I called this 3 weeks [1] ago and no one believed me. Were are going to see A LOT of this the next 3-4 months as large companies experience bad quarters. These are the companies that were setup and run well (i.e. not day to day, burning stacks of money with no revenue). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22901720
Such an odd 'I told you so' comment in a thread about thousands losing their livelihood.
Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce
181–190 of 936 posts
Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce
#182Separated employees will receive 14 weeks of pay, and one more week for each year served at the company (rounding partial years up). The firm is also dropping its one-year equity cliff so that employees who are laid off with under 12 months of tenure can buy their vested options; Airbnb will also provide 12 months of health insurance through COBRA in the United States, and health care coverage through 2020 in the res…
In California those can last up to six months.
Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
1 RSU is worth 1x the stock price. 1 option is worth the delta between the stock price and the strike price, meaning 1 RSU is always worth more than one option. Usually you get more options than you would RSU’s to compensate for this, but there’s still a risk/reward tradeoff. I have had stock options that ended up worth $0 because they were underwater. RSU’s would have been worth $non-zero. The fact that RSU’s retain…
You don't necessarily get taxable income from RSUs [edit: when they're granted] if they're structured in a 'Facebook Style' RSU which has an expiration if the company does not IPO within a certain time frame. As long as there's a real risk of loss you can avoid the taxable income and private companies with high valuations will do this to help employees avoid the bad tax situation on an illiquid asset (without need to…
RSUs (even facebook-style) are definitely taxable. With options, you're in control of when to take the tax hit. With facebook-style RSUs, the tax hit comes when the stock gets distributed (taxed as ordinary income) -- usually in the form of withholding some amount of shares.
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Important to remember with RSUs in pre-IPO companies: even though you might get shares distributed at IPO, you're usually subject to a lock up. This is unfortunate because if you receive stock at IPO, you have to pay taxes at them -- so if your company IPOs at $50, then drops to $20 when the lockup expires, you have to pay taxes on the shares you received at $50 value even though you couldn't sell shares at that value.
Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce
#184A lot of people playing in the public markets should thank their lucky stars that Airbnb did not IPO a couple of years back!
Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce
#185I can only imagine how much it sucks to be laid off and what a difficult decision it must be for Airbnb executives. To me, the severance and exit benefits do seem to strike an employee friendly tone. Kudos to the leadership to striking a good balance on keeping the business alive and doing right by their people.
Never a good time, but especially in this environment!
I recall that airbnb workforce has become very marketing lopsided (vs. tech). Whereas tech folks generally have an easier time landing, I imagine the environment for the next 9-12mos being very bad for marketing/MBA folks.
Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
yup, it's better then what you would get in most of the europe. does US have an unemployment plan. how long and how much do you get ?
Yeah so severance is what you get from the company directly. That counts as your usual pay. So during that time you don't get 'unemployment'. After the severance runs out then you collect unemployment, how much that is varies state to state.
Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce
#187Separated employees will receive 14 weeks of pay, and one more week for each year served at the company (rounding partial years up). The firm is also dropping its one-year equity cliff so that employees who are laid off with under 12 months of tenure can buy their vested options; Airbnb will also provide 12 months of health insurance through COBRA in the United States, and health care coverage through 2020 in the res…
Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
My read of that is that AirBnB is paying the premiums for the next 12 months, as regardless of what the company does all employees are eligible to stay on their employee plan and pay their own premiums for 18 months.
... COBRA is 36 months for California employees.
Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce
#189for everyone praising the severance package, laid off employees at kickstarter are getting even more severance and full healthcare (not COBRA) because they unionized: https://twitter.com/ksr_united/status/1256382357311012871
Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce
#190Separated employees will receive 14 weeks of pay, and one more week for each year served at the company (rounding partial years up). The firm is also dropping its one-year equity cliff so that employees who are laid off with under 12 months of tenure can buy their vested options; Airbnb will also provide 12 months of health insurance through COBRA in the United States, and health care coverage through 2020 in the res…
it's generous by startup standards, but laid off kickstarter employees are getting an even better deal because they unionized: four months full pay for everyone, up to six months of paid (not COBRA healthcare), recall rights if the jobs open back up, release from non competes https://twitter.com/ksr_united/status/1256382357311012871