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Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

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Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#111

Post by eric-hu »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #84
ryandrake wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just feels like the psychology behind a bank run. 1. Convince people their bank is in trouble. 2. They withdraw all their money. 3. Now the bank really is in trouble. Or 1. Convince people stocks are going to go down. 2. Mass sell-off. 3. Now stocks really are going down. I think this is just a self-fulfilling prophecy where business leaders convinced themselves a slowdown is coming, causing them to take actions t…

1. Convince people stocks are going to go down. 2. Mass sell-off. 3. Now stocks really are going down. Pet conspiracy theory: boom/bust cycles are not only inevitable, but desirable to some extent. If the housing and stock markets didn't undergo catharsis every so often, new/beginning investors wouldn't be able to buy in. The signs are usually telegraphed well in advance, but not by collusion or intent. A self-organi…

> Pet conspiracy theory: boom/bust cycles are not only inevitable, but desirable to some extent.

I wouldn’t call this a conspiracy theory at all. The founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world, spent time and money to publish this idea in various forms. I learned about it from here:

https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0

There’s more to this idea—-the long term debt cycle—-but the premise is exactly what you stated. There are benefits to both the boom and bust phases of the economy.

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#112

Post by Workaccount2 »

gitfan86 wrote: post #45
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see any mass layoffs among manufacturers, commodities producers, and energy companies More like a long overdue correction in tech. Some of these businesses have been around for nearly 15 years and haven’t had a single year of consistent profits. It was about time that markets humbled them.

Yes, tech businesses built up a lot of unnecessary employees during the boom and didn't want to have layoffs for morale and PR reasons.

Tech work went from deathly 60-80hr work weeks, to comfy WFH jobs where you can skate by on 2 hours of work a day.

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#113

Post by darkwizard42 »

jeffbee wrote: post #37

Although I do think an industry downturn is here/coming, I don't think Lyft is part of the trend. Lyft, specifically, is just a bad company. It has never made an annual profit, will never make an annual profit, and is gravely overstaffed for its operations. Liabilities are approaching assets on the balance sheet. They have to cut somewhere. They already shed their useless little autonomous driving division, and I exp…

I believe the bike-share is their most profitable division. Would it make sense to spin that off? It has a de facto monopoly in many markets it operates in

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#114

Post by anonymoushn »

datalopers wrote: post #18
jstx1 wrote: post #3

Where are we heading if every company drop 10-20% of their staff?

All these companies have vastly overhired. Think of your own peers and colleagues. How many are a) utterly useless or b) competent but don't have anything to do so they spend time working on mostly pointless projects to improve their CV?

sir the promo criteria say to do complex things that require coordinating a lot of people

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#115

Post by lamontcg »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #11

Ask HN: Isn't recession just mass hysteria ? Layoffs leading to more layoffs leading to the entire economy slowing down ?

Definitely not. Not in the absolute way that you phrased the question.

Psychology is a clear factor which acts as a positive feedback loop, but raising the cost of money/credit is very, very real to a lot of businesses. The immediate effect it has on the cost of loan service for cars and houses will start to affect those markets pretty quickly, which spills over into homebuilders. And companies at the margins that have been surviving by cheap debt service will get pushed over into insolvency.

Then those closures and layoffs affect demand, that affects every other company in the economy. Those people couldn't afford houses and cars at any interest rate, and they're not buying computers or anything else as well, they're probably trying to sell their used cars for some cash. Since everyone's spending is someone else's demand then as spending contracts demand destruction ripples through the economy.

The psychological effect is another positive feedback loop, though, and it will cause the correction to overshoot to the downside.

At the same time, though, this means that assets are on a fire sale, and the rich people who have cash on the sidelines can step in and buy up even more of the country, which does put a floor under the crash.

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#116

Post by [deleted] »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #109
im-a-baby wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not what Powell is saying. Read this quote again: > So I will answer—I will answer your question directly, but I want to start here today by saying that my main message has not changed at all since Jackson Hole. The FOMC is strongly resolved to bring inflation down to 2 percent, and we will keep at it until the job is done. So the way we’re thinking about this is, the overarching focus of the Committee is…

No. That quote still doesn't support your assertion. It clearly says that the actual goal is to control inflation.

[deleted]

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#117

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

curiousgal wrote: post #104
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, rising interest rates have a very direct negative impact on new investments. As new investments contract, demand shrinks for services across the industry. As demand shrinks, fewer employees are needed and companies need to reduce headcount to avoid overspending relative to revenues. There is a cascading effect, but it would be a mistake to attribute it all to a big psychological mistake. When demand goe…

> avoid overspending relative to revenues. Most companies are already making a shit ton of money. Firing people won't keep their stock prices from going down if a recession actually hits. It's moot.

Lyft are not one of those companies though.

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#118

Post by JumpCrisscross »

im-a-baby wrote: post #81
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's expecting the act of raising interest rates to increase unemployment to 4.4% > He directly says he's waiting to see softening of the labor market before stopping the rate hikes Yes, because we don’t want to ruin the labor market. Right now, rates can be raised without spiking unemployment. The Fed is trying to estimate when that stops happening. A clear signal that the limit has been reached is the labor marke…

No, that's not what Powell is saying. Read this quote again: > So I will answer—I will answer your question directly, but I want to start here today by saying that my main message has not changed at all since Jackson Hole. The FOMC is strongly resolved to bring inflation down to 2 percent, and we will keep at it until the job is done. So the way we’re thinking about this is, the overarching focus of the Committee is…

Would it be correct to say the Fed's goal is to lower economic growth? I don't think so. It's trying to lower inflation and predicting negative, possibly necessary, side effects. But if you read that quote as saying the Fed is trying to raise unemployment, then it's also saying the Fed is trying to lower growth, which is an odd reading to say the least.

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#119

Post by [deleted] »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #107
3pt14159 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there during the dot com bubble bursting. Psychology factored into it, but it wasn't the primary reason the bubble bursted. The main two reasons were: 1. Hype around new technologies is sometimes warranted. Electrification, for example. It wasn't clear how long it would take for these weird new internet companies to really start turning a buck, but after a few years spreadsheet parameters were updated and the w…

The current environment has a similar feeling to the early part of the dot com bubble-burst. In that early part of the burst we had the feeling that it could get bad, but we also were sort of deluding ourselves into thinking that it wouldn't be that bad. ...also HN today kind of looking like fuckedcompany[1] back in those days. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company

[deleted]

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#120

Post by tqi »

vecter wrote: post #102
tqi wrote: post #48

Did these companies accelerate planned layoffs because they figure Twitter layoffs on Friday would help take the spotlight off of them?

There's no way that they planned a layoff within a week. They take much longer to plan and execute.

Def, I meant more moving up the timeline to get it into this new cycle.
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