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Prisma laying off 28% staff

prisma.io

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Re: Prisma laying off 28% staff

#191

Post by Retric »

shepik wrote: post #165
Retric wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it is. Google for example increased headcount by 24% in a year and cut it 6% in the next year, a clear sign they made a bad decision. Further in Google’s case they have plenty of money to pay these people until headcount naturally shrinks, but they don’t have anything useful enough for them to do that waiting and avoiding a large severance package is cheaper.

> avoiding a large severance package is cheaper. it sounds like greed, not incompetence. I just do not believe in a worldview where almost all CEOs of large tech companies are incompetent. Whatever the explanation for layoffs is, incompetence ain't it.

Greed would still try and avoid the need for a layoff because they are quite expensive. Google’s 6+ weeks salary + 6 months health insurance isn’t cheap.

Re: Prisma laying off 28% staff

#193

Post by vijaybritto »

Terretta wrote: post #72
vijaybritto wrote: post #10

Comes as a shock to me when I'm literally reading their documentation on setting up sqlite with prisma for an internal project

Why? Do you worry the code will work 28% less well for your problem? Stability is bliss. So many tools would be better if at some point they had just stopped glomming on.

My shock was for the layoffs and the people affected. Nothing to do with stability or anything related to code

Re: Prisma laying off 28% staff

#194

Post by mangamadaiyan »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #95
phoe-krk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this responsibility defined? How is this responsibility measured? What aspects of the ex-Prisma people does this responsibility cover? What measurable and practical effects does this responsibility have when measured in one week, one month, three months, one year from now? If these targets are not met, what are the consequences of that? What are the means of enforcing that responsibility? I seriously think we…

> How is this responsibility defined? For sure not seppuku. Probably nothing will happen. In big companies it is a golden parachute, but this is not a big company.

Seppuku would be too much, IMHO. I'd settle for yubitsume.

Re: Prisma laying off 28% staff

#195

Post by hugs_vs_toph »

f6v wrote: post #114
mk89 wrote: post #54

Yesterday I stumbled upon this: https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-la... Interesting read if you're recently reading about a lot of "layoffs".

I don’t dismiss the idea, but that’s just an opinion of one guy. Coming from Stanford doesn’t turn opinion into a fact.

According to my employer, coming from google makes your opinions facts. Since alot of googlers come from stanford, coming from stanford makes your opinion a fact. QED

Re: Prisma laying off 28% staff

#197

Post by pigtailgirl »

OJFord wrote: post #33
pigtailgirl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-- linkedin: "Søren Bramer Schmidt CEO - We're hiring! Join us @Prisma" - "take full responsibility PS, We're hiring!!!!" --

It's not at all uncommon in restructuring to be both (doing a lot of) hiring & firing - the current filled roles are out of whack with where you want to be, and not things you can transition people between because the skills/qualifications are different or whatever. E.g. if Microsoft decided to sunset its incredible GitHub journey, it would probably find itself with too many web developers. If it got out of Xboxes, t…

-- you're comparing apple to orange - this is 150 person - pre revenue startup - not Microsoft --

Re: Prisma laying off 28% staff

#198

Post by walls »

satvikpendem wrote: post #87
winter_squirrel wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counterpart, if you have to layoff that many people, is it really the right time to also put the stress of a leadership shift into the company? I can see the argument for this triggering an eventual change, but having _both_ the chock of a CEO change _and_ 28% of the company being layed off at the same time seems unwise.

Indeed, laying off the CEO too screws over the entire company, not just the portion of people who got laid off.

The only people who even notice a change of CEO are the other execs.

Re: Prisma laying off 28% staff

#200

Post by OJFord »

pigtailgirl wrote: post #197
OJFord wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not at all uncommon in restructuring to be both (doing a lot of) hiring & firing - the current filled roles are out of whack with where you want to be, and not things you can transition people between because the skills/qualifications are different or whatever. E.g. if Microsoft decided to sunset its incredible GitHub journey, it would probably find itself with too many web developers. If it got out of Xboxes, t…

-- you're comparing apple to orange - this is 150 person - pre revenue startup - not Microsoft --

A 150 person start-up is significantly more likely to 'pivot' in a way that makes a lot of roles or business lines redundant than Microsoft is.

The size of company doesn't matter to the point anyway - I used Microsoft as a well-known example so I could say 'imagine if they stopped doing GitHub' et al. I can't do that if I pick some random small start-up that I'm familiar with. (Maybe I could have said 'if Notion went all-in on AI' or something? But I wouldn't have had multiple examples.)

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