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

SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 557 posts

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#191

Post by jogjayr »

slededit wrote: post #74
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at where GE is now. Yes, Welch is gone now but the effects of his leadership are there.

Are we just going to completely ignore the 17 year reign of Jeff Immelt? GE Capital gained enough prominence to destroy the company under his reign. Jeff was the one that acquired one of the nations largest subprime lenders in 2004, primed perfectly to maximize losses in 2008.

Jack Welch was a massive GE Capital fan - he praised it to the skies in his books and it really came into its own under him. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) that as a chemical engineer by training, he was blown way that you didn't have to design, manufacture, "bend metal" with GE Capital - just turn GE's strong balance sheet into more money.

Maybe it's possible that that type of culture and system made Immelt the best candidate to take over? Or influenced his own decision-making?

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#192

Post by takeda »

stupidcar wrote: post #33
whatshisface wrote: post #6

10% is a big fraction. How often do large, stable companies execute a layoff like that? Sometimes layoffs can be not so bad, for example when that's the company's way of clearing off the managers' firing wishlist without incurring legal trouble. However at 10% of the workforce, this may be a change of direction away from R&D and towards sitting on the falcon 9 and launching to LEO.

Maybe, maybe not. Consider it in terms of your own workplace: if you worked on a team of 10, and one person got laid off, would that seem so huge? I think the question is whether this round of layoffs is in response to an acute cash flow issue or just part of long-term financial prudency. They fact that they waited until after Christmas and are providing 8 weeks of pay and benefits makes me hopeful that it's the latt…

Waiting until after Christmas is indeed nice, but the 8 weeks is actually mandated by law.

California WARN act applies to any site that has at least 70 employees and lays of at least 50. When this is triggered, the employer needs to provide at least 60 days notice.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#193

Post by teainspace »

viraptor wrote: post #39
Deimorz wrote: post #27

According to some comments from employees, the company had an all-hands meeting where everyone was sent home and told to check their email over the weekend to find out if they're being laid off or not: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/af1n7f/spacex_will_...

Whatever the reasons for the workforce reduction, this way of doing it is just unnecessarily cruel.

How would you execute a 10% layoff at a company sensitive to employee sabotage? I agree I would prefer a face to face personally, but I don't see another way here.

To drag it out another way would leave the company and its operations highly exposed to those individuals leaving in my opinion.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#194

Post by [deleted] »

cyberferret wrote: post #187
catmanjan wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic no company with less than 11 people should ever fire anyone...

Firing one person in a 10 person company could mean that you lose your entire accounting/finance skillset in one fell swoop. Or your sole developer. It is a big deal in terms of intellectual property and skill pool within your organisation. Down stream impact of how to cope with that loss is another factor. Fire your book keeper and does your remaining engineering team have to spend 10% of their time doing invoices a…

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#195

Post by Fomite »

rb666 wrote: post #185
sonnyblarney wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10% is huge by any measure.

Really? Look around you next time you're in the office, could you really not lose at least 1 of those 9 slackers around you?

I mean, if nothing else, 'decimate' has the meaning it has for a reason.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#196

Post by topmonk »

GuiA wrote: post #152
m0zg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. What would be more cruel is to keep people guessing for weeks, or to do several smaller layoffs. That's how it's usually done, and it utterly decimates the morale, and causes the best people to leave. The best way to do a layoff is to cut once, cut deep, and do it quickly. And of course to not be an asshole and offer severance compensation to folks who were laid off.

You want to minimize the time where employees who are not being laid off are wondering “am I being laid off?”. Ideally you want that time to be 0, because it can wreck havoc on morale and those 24 or 48 hours of doubt can be enough to push people who are not getting laid off to reach out to their network, recruiters, etc. Now you’re losing high performers. If indeed everyone was told “check your email over the weeken…

Totally agree, if I was laid off I'd like to know right away so I could start job hunting right away.

And if it turns our I wasn't I'd like to know that, too, so I don't lose focus of whatever it is I'm doing.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#197

Post by fuddle »

whatshisface wrote: post #6

10% is a big fraction. How often do large, stable companies execute a layoff like that? Sometimes layoffs can be not so bad, for example when that's the company's way of clearing off the managers' firing wishlist without incurring legal trouble. However at 10% of the workforce, this may be a change of direction away from R&D and towards sitting on the falcon 9 and launching to LEO.

I would think SpaceX isn't like most large, stable companies as their primary goal is the colonization of Mars.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#198

Post by mdorazio »

takeda wrote: post #192
stupidcar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, maybe not. Consider it in terms of your own workplace: if you worked on a team of 10, and one person got laid off, would that seem so huge? I think the question is whether this round of layoffs is in response to an acute cash flow issue or just part of long-term financial prudency. They fact that they waited until after Christmas and are providing 8 weeks of pay and benefits makes me hopeful that it's the latt…

Waiting until after Christmas is indeed nice, but the 8 weeks is actually mandated by law. California WARN act applies to any site that has at least 70 employees and lays of at least 50. When this is triggered, the employer needs to provide at least 60 days notice.

WARN only applies to notice, not to severance pay. As far as I know, even in a mass layoff situation in CA like this, they are not required to provide any compensation. You could look at it as "hey we're going to fire you in 60 days per WARN, so just stop working now and we'll pay you for that time" but it's not quite the same - they could just notify them, make them work the 8 weeks and not provide any actual severance pay.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#200

Post by tamasrepus »

whatshisface wrote: post #6

10% is a big fraction. How often do large, stable companies execute a layoff like that? Sometimes layoffs can be not so bad, for example when that's the company's way of clearing off the managers' firing wishlist without incurring legal trouble. However at 10% of the workforce, this may be a change of direction away from R&D and towards sitting on the falcon 9 and launching to LEO.

10% = literally /decimated/. https://www.wordnik.com/words/decimate (to reduce by 1 in 10).
Post reply on HN