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Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

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Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#151

Post by andsoitis »

CydeWeys wrote: post #126
ajkjk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it inconceivable that layoffs are the right choice for a business?

Some businesses, sure. Some of the big tech companies that are doing layoffs though (like Google) are just fine financially, and are losing two decades' worth of employee morale and goodwill for a temporary stock bump that is already dissipating. Memegen is a firestorm, and everyone is now talking about the importance of being on safe projects and staying away from experimental/unproven ones. That's going to hurt Goo…

> (like Google) are just fine financially

Why do you think you know what is in Google's best long-term interest? Do you think you could run the company?

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#152

Post by coredog64 »

kdazzle wrote: post #136
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should a business do that has more people on payroll than their revenues can support?

Hiring freeze, for one. Then anyone that leaves won’t be replaced and headcount will (presumably) go down trauma free.

If everyone does a hiring freeze instead of layoffs, there’s no attrition other than the PIP kind. Ask an Amazonian what that does for morale.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#153

Post by redleggedfrog »

Layoffs signal weakness, from every angle. They hired indiscriminately and now are doing catch and release. Or they lacked foresight of their market. Or they are financially mismanaged. Or they are directed by a unqualified board. Or they are unable to cope with their market shrinking. Or they are a behemoth that grinds up workers as part of their operation (a lot of what we're seeing now). Or they're jumping off the cliff with the other lemmings. Or they need money for upper management pay.

When you're looking for a job, keep the companies previous layoffs in mind. Are they stable, or do they acquire and jettison?

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#154

Post by [deleted] »

bombcar wrote: post #140
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should a business do that has more people on payroll than their revenues can support?

I think the argument is that you shouldn't get into the position where mass layoffs are the solution, just like you shouldn't get into the position where gastric bypass surgery is your only option. Something like each team is maintaining themselves at a proper rate, laying off inside the team as necessary. But even then you will at times have to fire entire teams, but those aren't really a "mass layoff" so much as "w…

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#155

Post by vlovich123 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #126
ajkjk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it inconceivable that layoffs are the right choice for a business?

Some businesses, sure. Some of the big tech companies that are doing layoffs though (like Google) are just fine financially, and are losing two decades' worth of employee morale and goodwill for a temporary stock bump that is already dissipating. Memegen is a firestorm, and everyone is now talking about the importance of being on safe projects and staying away from experimental/unproven ones. That's going to hurt Goo…

Google hasn’t really demonstrated a good track record of revolutionary launches. Doing so requires risk and long term investment and vision. Bigger companies have more to lose with risk and thus take much “safer” risks because CEO and middle management are incentivized to do that - risky bets might cause you to be on the losing side of a bet and end up regressing from where you are now. Risky bets are also how you can attain 1000x results but management is incentivized and condition for loss avoidance. That’s why in-house incubators always fail to produce billion dollar businesses - the incentive structure is very wrong. For everything else that Ruth has delivered to Google in terms of getting it into a supremely healthy financial position, I think the concerns about her killing “Google” have been largely borne out (whether or not that’s her or just her delivering what was asked doesn’t really matter - it’s probably both).

Facebook is about the only company attempting to do this at the size of the big tech companies with Oculus. I think because it’s viewed as an existential threat that they otherwise don’t have their own platform so temporary headwinds / market punishing them for investing so heavily is less a concern for the board and Mark. Ford had to outsource this with Cruise and it’s a delicate balance even then. Apple is interesting to watch because they make very few moves in public that it’s hard to see what’s going on even from the inside in terms of innovation. Toyota is an example of taking a bad “market risk” investing into hydrogen although I think that’s an example of either saving face until they fix their EV story, truly making a misstep, or the story being misreported (eg hydrogen for fleet vehicles and trucks but EV for individuals).

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#156

Post by fullshark »

mcv wrote: post #24

I really get the feeling that many companies are just blindly doing whatever other companies do. One starts large layoffs, and suddenly everybody is doing it. At other times, when one goes on a hiring spree, they all go. One tries to reduce salaries, they all do. One pays enormous bonuses, and they all do. It's like CEOs aren't really thinking for themselves, just copying whatever the market does.

It's not just here, but "we need to have a blockchain division / we need to have an AI powered product / We need to have a cloud services strategy / We need to etc"

All these companies have no vision, and are run by people only interested in saving their jobs and/or preparing for their next one.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#157

Post by jrumbut »

criley2 wrote: post #68
slantedview wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that the market will punish you less. Companies are hoping that the market will actually reward them for layoffs. Unfortunately, these moves can and will be damaging to long term prospects at some companies. But long term thinking isn't something markets generally care about. It's up to companies to push back against market pressure to maintain long term progress, but it's a tough balancing act to do th…

Honestly, I don't think these layoffs (broadly speaking) are dangerous long term. In fact, and this may be unpopular, I think they will be greatly beneficial long term. Consider: - These companies grew at greatly-expanded rates over the past few years. Google notoriously added 20% per year for 7 years straight, doubling their staff from 2017-2023. After layoffs, Google will still be right near ALL-TIME-HIGHS in staff…

I think this is all basically true, but what is interesting to me is that these incumbent tech companies were greedy when everyone was greedy and in so doing they created an opening for someone who is greedy when others are fearful to come and eat their cake.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#158

Post by jjoe »

The CEOs know their macro. I think it's all political. Employment is the last bastion holding this cycle. Low unemployment means the Fed won't pivot. A fed that doesn't pivot is a fed that's in tampering mode which is a money tight environment.

I think it's gotten to be a game of macro economic manipulation to get to fed to flood the market with lush money again.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#159

Post by lars_francke »

throwayyy479087 wrote: post #35

Some of these companies had so many employees - it's staggering. Kafka management is a useful tool but man, 2000 employees is a LOT for something my SRE team does as a standard part of the job.

I am not saying 2000 is too much but I'm 100% sure that your SRE team only does a tiny fraction of what Confluent is doing.

They will have marketing folks, lawyers, they will almost certainly do more testing than you, they are going to have to support many many more configurations than you, they have people all over the world, they have a support staff, they have upstream contributors, they have backoffice people, ...

Nothing against you or your team but what you're doing does in no way compare to building a fully fledget product for on-prem and as a SaaS.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#160

Post by haspok »

gfodor wrote: post #77
gorbachev wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make a mistake, I get fired. CEO makes a mistake, I get laid off. CEO takes full responsibility.

Layoffs don't prove the CEO made a mistake. Understaffing and overstaffing are both errors. A small layoff when the SHTF shows they at least didn't understaff. If you're a growing startup in ZIRP, understaffing is arguably a bigger error than overstaffing, up to a point. I have no idea if Confluent overstaffed. I admit I'm surprised to hear they aren't profitable though.

> Layoffs don't prove the CEO made a mistake

That is irrelevant, since they are taking full responsibility anyway, right?

Just kidding.

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