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

Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

theloadstar.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 254 posts

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#141

Post by AYBABTME »

qqqwerty wrote: post #136
warent wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Thank you all for generously sharing your time in writing up such thoughtful answers. -- Would love to hear more on your perspective / insight. This is all intentional, right? My understanding is that the fed is leaning into this particularly hard in order to dislodge the stubborn housing bubble. For an individual (someone who isn't a current business owner), does this basically mean we should continue stockpil…

> My understanding is that the fed is leaning into this particularly hard in order to dislodge the stubborn housing bubble. They are trying to reduce inflation. The housing bubble certainly played a part, but inflation was hitting nearly everything. A big concern here, is that many smart people think a fair bit of that inflation was due to COVID related supply chain disruptions (which still persist, see China and COV…

With China dropping its zero-covid policy, I think we're realistically on the way out. However there's no avoiding that we need to pay for 2-3 years of lost global productivity.

I mean picture yourself stopping work for 2-3y with zero planning, living on debt and pretending like nothing happened. At some point the bills come due.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#142

Post by gdulli »

makestuff wrote: post #67
bambax wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basic thesis is by using tech, you can dramatically lower the labor costs of forwarding, and since freight forwarding has huge returns to scale, the benefits compound Is this remotely true though? Aren't the main costs of forwarding simply fuel? At some point I was importing goods from China (really small volume though) and I did ask them for a quote, and they were twice the price what the Chinese factory could get…

My roommate worked at a freight forwarder, but from what he told me, the entire thing is a mess of excel spreadsheets and highly inefficient. I think the pitch of flexport is what if we modernize the technology and make it more efficient by reducing or removing the need of all of these people managing the forwarding via excel.

If you asked me whether I've seen more net inefficiency in my life resulting from underengineering with Excel-like workflows vs. overengineering through the "best" software engineering practices at a given time I really don't know if I could say.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#143

Post by grey-area »

sanguy wrote: post #135

Already seeing startups out of funding and not able to raise more being given away to companies that can assume the payroll and running costs. We've had 5 such approaches in the past 6 weeks of which 2 we have taken over. It is going to get very very bad inside the next 6 months. We're still in the pre-swell phase before the tidal wave hits.

Yes, an awful lot of companies assumed the free money would last forever, and now it has stopped, they are faced with two choices:

1. Start making money 2. Sell the company

Many of them will tell themselves that they can somehow see massive growth and start making a profit, and will fail while trying to do so.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#144

Post by heyoni »

ryanSrich wrote: post #121
grey-area wrote: post #112

A global recession is coming against a backdrop of the Fed raising rates, that is going to be very painful. A lot of people here don't seem to realise this is the case or are in denial. This is a bubble bursting, this is serious. Lots of companies are laying off workers or at least freezing hiring because they anticipate earnings cratering, or are already seeing it happen. They haven't reported on it yet, but they wi…

> A global recession is coming against a backdrop of the Fed raising rates I believe we're going to double dip. We already dipped before the holidays. We'll see one more very painful quarter, which may not be Q1, but Q2 or Q3. From what I've seen, Series B+ is essentially impossible right now unless you're in the top 0.0001% of companies. Even then, if you're that operationally efficient, you might even hold off on f…

Did you read the article? They're actually hiring 350-400 software engineers. If anything, these layoffs say the exact opposite.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#145

Post by idopmstuff »

grey-area wrote: post #138
idopmstuff wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, layoffs seem concentrated among high-earning folks - I can definitely see how anyone browsing HN would think we're headed straight for a recession. But it seems like overall, and especially in lower-wage jobs, employment is still humming along and people are very much not getting laid off. That actually really gives me hope for a soft landing - those high-wage folks are much less likely to have…

But it seems like overall, and especially in lower-wage jobs, employment is still humming along and people are very much not getting laid off. There will not be a soft landing. When has there ever been a soft landing and how would raising rates into a recession ever result in one? Raising rates takes 1 year to come through to the real economy - we haven't even seen the impact yet, only on stock prices which foreshado…

> There will not be a soft landing.

The reality is we cannot see the future of our incredibly complex, ever-changing economy. Sure, this hasn't happened in the past, but on the other hand the economy today is vastly different than it was even fifty years ago. Not to say we couldn't end in a recession - of course that is a distinct possibility - but the reality is that we don't have a ton of history to draw on when it comes to post-pandemic recessions exacerbated by supply chain issues and large-scale war in major energy-producing countries.

I wonder if you've shorted the equities markets to the greatest degree practically possible given your financial situation? If not, then I think you're phrasing things with too great a degree of absoluteness.

In terms of the Fed's goal, it is reduction of inflation. Unemployment is both a driver and a signal of that, but it's not the ultimate goal. And besides, a rise in unemployment doesn't guarantee a recession - we're at 3.5% and folks from the Fed have said they see 4% as consistent with keeping inflation stable at an appropriate level. It is absolutely possible to have 4% inflation and not be in a recession.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#146

Post by notch656c »

idopmstuff wrote: post #145
grey-area wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it seems like overall, and especially in lower-wage jobs, employment is still humming along and people are very much not getting laid off. There will not be a soft landing. When has there ever been a soft landing and how would raising rates into a recession ever result in one? Raising rates takes 1 year to come through to the real economy - we haven't even seen the impact yet, only on stock prices which foreshado…

> There will not be a soft landing. The reality is we cannot see the future of our incredibly complex, ever-changing economy. Sure, this hasn't happened in the past, but on the other hand the economy today is vastly different than it was even fifty years ago. Not to say we couldn't end in a recession - of course that is a distinct possibility - but the reality is that we don't have a ton of history to draw on when it…

>I wonder if you've shorted the equities markets to the greatest degree practically possible given your financial situation? If not, then I think you're phrasing things with too great a degree of absoluteness.

The equities market doesn't have great correlation with the common pleb's job outlook so it makes no sense to short the equities market based on these kind of predictions.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#147

Post by idopmstuff »

AYBABTME wrote: post #137
notch656c wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make a good wage and the first thing I'll do if I get the boot is stop buying things from the plebs. No eating out and paying the cook. No day care paying the working class daycare worker. No buying lumber for house projects paying the logger and mill worker. No cars paying the auto worker. etc, etc. Less toys for the kid meaning less trucking and shipping work. Compound that at scale and it will definitely have an…

But relatively minor, expenses don't scale linearly with income.

Yep, this is it exactly. Even tens of thousands of tech workers getting laid off and cutting back discretionary spending isn't actually that impactful in the grand scheme of things, especially since much of their spending is on high-end, luxury goods.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#148

Post by beambot »

qqqwerty wrote: post #136
warent wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Thank you all for generously sharing your time in writing up such thoughtful answers. -- Would love to hear more on your perspective / insight. This is all intentional, right? My understanding is that the fed is leaning into this particularly hard in order to dislodge the stubborn housing bubble. For an individual (someone who isn't a current business owner), does this basically mean we should continue stockpil…

> My understanding is that the fed is leaning into this particularly hard in order to dislodge the stubborn housing bubble. They are trying to reduce inflation. The housing bubble certainly played a part, but inflation was hitting nearly everything. A big concern here, is that many smart people think a fair bit of that inflation was due to COVID related supply chain disruptions (which still persist, see China and COV…

To visualize how much of an outlier this "recession" already is, just look at bond vs stock returns since 1871:

https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2022-12/50a56fbc-65fc-4...

2022 was the worst performing year ever for bonds and among the worst-10 for stocks -- we've never been this deep in the "negative returns across sectors" quadrant as we are right now, and there's no clear indication or catalyst to suggest we're recovering yet either.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#149

Post by ghufran_syed »

notch656c wrote: post #140
AYBABTME wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But relatively minor, expenses don't scale linearly with income.

True but at a minimum income I am not employing anyone and basically only paying rent (straight to the megarich) and taxes (straight to the destitute and the megarich) and food while scrounging and DIY for everything else. The portion people spend on working class worker services probably increases exponentially going from lower working class to upper middle class, which would make the effect naturally even worse tha…

there is also the fact that the skewed income distribution means that there are relatively few high income people cutting back (a lot) on expenses, so while it has an effect, it’s probably a lot less than if the same proportion of low income people were losing their jobs

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#150

Post by coffeebeqn »

bambax wrote: post #88
DavidPeiffer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not who you responded to, but I've listened to a number of interviews from the former CEO (highly recommend the Odd Lots podcast for his interviews and many other supply chain related conversations). A couple concepts, some details may be a bit off and I'm very open to correction. There is a lot of administrative cost. IIRC, you might have something like 1 dispatcher for every 50 drivers. You have other people giving…

There was an article I think on HN a couple of days ago, wondering why Uber and Lyft still couldn't turn a profit after all these years, while cab companies are still around and thriving, and wondering where all the money went. Isn't it possible that tech simply overpromised, and that a couple of guys here and there smoking, typing numbers in spreadsheets on old computers, yelling over the phone and writing things do…

If you think about it you still need the same amount of drivers but a lot more administrative staff in the form of a world class engineering team. How could it be cheaper?
Post reply on HN