.
Problem is it takes a lot of setup and maintenance. It can bite you back in the worst of times - when you’re trying to work an outage and find out alerting is dead because your fluentbit daemon is hung and no logs came through.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#8Cisco buying your company should be considered a worst case scenario for most employees. The important thing to remember is not to trust a word they say. I was at Kenna Security when Cisco bought them (I was only there for a month too, so Kenna hired me knowing the purchase was going to happen). They lied through their teeth about the process. They promised every resume would be reviewed for leveling, but then gave o…
> The VP of Eng at Kenna promised me that to my face
The real lesson to learn here is twofold:
- People recruiting / hiring are incentivized to say whatever is needed to close the deal. With the exception of a bold faced lie (I don't think this was that).
- People at the company being acquired are more often than not going to lose most of their power. Including the C-suite. No one is safe and as an employee/victim you won't know the actual arrangements of the deal until the dust settles.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#9Cisco buying your company should be considered a worst case scenario for most employees. The important thing to remember is not to trust a word they say. I was at Kenna Security when Cisco bought them (I was only there for a month too, so Kenna hired me knowing the purchase was going to happen). They lied through their teeth about the process. They promised every resume would be reviewed for leveling, but then gave o…
This isn’t a Cisco thing - it’s M&A in general. The sellers need to maintain the appearance of growth before the sale, and the buyers want to rationalise costs. Once they have the IP, or have successfully eliminated the competition through acquisition, those in the old company are really just numbers in an hr system.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#10Company gets acquired. Company lays off employee. Typical.
Yes, any acquisition is a signal to look for a new position. Your cheese has moved.