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LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

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Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#171

Post by twblalock »

decafninja wrote: post #70
12xo wrote: post #37

What the heck do close to 10k people do at LinkedIn? Serious question. Why does this site/company require 10k people?

I've interviewed for roles at several top tech companies and what surprised me was that there were entire teams dedicated to working on what seemed like a tiny feature or functionality. In some cases, two entire teams - one for frontend, one for backend. Granted, I understand there is a HUGE mind boggling level of scale involved. But still, after going on such interviews, and talking with friends who work at FAANG, e…

FAANG companies can't move fast and break things like startups. If their services go down, it might be mentioned on the evening news, and it would certainly cost a lot of money. FAANGs have huge existing revenues to protect, large customer bases to keep happy, and laws to obey in all of the countries where they operate.

A "simple" feature change is not so simple for companies with those concerns.

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#172

Post by twblalock »

blocked_again wrote: post #32
blackflame7000 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a business not a charity

Please link this comment in your careers page, under company culture, if you ever start a company.

Why bother? Competent professionals already know it's true, even at companies that pretend otherwise.

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#173

Post by reducesuffering »

symlinkk wrote: post #108
curiousllama wrote: post #8

Companies commonly use layoffs as an easy way to get rid of under-performing staff, realize cost savings from previous investments (e.g., automation) ahead of schedule, or efficiently reorganize divisions whose execs fall out of favor. Not going to say this is good, but a However callous it is, roles on the margin get cut when prospects for growth dim.

Yeah doesn’t Amazon lay off 10% of devs every year as part of their stack ranking?

Almost. 10% are put into a "Dev List" which starts with some coaching on how they should improve. It then likely leads to a "Pivot" where the employee is given the option to take a 3 month pay severance, or go on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) (likely biased against the employee, as manager and manager's manager have already put a lot of work into getting here and have made up their mind). Failing the PIP, they are likely going to be terminated soon and only get 1 month severance. So, they start with 10% but they target about 6-8% actually getting terminated.

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#174

Post by mdorazio »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #153
Zafira wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It used to be in the GE mode of cutting the bottom 5-10% each year. Hasn't it been demonstrated that GE under Jack Welch was basically a massive fraud?

You might be right, but source?

Here's a good review (sorry for the paywall) [1].

Basically, Jack Welch was in the right place at the right time, probably (almost definitely) played semi-legal accounting games to beat analyst estimates (a practice which later led to accounting fraud charges [2]), and pretty much mortgaged the company's future in exchange for short-term boosts by selling off many of its business units and focusing on GE Capital, which basically got annihilated a few years after Jack left. So he was also a master of leaving other people holding the bag. Also, the man was apparently (according to many people who worked with him) a massive asshole with a huge ego problem and would epitomize every negative stereotype of white male executives if he were still alive today [3].

[1] https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/leaders/jack-welch-infl...

[2] https://www.cfo.com/accounting-tax/2009/08/ge-settles-accoun...

[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-jack-welch-wont-be-missed/

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#175

Post by badestrand »

three_seagrass wrote: post #123
mason55 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This question comes up on every post about a big tech company. LinkedIn in a global company operating commercially in probably almost every country. The "social network for work" part is easy but when you start talking about things like job listings across the world and then the sales and account management and local office management and compliance and the internal tools and billing and everything else, it's quite e…

It's the perennial HN question that ignores how much global companies need in-market sales, marketing, and support teams to grow.

I think many people here (me included) just don't know what LinkedIn is doing. Apart from "having a website", that is.

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#176

Post by notyourwork »

three_seagrass wrote: post #126
notyourwork wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're there to make more money than they cost. This is the key most people ignore. If each employee generates revenue greater than their cost of employment, why not keep them around? The goal isn't keeping the lights on, its making money.

It's not just about profitability though. I'm a bit rusty with my corporate finance, but internal rate of return (IRR) and weighted average cost of capital (WACC) can dictate that even if an employee is making more than what they cost, the money could still be better allocated elsewhere.

Does "allocated elsewhere" imply not at the company or performing another task? Those are quite different.

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#177

Post by dvirsky »

dehrmann wrote: post #54
curiousllama wrote: post #8

Companies commonly use layoffs as an easy way to get rid of under-performing staff, realize cost savings from previous investments (e.g., automation) ahead of schedule, or efficiently reorganize divisions whose execs fall out of favor. Not going to say this is good, but a However callous it is, roles on the margin get cut when prospects for growth dim.

> a From what I've read, this was standard practice at Microsoft for over a decade. I think this makes sense during a downturn, but probably wears on morale if it happens every year.

I've heard from people who worked there at the time that as part of the stack ranking system, it contributed to a culture of mediocrity and stagnation. The high performers did not want to excel in fear of retaliation from teammates that this was putting at risk, and no one wanted to be at the bottom. So the result was that everyone tried to be mediocre, do exactly as told, not more and not less. I would never want to work in such a culture.

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#178

Post by [deleted] »

curiousllama wrote: post #8

Companies commonly use layoffs as an easy way to get rid of under-performing staff, realize cost savings from previous investments (e.g., automation) ahead of schedule, or efficiently reorganize divisions whose execs fall out of favor. Not going to say this is good, but a However callous it is, roles on the margin get cut when prospects for growth dim.

[deleted]

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#179

Post by symlinkk »

tootie wrote: post #146
symlinkk wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of small features are needlessly complicated at a FAANG because they reinvent the wheel.

I think it's also that the economics are just different. If you're evaluating a CICD tool at a small company, you're going to find something affordable and bend your process to how it works. A mid-size company might invest a bit into customizing Jenkins hoping that it will pay off in the long run. A giant company might spend millions building a fully custom system from the ground up because gaining 1% more efficiency…

From what I have seen, the internal tooling is usually worse than what is publicly available. Often times it is only used because it was built before there was anything publically available, and now all of their tooling and workflow depend on it and they can’t easily change. Plus no one wants to rock the boat and suggest throwing out a tool that likely employs a bunch of people.

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#180

Post by vvladymyrov »

harshulpandav wrote: post #25

LinkedIn would be investing in other parts of the business which would result in some job creation and the firm would "work with employees impacted by today's announcement to explore these opportunities" Good to know that they will first consider rehiring/interviewing the laid off employees and they are public about it. Curious question: does the employee get to keep the severance package if rehired after being laid…

Usually there is a wording in a papers that need to be signed in order to get severance - if rehired, severance won't be paid (plus reject the right to litigate). This is easy to implement as severance might be paid in be-weekly cadence (like salary).
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