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Twitch.tv Lays of 400 Employees

blog.twitch.tv

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Re: Twitch.tv Lays of 400 Employees

#201

Post by PurpleRamen »

gtirloni wrote: post #3

> Like many companies, our business has been impacted by the current macroeconomic environment I must be living under a rock because, outside big tech self-inflicted wounds, I don't know what they are talking about. Is it Ukraine? SVB? Chinese housing market?

In case of twitch it's more simple: pandemia is ending, people move back to their normal life outside of twitch. Revenue in the last months has been shrinking for streamers, and thus also for twitch. Their business was blowing up in the last 2-3 years, when so many viewers were at home. And this also resulted in Twitch hiring many new people, like so many other tech-companies. And like so many others, they are now shrinking again, adapting to the new situation.

Re: Twitch.tv Lays of 400 Employees

#202

Post by PurpleRamen »

ipsum2 wrote: post #28

The CEO and founder of Twitch announced a week ago that he was leaving the company. It's admirable to see a captain going down with his ship. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35184011

It was known for a while that he will leave, so it's not like he left because the company has problems. I mean, they are also "only" firing 3-4% of their workforce, which in my understanding is a pretty low number for a mass layoff. And it's mostly a reaction to their massive growth and hirings in the pandemia, which is now over as the company is shrinking back to a normal size.

Re: Twitch.tv Lays of 400 Employees

#203

Post by PurpleRamen »

iepathos wrote: post #87

For some perspective, twitch generated $2.6 billion in revenue in 2021 and $2.8 billion in 2022. They've seen nothing but increased revenue over time.

And 2023, most likely this will go down hard. Revenue for streamers has already been down the last months, more than usually around this time of the year. 2021 and 2022, Twitch had a massive growth because of the pandemia, so many working from home and not being able to spend the money on other things like events or travel. This is now over, and their revenue is shrinking.

Re: Twitch.tv Lays of 400 Employees

#204

Post by PurpleRamen »

ryandrake wrote: post #58

> Like many companies, our business has been impacted by the current macroeconomic environment, and user and revenue growth has not kept pace with our expectations. In order to run our business sustainably, we’ve made the very difficult decision to shrink the size of our workforce. Let's just take a moment to admire this paragraph. > "our business has been impacted by the current macroeconomic environment" There's th…

> There's that passive, vague non-word again: "impacted". Such a milquetoast way to say "something happened" but without that pesky specificity.

Well, everyone ion the business knows what's going on with twitch and the streaming-market at the moment. So no reason really to explain further I guess?

> So, they are growing, but not growing faster than some [arbitrary] goal?

Actually, in the last months they were shrinking. Partly because viewership around this time of the year is always shrinking for reasons, but this time even more, because pandemia inflated the market, and now as it's ending, the inflation also disappears. Overall, there is still growth compared to the time before the pandemia, but nobody really knows how it will hold until the end of the year. Additionally, the gaming-markted is being a wild mix at the moment, and most attempts of twitch to diversify their content have failed. So they are a bit clueless at the moment I guess how the ship will move and grow.

Re: Twitch.tv Lays of 400 Employees

#205

Post by chongli »

vineyardmike wrote: post #178
chongli wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we fix that? Require companies to pay a large severance? Then companies will be heavily disincentivized to hire in the first place due to the risk.

If we required companies to pay a massive severance, then it would disincentivize hiring to an extent . You'd still need to hire as your business grew, it's unavoidable. If you made hiring more risky, companies may keep their employees for longer, and treat them better since hiring was a gamble. Why hire someone, who could be a liability, when you can retrain an existing employee and invest in their future with you .

I could just as easily see companies treating their employees worse if hiring is made more risky. You won’t get the big severance payout if you quit. At the same time, it’s harder to get a new job somewhere else if employers are more reluctant to hire. This situation seems like it could lead to employers mistreating you and you having fewer options to get out.

No, I think barriers to hiring lead to market failures. This includes everything from severance to health insurance and other benefits. This is part of why the U.S. has such a hard time trying to introduce a public health care system: it takes away from employers’ ability to keep people working at a job they don’t want.

If there was no friction at all for employment, if people could join a company one day and quit the next day — and if employers could do the same — without worrying about losing health care or the ability to pay rent, then the labour market would be far more of a free market than it is today. Working should be 100% voluntary and free from coercion. That would also lead to higher pay for workers because those who don’t want to work could not be forced to do so.

Re: Twitch.tv Lays of 400 Employees

#206

Post by tyingq »

argiopetech wrote: post #199
tyingq wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I applaud twitch for providing more cash flow to all of us, via capital gains and/or dividends. That's only the math if the layoffs have zero "impact" on the product.

The problem is, you can't tell a priori what the impact will be. It could be positive. It certainly could free funds for future positive changes.

Yes, agree. Of course, it could alternatively create a poor customer support experience. Driving a harried reaction like hiring outside help costing more than you saved and distracting the whole org, creating more undesired side effects.

Re: Twitch.tv Lays of 400 Employees

#207

Post by Tsiklon »

ryandrake wrote: post #58

> Like many companies, our business has been impacted by the current macroeconomic environment, and user and revenue growth has not kept pace with our expectations. In order to run our business sustainably, we’ve made the very difficult decision to shrink the size of our workforce. Let's just take a moment to admire this paragraph. > "our business has been impacted by the current macroeconomic environment" There's th…

>> "user and revenue growth has not kept pace with our expectations"

> So, they are growing, but not growing faster than some [arbitrary] goal?

Actually the absence of a direction in this sentence is specifically vague language that allows the implication of, but not statement of “negative growth”.

Re: Twitch.tv Lays of 400 Employees

#208

Post by bart_spoon »

chongli wrote: post #166
bg24 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The truth of the matter is that companies aren't monetarily incentivized to avoid layoffs." Very nicely put. Fixing this will help lot of employees.

How do we fix that? Require companies to pay a large severance? Then companies will be heavily disincentivized to hire in the first place due to the risk.

They’d be heavily disincentived to hire unsustainably. Every business has to hire to some degree. The issue is when businesses hire masses of people the don’t need in hopes of it somehow translating to growth, only to pull the rug out from said employees when it doesn’t. Especially in the US, where healthcare is tied to employment, and at a time where upper management is adamantly insisting that in person work is necessary, meaning employees must physically uproot their lives to be in proximity to their job, there needs to be more assurances for employees, and not just leaving them to the whims of whoever happens to be in charge that quarter as they throw spaghetti at the wall and hopes something sticks that will please investors.

Re: Twitch.tv Lays of 400 Employees

#209

Post by bart_spoon »

dehrmann wrote: post #107
onlypositive wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, this is basically it. My team at work hasn't created any meaningful value in a year. We've shipped nonstop but the things were tasked to work on just don't work out or even if they are well received simply don't add up to our salaries.

This is going to get a lot of hate, but the common refrain about WFH is "my productivity is up." That might be true, but it doesn't mean you're producing the right things, and I've found that harder to do remotely.

What does this have to do with WFH? The point is that teams are tasked with meaningless projects, which they deliver on, but because the project was meaningless, they get axed for not producing value. They were doomed from the start, due to the strategic initiatives management mistakenly decided they should work on. This is occurs for both WFH and in person work.

Re: Twitch.tv Lays of 400 Employees

#210

Post by bart_spoon »

justapassenger wrote: post #162
ryandrake wrote: post #58

> Like many companies, our business has been impacted by the current macroeconomic environment, and user and revenue growth has not kept pace with our expectations. In order to run our business sustainably, we’ve made the very difficult decision to shrink the size of our workforce. Let's just take a moment to admire this paragraph. > "our business has been impacted by the current macroeconomic environment" There's th…

> I can understand layoffs when your business is running at a loss, not when it's growing. Do you revisit your personal budget only once you run out of money, or once your income changes?

Mass layoffs aren’t the same as revisiting a personal budget. They are fairly drastic measures.

To use your analogy, a layoff while revenue is growing is like continuing to get raises at work, but when this years raise isn’t as high as you expected, you start pawning off possessions for the cash. If times were dire, perhaps it makes sense. If you are still making money, it seems more prudent to tamp down on new purchases than to try and take back old ones.

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