Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 237 posts

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#111

Post by mywittyname »

xmprt wrote: post #95
bhouston wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way we measure success is different. The history of the web is littered with companies that had a big exit and died/became-irrelevant. Given a long enough timeline every companies dies or they pivot so extreme that they resemble nothing that they were to begin with.

That might be true but it's a very nihilistic way to look at things. I believe SO had many more successful years ahead of it but decisions taken by the company and moderators sped that process up.

I don't think it nihilistic. The world changes; it changes rapidly; it changes dramatically. Successful businesses pivot, and as a result, often don't resemble the company that they used to be.

The end game of successful businesses is to become a conglomerate of sorts. Once a company owns enough brands/products across enough markets, they can shed the under-performers and expand into new segments and industries.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#113

Post by matkoniecz »

ram4jesus wrote: post #41

Good. Lay off everyone. Only reddit beats SO in terms of being made to feel inadequate, stupid, etc. when asking others for help on technical issues. SO made their bed. Enjoy the snark, mistreatment, and power trips while it lasts. There are definitely gentler and better communities out there.

It is quite ironic to snark while complaining about snark.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#114

Post by motbus3 »

These CEOs are not the brightest. They are seeing their businesses being menaced by AI "stuff" and what they do? They cut on the powerhouse of change.

Then they come back with a "let's do more with less etc".

Well, to be honest I do not expect them to be that unaware of the situation. They will get their fat check and go away anyway.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#115

Post by AlbertCory »

matkoniecz wrote: post #107
AlbertCory wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also called schadenfreude . while I agree about SO culture, it's probably the case that most of the laid-off staff took no part in that behavior. The Great Reset 2.0 which might save SO: Everyone whose downvotes exceed a certain threshold has their reputation points reduced to zero. And since "sentiment" is measurable nowadays, the same would be done for anyone whose hostile comments exceed some threshold. Probably o…

> Everyone whose downvotes exceed a certain threshold has their reputation points reduced to zero. Why it would help? While closing random questions as duplicates of similar but different question is obnoxious, downvoting "do my homework for me" questions is very useful.

That doesn't seem to be the sentiment here, though, does it? Useful to you, maybe.

Addendum: please tell us how many points YOU have on SO.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#116

Post by _the_inflator »

ncann wrote: post #100

The biggest problem with SO is that it is self-conflicting in its mission. It wants high-quality answers, it wants to avoid duplicates, it wants to be wiki-like or even something that can replace official docs/man page. All those are good and noble goals, but you cannot have that and at the same time be novice-user friendly. Wikipedia has the same issue to a certain extent, but SO is much worse because it's a Q&A sit…

I side with you. On the other hand, there seems to be no business case left. You mentioned Wikipedia. I think that WP is highly profitable and even in the times of ChatGPT still is. And does not need such a high staff count.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#117

Post by bigstrat2003 »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #104

What I don't understand is why the board never calls for a significant paycut for the CEO alongside layoffs.

The same reason the board never does anything to punish CEOs, even when they run the company into the ground. It's a good old boys network where the people on the board are themselves an executive somewhere else, and they want their own boards to take care of them.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#118

Post by mellosouls »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #103

Am I the only one that still finds SO to be quite useful? If I paste an error message into Google, it's still quite likely that the SO answer is the best one. And if it doesn't, I contribute an answer if/when I eventually find it because I still think I get more out of SO than I put in. I've received 21 necromancer badges doing that.

ChatGPT generally solves stuff quicker and more precisely for me.

I have yet to receive a badge but could add that to the prompt or custom instructions as an alternative to its encouraging words when I'm nearly there.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#119

Post by [deleted] »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #88
NicoJuicy wrote: post #84

Stack overflow for teams with an ai bot intregation that trains on external sources would be the killer app though.

I'm absolutely certain that the private equity monstrosity that paided almost $2B for it a couple years back is fervently working on this to recoup their investment.

[deleted]

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#120

Post by bastardoperator »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #93
bastardoperator wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame the unpaid volunteers to some extent. Sometimes they're overly rude, not always, but we've all seen it. You never have that problem with AI. You can ask all the questions you want and it will at least try to answer them.

AI can do the same thing - it'll probably pretty up the words more, but it's perfectly capable of fuzzy matching a "duplicate" question, passive aggressively telling you to sod off, and telling you that some questions are wrong to ask.

Not chatgpt:

"Yes, that was a duplicate question, but that's absolutely fine! I'm here to help with any questions you have, whether they're duplicates or not. If you have any more questions or need information on any topic, please feel free to ask."

Post reply on HN