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Changes at YC

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Re: Changes at YC

#211

Post by herval »

annexrichmond wrote: post #140
voz_ wrote: post #46

> Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today. Never allow corporations to speak in passive, weak, blameless terms. Use direct, honest, language, and force them to do the same. "Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today." - > "We laid off 17 employees today" "I was impacted by layoffs" -> "Google laid me off" etc

Never mind " I was impacted by layoffs", I often see " my position was impacted by layoffs"

To be fair, that's usually accurate - unlike someone getting fired because of their own performance, layoffs are usually untargeted, and include people that were great at their jobs.

And let's face it, getting fired is a huge stigma, so it's totally understandable that someone would phrase it like that, as the victim of the situation

Re: Changes at YC

#212

Post by Syonyk »

zamnos wrote: post #170
xavdid wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some newspapers are really dreadful about this with regards to people killed/injured by cops. A well-known example from the NYT: > A reporter was hit by a pepper ball on live television by an officer who appeared to be aiming at her https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2020/new-york-times-twe...

There was one circulating where the newspaper headline stated that "A man with no active warrants was shot by police." Which is just about the most nefarious way to say "an innocent man was shot by police".

Careful. Presence or absence of warrants has almost nothing to do with getting shot.

Assuming you have no warrants out for your arrest, should you charge at a police officer with a knife or gun drawn while yelling that you were about to kill them, and then ignore any commands they issued, what would you expect to happen?

Re: Changes at YC

#213

Post by whitemary »

gus_massa wrote: post #172
whitemary wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I had to search it and found this: " Soviet Union (93,548) > Employment security, termination of employment (955) " https://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex4.detail?p_lang=en&p_is... > A dismissed worker shall receive a severance indemnity equal to the average monthly wage. [...] > In case of restructuring or liquidation of the enterprise, the worker while seeking employment, retains his or her average monthly wage for…

What does it say about families losing their sustenance? I am intentional in my phrasing. I care about people, not "jobs".

Re: Changes at YC

#214

Post by zamnos »

greatpostman wrote: post #3

Wonder if this is related to the current down turn in risk assets and the venture capital blow up

"current down turn in risk assets" is almost as wonderful a phrase as "17 team members were impacted". The fact is that SIVB shares are now worth $0, and that many VCs and LPs were surely holding those can't be a total coincidence with today's "changes".

Re: Changes at YC

#215

Post by barbariangrunge »

devmor wrote: post #179
epicureanideal wrote: post #156

I’m surprised that even an innovative, creative organization like YC wasn’t able to create other positions for these folks. I guess that just shows how hard business is even for people who are good at it.

Creating a position for employees that aren't needed is generally not a business priority. Besides, it's likely that this is primarily a cost-cutting measure given similar industry trends at the moment.

Many Japanese companies have worked hard over the last several decades to find new positions for people who would have been laid off. The result: they dominate a lot of international industries in manufacturing and certain kinds of high tech

Eg, I'm buying a Japanese car this week because I don't like the reliability of most North American brands

> Toyota continues tradition of a ‘No-Layoff’ policy for its full-time workers

https://ilssi.org/toyota-continues-tradition-of-a-no-layoff-...

Re: Changes at YC

#216

Post by mhb »

Kwpolska wrote: post #151
ftxbro wrote: post #65

[flagged]

That's still too long and flowery. You probably know what YC is. We were recently doing late-stage investing, but we're mostly giving up on that now. We're firing 17 people who were involved in late-stage investing. You won't notice their disappearance. There, four sentences, and no AI involved.

Even just excising the godawful "impacted" is a massive improvement.

Re: Changes at YC

#217

Post by 300bps »

Kwpolska wrote: post #136
lcw wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is just a matter of opinion. When something severe happens it's natural to not use the most harsh term to describe the event. It doesn't seems like something malicious. When describing a death many people will say "they are no longer with us" instead of describing the circumstance of death. When talking about traumatic events we as a society have a natural propensity to not use triggering words. There is…

Death is inevitable, unexpected, unplanned, usually caused by things beyond human control. Layoffs are a planned thing explicitly done by one human to another in order to increase corporate profits.

Layoffs are often a choice between letting a small percentage go or causing the entire company to go out of business.

Re: Changes at YC

#218

Post by garry »

Finbarr wrote: post #133

The YC Continuity team did amazing work helping me and many other later stage founders. I’m sad to read this news. YC is best known for their early stage investing. But Ali, Anu and the team created some excellent programs for later stage companies as well. Shogun benefited from the Series A program, Scaling from A to B program, and the YC Growth program. I wonder what’s happening with all of those initiatives. Throu…

Thanks Finbarr. The group partners and MD's and I know these are important and valuable programs, and there is a lot more we need to be doing for alumni and the experience after companies do YC.

I don't have more to share now, but know that I really value you and this note.

Re: Changes at YC

#219

Post by alexpotato »

kylecazar wrote: post #109
loeg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Exonerative tense," "mistakes were made," etc. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/past_exonerative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistakes_were_made https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/07/14/...

Favorite example has to be Luis Suarez in his apology for very clearly biting a World Cup opponent in front of the world some years ago: "The truth is that my colleague Giorgio Chiellini suffered the physical result of a bite"

I liked Zinedine Zidane's:

"I am sorry I was kicked out of the World Cup final but I was not sorry I headbutted him".

Re: Changes at YC

#220

Post by xqcgrek2 »

voz_ wrote: post #46

> Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today. Never allow corporations to speak in passive, weak, blameless terms. Use direct, honest, language, and force them to do the same. "Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today." - > "We laid off 17 employees today" "I was impacted by layoffs" -> "Google laid me off" etc

Perhaps they meant seventeen of their teammates have impacted colons? It's an odd thing to share, yes, but these are trying times.
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