Company gets acquired. Company lays off employee. Typical.
And for some reason we as employees continue to let companies abuse us, despite having the option to fight back.
I am so bitter and jaded when it comes to this entire system.
Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
11–20 of 163 posts
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#12Cisco 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.
When I was at Malwarebytes (I left in 2014) I helped with two acquisitions. In both cases we took care of all of the people in the new company and rolled them into Malwarebytes.
M&A can be done without being ethically and morally bankrupt. It's totally possible. Cisco just doesn't think that's a priority.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
When I was at Malwarebytes (I left in 2014) I helped with two acquisitions. In both cases we took care of all of the people in the new company and rolled them into Malwarebytes. M&A can be done without being ethically and morally bankrupt. It's totally possible. Cisco just doesn't think that's a priority.
Companies, regardless of what the Supreme Court says, are not people; they don't have ethics and morals. All that matters is the balance sheet, the stock price, and the executive bonus.
You can have people running the company change what the company does to be more ethical or moral, but it's like training an elephant to do tricks: an unnatural edge case. Their natural incentives are more like swarms of locusts or jellyfish; the more you feed them, the larger they grow, the bigger impact they have on their environment. No real thoughts, just an urge to consume and expand.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#14Typical 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…
There might be pricing pressure, and a lot of people entering the space, but it is more than a nice to have. If you do not have some sort of SIEM solution, you will pay more for or not be insurable for cybersecurity/ransomware insurance.
Implementing observability/SIEM yourself has also become a lot more complicated because the domain of things that have to be observed is increasing. There are many organizations now that have things that need to be monitored in several clouds, infrastructures like k8s, and stuff on prem. So you need a vendor that has the tools to collect this data easily and aggregate it.
The startup world and startup whales might be dying now. But there is a giant iceberg of companies that are becoming more hybrid and their systems that used to do things like funnel syslogs and firewall flow logs to a collector are no longer adequate.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#15Oracle should have bought them. They are the ultimate rent seekers.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#16It's always 7%.
"T-Mobile is laying off 7% of staff"
"Robinhood Lays Off About 7% of Its Full-Time Employees"
"Sonos lays off 7%"
"Vox Media to lay off 7% of workforce"
"Payments firm PayPal to lay off 7% of its workforce"
"Roomba maker iRobot to lay off about 7% of its workforce"
"GitLab to reduce workforce by 7%"
"Informatica to lay off 7% of its workforce"
It seems like these CEOs are just copying from the same playbook. I wish there was a CEO who was brave enough to ignore the herd mentality, take a look at what the actual needs of the company, and make a bold plan like "fuck it we're doing 8 and a half percent".
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#17I am still amazed how quickly Cisco destroyed Flip from 2009 to 2011 - basically 590Million down the drain:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_Video
Sure you could argue that by 2011 Flip was on the way out as phones were taking over, but there was plenty of room to pivot and plenty of good will.
Had a relative whose company was to be bought by Cisco but thankfully Flip debacle destroyed that deal.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#18Unfortunately, it's how M&A works since forever, even if the official statement is "The overall market has retracted". I guess most of the cuts are in the "non-productive" departments like sales, marketing, hr and stuff like this.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#19Cisco 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…
Worst case scenario? That seems unlikely.
Worst case scenario would be employee stock options and RSU grants remaining or becoming worthless, like in the case of a private company that never gains enough traction to exit or exits at a low valuation.
Usually in a public acquisition, shares are purchased at a price premium.
E.g., many Twitter employees got to cash out at a stock price well above the value of the company.
Every employee should see their role as temporary. This isn’t the lifetime employment pension days anymore. I see many opportunities for employees to walk away as a positive.
Re: Splunk to cut workforce by 7% after cisco deal
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
When I was at Malwarebytes (I left in 2014) I helped with two acquisitions. In both cases we took care of all of the people in the new company and rolled them into Malwarebytes. M&A can be done without being ethically and morally bankrupt. It's totally possible. Cisco just doesn't think that's a priority.
Not challenging peoples capabilities doesn't scale well. Did you ever hire someone with 0 interviews, just because they work for another good company? Then why do that after M&A?
Its not unusual for the force cuts to be done via interviews at the new company