Salesforce cut hundreds of employees Monday • Hacker News Board

Re: Salesforce cut hundreds of employees Monday

#21

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

throwawaynov wrote: post #15

Salesforce employee here. These were mostly the account executives who couldn't meet their quota. It's unfortunate that this is happening to AEs, who are usually the hardworking people at Salesforce struggling to close deals in a tough economy. It will be interesting to see what will happen to the random 'strategy', product and engineering folks who build over engineered, over priced, marketing bullock that doesn't s…

> These were mostly the account executives who couldn't meet their quota.

> account executives

...you mean "sales", right?

Re: Salesforce cut hundreds of employees Monday

#22

Post by pwinnski » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 10:06 PM UTC

JDEW wrote: post #12

> Salesforce let go of fewer than 1,000 employees Monday, according to a person familiar with the move. > At the end of January it employed 73,541 people. “…employees Monday”, “…January” Is this grammatical? Is it coherent? Or was this generated with GPT-3?

The author was last aware of the Salesforce headcount on or near January 31.

Yesterday, Salesforce reduced their headcount.

It doesn't seem difficult to parse at all.

Re: Salesforce cut hundreds of employees Monday

#23

Post by throwawaynov » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 10:12 PM UTC

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #21

throwawaynov wrote: post #15

Salesforce employee here. These were mostly the account executives who couldn't meet their quota. It's unfortunate that this is happening to AEs, who are usually the hardworking people at Salesforce struggling to close deals in a tough economy. It will be interesting to see what will happen to the random 'strategy', product and engineering folks who build over engineered, over priced, marketing bullock that doesn't s…

> These were mostly the account executives who couldn't meet their quota. > account executives ...you mean "sales", right?

Yes - Sales is a function/dept/team. Account executives are part of sales teams.

Re: Salesforce cut hundreds of employees Monday

#24

Post by happytoexplain » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 10:32 PM UTC

JDEW wrote: post #12

> Salesforce let go of fewer than 1,000 employees Monday, according to a person familiar with the move. > At the end of January it employed 73,541 people. “…employees Monday”, “…January” Is this grammatical? Is it coherent? Or was this generated with GPT-3?

I'm not picking up on what you're implying is the confusing part.

Re: Salesforce cut hundreds of employees Monday

#25

Post by Waterluvian » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 10:49 PM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #2

Every company wants to cut spending on people, services, and facilities, because revenues are slowing down, costs are rising, and there's more uncertainty about the near term future. The people who lose their jobs, in turn, are forced to cut their spending, contributing even more to the ongoing revenue slowdown at companies that sell to consumers. The service providers who see their billing examined with a microscope…

Indeed! Such a strong case for more social systems like employment insurance.

Not to oversimplify but I find “government programs” to be a good answer to basically any “tragedy of the commons” problem such as spending less during a recession.

Re: Salesforce cut hundreds of employees Monday

#26

Post by avereveard » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 10:58 PM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #19

avereveard wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a lot of skilled workers enter the job market at a reduced price, they have the know how to compete in the same or adjacent sector, medium company can acquire the competences at a reduced price, their profit increase their spending, etc etc economics is not a single company this is the tail of feds interest rate raise cutting down investment. it will last a while, but the economy doesn't yet seem unhealthy (well exce…

Agree on everything :-) The only thing I'm not so sure about is the health of the economy. While all macro stats look great so far, they don't yet reflect the wave of layoffs we're seeing in sector after sector. We may be going through a mild recession overall and a brutal one in bubble-land. Regardless, it will feel horrible to anyone younger than 35, who has never experienced a recession since joining the workforce…

well there was the subprime thing, it hit harshly on south europe. heck italy was still trying to climb out of that when covid hit, and it's like still down significant % from 2008 gdp levels

Re: Salesforce cut hundreds of employees Monday

#27

Post by tjixxu » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 11:17 PM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #2

Every company wants to cut spending on people, services, and facilities, because revenues are slowing down, costs are rising, and there's more uncertainty about the near term future. The people who lose their jobs, in turn, are forced to cut their spending, contributing even more to the ongoing revenue slowdown at companies that sell to consumers. The service providers who see their billing examined with a microscope…

Can anyone smarter than me explain why this is happening two years after the entire world shutdown? Is this completely unrelated to COVID?

Re: Salesforce cut hundreds of employees Monday

#28

Post by legitster » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 11:28 PM UTC

tjixxu wrote: post #27

cs702 wrote: post #2

Every company wants to cut spending on people, services, and facilities, because revenues are slowing down, costs are rising, and there's more uncertainty about the near term future. The people who lose their jobs, in turn, are forced to cut their spending, contributing even more to the ongoing revenue slowdown at companies that sell to consumers. The service providers who see their billing examined with a microscope…

Can anyone smarter than me explain why this is happening two years after the entire world shutdown? Is this completely unrelated to COVID?

Immediately following shutdowns, money was cheap and companies overinvested.

Right now, interest rates are squeezing the market.

We're seeing (hopefully) a correction to a more sustainable level of business.

Re: Salesforce cut hundreds of employees Monday

#29

Post by SQueeeeeL » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 11:29 PM UTC

tjixxu wrote: post #27

cs702 wrote: post #2

Every company wants to cut spending on people, services, and facilities, because revenues are slowing down, costs are rising, and there's more uncertainty about the near term future. The people who lose their jobs, in turn, are forced to cut their spending, contributing even more to the ongoing revenue slowdown at companies that sell to consumers. The service providers who see their billing examined with a microscope…

Can anyone smarter than me explain why this is happening two years after the entire world shutdown? Is this completely unrelated to COVID?

The 2008 financial crisis just kinda happened. These things are hard to predict, but market economies tend to create situations where boom and bust are the most efficient for growth and happen every few decades.

Re: Salesforce cut hundreds of employees Monday

#30

Post by jrnichols » Tue, Nov 08, 2022, 11:29 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #4

cheriot wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many consumers without savings are at risk of financial ruin Yes. This is the reason for having a better social safety net. There's no reason a normal business cycle should "ruin" normal people that did not take excessive risks.

Having no savings is not taking a risk?

if you live in California, savings are a dream for so many people. skyrocketing rents, high taxes, skyrocketing gas prices, expensive health insurance, and so on.

it's really hard for a lot of people to build up savings here.