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Brex Layoffs

brex.com

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Re: Brex Layoffs

#101

Post by shmatt »

homefree wrote: post #54
shmatt wrote: post #35

Oof to this link in the post https://www.brex.com/journal/operate-at-all-levels What a terrible culture, dunking on people management, calling it meaningless And no, I don't want the Director of AI to explain react component rendering to me, it sounds like they are grooming a generation of super-micromanaging executives. Maybe the CTO was kicked out after he failed to complete 3 back to back leetcode hards

It depends - I mostly agree with that blog post. If a leader doesn't understand the underlying role (at least somewhat) - they can't reason about it. The best people managers I had were good at that skill and took it seriously, but also had a technical understanding of the role. I think it's relatively common for bad people to get hired to these management roles because the skill can be harder to evaluate than straig…

Can you imagine Ilya Sutskever being fired because his frontend code wasn't up to par

Re: Brex Layoffs

#102

Post by sokoloff »

ipaddr wrote: post #38
Gabrys1 wrote: post #8

I like that they shared publicly the severance package (I missed that in a company before, the severance package was only available to the ones laid off, and you wouldn't even know if you got the same as your colleagues). And the package itself seems alright too (and sensible, for example: the laid off can keep their laptops. What would company do with almost 300 extra laptops?). Time of the lay off also not too bad…

8 weeks plus 2 weeks per year seems light. 4 weeks for every year sounds more fair. The interview process was over 8 weeks

Those equations intersect at 4 years of tenure. Brex was founded only 7 years ago, so most affected employees would presumably make out better with 8 + 2 * N than with 4 * N.

Re: Brex Layoffs

#103

Post by juunpp »

spandrew wrote: post #67

"Henrique and I are responsible for the decisions that led us here, and seeing so many talented folks go through this experience is never what you hope for as a founder." ~ Responsible but not accountable, got it.

Just the right kind of leadership you want in an employer.

Re: Brex Layoffs

#104

Post by pwb25 »

jupp0r wrote: post #44
mrsilencedogood wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The laptop thing is usually less about clawing back property and more about preventing the laptop, potentially with customer PII and source code and other stuff on it, ending up sold on ebay or left laying around as a personal device to be eventually lost at an airport 3 years later, and so on. They take them back, wipe them, then either resell them to a reseller or reissue them to other employees etc.

If they are managed devices (which I hope they are at a fintech company), it should be trivial to remote wipe them before removing MDM from them to enable personal use/resale etc.

how would you wipe them without an internet connection if I shut it off ?

Re: Brex Layoffs

#106

Post by ipaddr »

sokoloff wrote: post #102
ipaddr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8 weeks plus 2 weeks per year seems light. 4 weeks for every year sounds more fair. The interview process was over 8 weeks

Those equations intersect at 4 years of tenure. Brex was founded only 7 years ago, so most affected employees would presumably make out better with 8 + 2 * N than with 4 * N.

We are still including the 8 weeks. 8 + (4*n).

Re: Brex Layoffs

#107

Post by Yhippa »

spandrew wrote: post #67

"Henrique and I are responsible for the decisions that led us here, and seeing so many talented folks go through this experience is never what you hope for as a founder." ~ Responsible but not accountable, got it.

"As a result of this, nothing will change for Henrique and I."

Re: Brex Layoffs

#108

Post by dpflan »

dpflan wrote: post #80
toomuchtodo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focus on a niche, create a funnel, be very good at that niche, scale horizontally. EDIT: Picked attorney because you have to be licensed to practice law, creating a barrier to the equivalent of code bootcamps. My apologies if the model around the idea wasn't clear, I will do better!

Why is this seemingly general rule so specific to law (being an attorney)?

The license is the key, as a barrier to entry. Medicine is very high and takes a lot of time but pretty impenetrable. Law is cheaper for the time and money. What else would have this property?

Re: Brex Layoffs

#109

Post by Yhippa »

claudiulodro wrote: post #61
soneca wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think there is a career out there better than (I assume) software development? My view is that we are still in pretty good times. Maybe not great, but everyone who kept their jobs is still earning a big salary. And everything else other than software development is worse (specifically if you bundle things like ML into “software development“). I am curious. What career would you change to?

Self-employed tradesman pays as much on a per-hour basis as contract dev work and doesn't have to compete with a million people in developing countries willing to work for $20/hr. The project management parts from software development aren't too different either -- it's all tasks, coordinating stakeholders, etc. That's my angle, but there are plenty of other fields too: healthcare (nurses make as much as most SWEs an…

This chain and this comment is one of the best things I've read on here in years. It reminded me that a lot of community colleges have workforce programs that I need to look into: https://www.nvcc.edu/academics/programs/index.html

Re: Brex Layoffs

#110

Post by JCharante »

ipaddr wrote: post #38
Gabrys1 wrote: post #8

I like that they shared publicly the severance package (I missed that in a company before, the severance package was only available to the ones laid off, and you wouldn't even know if you got the same as your colleagues). And the package itself seems alright too (and sensible, for example: the laid off can keep their laptops. What would company do with almost 300 extra laptops?). Time of the lay off also not too bad…

8 weeks plus 2 weeks per year seems light. 4 weeks for every year sounds more fair. The interview process was over 8 weeks

> 8 weeks plus 2 weeks per year seems light. 4 weeks for every year sounds more fair. The interview process was over 8 weeks

Well that would be a short severance for everybody who was hired in the last year.

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