I love how they don't want to bury the lede, but they also will use the passive voice: "after today Shopify will be smaller by about 20%". "some of you will leave Shopify today". It's not at all that those people are being laid off!
Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics
111–120 of 531 posts
Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics
#112What is an healthy manager-to-ic ratio?
It varies depending on the specifics, but I’ve seen 1:7 work well across multiple industries. Anything routine enough to need less oversight is automated, and anything needing more oversight is either cutting edge research or isn’t hiring experienced enough staff.
Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Shopify can deliver its software with less people, that’s better for society. Put it this way - would you like to be paid to mow a lawn using scissors? I can pay hundreds of people to mow my lawn using scissors, and they will be employed as landscapers. Or I can pay one guy with a lawnmower.
> that’s better for society Increasingly I wonder what this means. What KPIs are you evaluating to determine if society is getting better or worse? And is it?
Economic growth would certainly suffer if we insisted that no one could ever be let go.
Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics
#114> But now we are at the dawn of the AI era and the new capabilities that are unlocked by that are unprecedented. Shopify has the privilege of being amongst the companies with the best chances of using AI to help our customers. A copilot for entrepreneurship is now possible. Our main quest demands from us to build the best thing that is now possible, and that has just changed entirely.
Most recent layoffs have been framed around needing to focus the company due to economic and market headwinds. This reads like AI has transformed the mission.
What does "A copilot for entrepreneurship is now possible" mean here?
Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CEO's job is to deliver results, not maintain full employment. Companies exist, and have always existed, to be temporary money-making enterprises. Acting like they are civil institutions tasked with upholding the social fabric is absurd.
But why did the CEO hire all these useless people in the first place if they are so competent? Why did it take until now to fire them?
The unspoken part in many of these layoffs, is that hiring people based on 5 back to back zooms, 50% leetcode, 50% STAR-method situational questions, means you have absolutely no idea how these people will actually work in the real world
Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics
#116I know the reality is more complicated, but it's always jarring to read a "company X had a great! quarter, is firing 20% of employees" headline. Very dystopian. It seems like these two facts should at least go out in different press releases on different days. For Shopify, does anyone know whether the 20% figure includes the people leaving with the sale of SFN to Flexport? Edit: just heard in the earnings call that t…
The investor class is desperate for a recession and it's just not happening so they keep laying off people until they can make it happen.
This is not how recessions work.
Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics
#117Last time I read a very reassuring and cogent letter by the CEO of Shopify about the layoffs . But at no point did the letter hint at further layoffs no less 20% which is huge. Wondering what the explanation is this time. I understand everyone has their worth and price but I fail to see how management and leadership at companies still have jobs and huge bonuses. Reaganomics has had 35 years. Maybe we need a new visio…
>> I fail to see how management and leadership at companies still have jobs and huge bonuses
I definitely agree in situations where the company is doing poorly. If a company has found a way to become more efficient then bosses probably do deserve bonuses.
Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a fundraising advertisement, not for you. The headline is to pitch possible future investors that Shopify will prioritize investor returns over anything else (as ordained by the Prophets of capitalism)
If Shopify can deliver its software with less people, that’s better for society. Put it this way - would you like to be paid to mow a lawn using scissors? I can pay hundreds of people to mow my lawn using scissors, and they will be employed as landscapers. Or I can pay one guy with a lawnmower.
Landscaping is a perfect example of how an individual can instantaneously create value in the economy. Banks can create currency, but individuals can magically create value.
How? Decide you want your yard to look different. On a whim. Just decide you want a hill over there with a ring of bushes on top. Congratulations, you have created demand. Pay a local crew to have it done, money flows into the economy, everybody eats.
For greater effect, manufacture a cultural preference so that entire country clubs of people at a time decide that all hills need bonzai trees at their crest -- have all the clubbers pay all the landscaping crews.
A golf course is just a jobs program /s
Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics
#119I'll tell you a personal anecdote about Shopify and why I dislike the company. Back in 2019, I was contacted by Shopify for a job opportunity. After acing multiple remote interviews, their recruiter couldn't contain their excitement. They promised me an onsite interview to simply meet the team and potentially secure an offer. Imagine my surprise when, after enduring a 15-hour economy class flight with barely any time…
That is absolutely disgraceful. I have been furious after much smaller things like being told an interview will be system design when it was actually a LeetCode style interview. Can't imagine how that must have felt.
Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics
#120I'll tell you a personal anecdote about Shopify and why I dislike the company. Back in 2019, I was contacted by Shopify for a job opportunity. After acing multiple remote interviews, their recruiter couldn't contain their excitement. They promised me an onsite interview to simply meet the team and potentially secure an offer. Imagine my surprise when, after enduring a 15-hour economy class flight with barely any time…
I had almost an identical experience, except I was local to Ottawa at the time. Literally a full day of back-to-back interviews. They asked which languages and technologies I was comfortable with, and then gave me a pair programming session with someone who didn't even speak to me, in a programming language I wasn't comfortable in, leading me to have to look up a lot of syntax. Radio silence for a week, then I called the original recruiter and they just basically said "no."