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Patreon laying off 20% of staff

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Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#181

Post by buellerbueller »

fourseventy wrote: post #158
dylan604 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then figure out a way to NOT fire them like reduce the salary of the c-suite staff by 50% so they are only making 300% more than the average workers. or reduce c-suite salary to the lowest wage while allowing them to live off of their stock and other benefits like company cars, expense accounts, etc. granted, that's for the larger companies, but the bigger companies never do anything like that

1.) The c-suite is like 6 people, reducing their salary isn't going to make much of a dent. 2.) The c-suite are compensated at market rate the same as anyone else. If the CTO at Patreon is making 400k/yr you can't just cut his salary to 200k, he will leave and take a job somewhere else.

>1.) The c-suite is like 6 people, reducing their salary isn't going to make much of a dent.

It makes much more than a dent to the ~20 people not laid off, and a likely morale boost to everyone remaining.

Edit: who are the sociopaths who downvote this? You don't think that someone not being laid off isn't going to have a much better outcome than had the been laid off? At least make an argument to the contrary...

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#182

Post by stackskipton »

smelendez wrote: post #138
stackskipton wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume they are company managed Macs so they could just order a remote wipe and then remove them from iCloud so they revert to their out of box setup.

Sure, but they’re still potentially sitting in limbo and turned off in the trunk of an employee’s car or whatever. If you’re concerned about leak issues, why not wipe them and have them shipped back for less than the cost of an extra week of severance. Also, many employees likely have their own personal laptops and may not have any use for them.

In my experience, so many people these days do not have personal computer at home. Their personal computing is phone/tablet and if they game, it's done via a console.

EDIT: My wife didn't until she got "second job" as volunteer and needed to do some real work. Before that, she was planning entire vacations from her phone.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#183

Post by ecocentrik »

ghostly_s wrote: post #163
ecocentrik wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should really look into who Jack Conte is and why he created Patreon. He's a smart guy who relies heavily on maintaining a positive social image and is more emotionally aware and stable than most tech founders. I imagine from his perspective the decision, severance and post were all just the smart thing to do.

His name is Jack, and I would describe him as a deeply weird narcissist. You got the "relies heavily on maintaining a positive social image" part right.

That was a typo... thanks. I wasn't suggesting that he or anyone else is 100% altruistic but he seems like he genuinely thrives on collaboration.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#184

Post by dewey »

dylan604 wrote: post #129
codegeek wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a founder/CEO myself (a very small company so I don't have experience of mass layoffs for full disclosure). However, I don't get this explanation. If you feel genuine responsibility for the people, then figure out a way to NOT fire them. Or be honest and admit that the company needs to make more money/cut costs. Trust me, no one wants to hear "we love you so much but we have to fire you and I feel so bad". It ju…

> then figure out a way to NOT fire them like reduce the salary of the c-suite staff by 50% so they are only making 300% more than the average workers. or reduce c-suite salary to the lowest wage while allowing them to live off of their stock and other benefits like company cars, expense accounts, etc. granted, that's for the larger companies, but the bigger companies never do anything like that

> Like reduce the salary of the c-suite staff by 50%

Perfect way to lose your staff to your competitor.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#185

Post by miltonlost »

fourseventy wrote: post #158
dylan604 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then figure out a way to NOT fire them like reduce the salary of the c-suite staff by 50% so they are only making 300% more than the average workers. or reduce c-suite salary to the lowest wage while allowing them to live off of their stock and other benefits like company cars, expense accounts, etc. granted, that's for the larger companies, but the bigger companies never do anything like that

1.) The c-suite is like 6 people, reducing their salary isn't going to make much of a dent. 2.) The c-suite are compensated at market rate the same as anyone else. If the CTO at Patreon is making 400k/yr you can't just cut his salary to 200k, he will leave and take a job somewhere else.

The corollary to 2 is: reduce all CEO pay across the board because of how disproportionate it is.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#186

Post by buellerbueller »

keiferski wrote: post #173
GlibMonkeyDeath wrote: post #169

Just going to lay this here: https://www.marketplace.org/story/2016/06/13/profit-ibm IBM went seven decades without layoffs. Yes, part of that was the unique situation of post WWII America. But read TJ Watson Jr.'s words - they really took seriously the fact that they weren't just a business - they had a responsibility to people who worked for them. IBM went through a LOT of transformation in those seven decades BTW…

I think this is an uncharitable take, and judging by these comments, a pretty common one today on HN – probably because there are less and less founders posting here, and more bitter employees. Patreon isn't IBM, it's not even Google or Amazon. IBM was above even FAANG in its day, it was practically an extension of the US government for decades. Patreon is in the media/content business. It is perfectly reasonable to…

[flagged]

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#187

Post by cush »

codegeek wrote: post #42

The only possible positive thing out of this cringy article is that the severance is decent (for a US company). 4 months of pay and healthcare coverage through Year end. Everything else could have just been a couple of sentences. Companies need to stop doing this melodrama every time they decide to fire people. Everyone knows the goal is to make money and keep a company profitable for their shareholders. Why these me…

It sounds like you don't know Jack Conte. This isn't a melodramatic AI written tome... The guy is heartbroken

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#188

Post by keiferski »

buellerbueller wrote: post #186
keiferski wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an uncharitable take, and judging by these comments, a pretty common one today on HN – probably because there are less and less founders posting here, and more bitter employees. Patreon isn't IBM, it's not even Google or Amazon. IBM was above even FAANG in its day, it was practically an extension of the US government for decades. Patreon is in the media/content business. It is perfectly reasonable to…

[flagged]

I hardly think expressing some understanding of the position of a company owner makes me a fan of Ayn Rand.

And just a tip: many of your comments seem to belong on reddit, not here. Different culture, where short obnoxious takes aren't welcome.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#189

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

bflesch wrote: post #35

I don't understand why this is problematic for some: They lay off 93 people so the total # employees before layoffs is 465 and it will be 372 employees remaining after layoffs. In same post they state there are 300k creators making money on their platform, so the ratio of employees to creators is 1:645 before layoffs and 1:800 after layoffs. It's a mature business and VC funding has significantly dried up for these k…

The one time I ever paid for access to a creator on there, within the first month I got banned for being a bot (I'm not) and their customer service wouldn't help me. So my money was essentially stolen. Maybe all of these companies maximizing their automation so they can minimize headcount isn't a good thing for world.

Re: Patreon laying off 20% of staff

#190

Post by forlorn_mammoth »

IshKebab wrote: post #141
chrisss395 wrote: post #103

I see others mentioning the severance package being decent for a US company. I'm glad they received something, but I'm sorry, can we stop calling this decent? It's markedly lopsided when a company can one day decide to lay off a large portion of their workforce and think 4 months is anywhere near acceptable. The average time to find a new job is significantly longer, especially depending on role and seniority. I'm ti…

> The average time to find a new job is significantly longer Is that really true? https://standout-cv.com/stats/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-a... They found 3.8 months which sounds realistic. I can't imagine the average being significantly longer (like 6+ months?).

From the article

> Graduates take an average of 5.6 months to land a job in the UK. This is almost 2 months longer than the national average

also noting the average includes, at the fast end,

> Job Average time to get a job (months) > Bar staff 1 > Sales assistant (retail) 1 > Waiter/waitress 1.2 > Delivery driver 1.2

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