Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics • Hacker News Board

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#221

Post by shadowvanned » Thu, May 04, 2023, 2:36 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #182

Graziano_M wrote: post #111

I love how they don't want to bury the lede, but they also will use the passive voice: "after today Shopify will be smaller by about 20%". "some of you will leave Shopify today". It's not at all that those people are being laid off!

That isn't what passive voice means. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_voice : For example, in the passive sentence "The tree was pulled down", the subject (the tree) denotes the patient rather than the agent of the action. In contrast, the sentences "Someone pulled down the tree" and "The tree is down" are active sentences.

Thanks, E. B. White. The parent poster meant that the tone was passive, and I think everyone understood that.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#222

Post by r053bud » Thu, May 04, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

ryathal wrote: post #84

DelaneyM wrote: post #2

I know the reality is more complicated, but it's always jarring to read a "company X had a great! quarter, is firing 20% of employees" headline. Very dystopian. It seems like these two facts should at least go out in different press releases on different days. For Shopify, does anyone know whether the 20% figure includes the people leaving with the sale of SFN to Flexport? Edit: just heard in the earnings call that t…

The investor class is desperate for a recession and it's just not happening so they keep laying off people until they can make it happen.

They are terrified that workers might finally be getting fed up with the status quo and demanding higher salaries and better work/life balance, so they have to collude to conduct layoffs and feed the surplus pool of labor to hopefully force down salaries. This is capitalism 101 baby.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#223

Post by rawgabbit » Thu, May 04, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

neom wrote: post #131

Does anyone have a sense of how bad things really are for the US economy and what the next 12/18 months are going to look like? Seems like every day all I see is doom and gloom, I've not seen a bright spot in quite some time... it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to get a sense of where things are. People keep saying things are going to get worse, I keep reading things are going to get worse, friends are lite…

The explanation that is circulating is that everyone is making decisions based on where inflation is headed. If inflation is not tamed, business leaders will seek to extract more cost cuts (more layoffs).

The other headline is that LLM and ChatGPT is reshaping the tech landscape. Tech companies are laying off engineers so they can hire AI/LLM engineers to compete with ChatGPT. Based on my limited knowledge, OpenAI is head and shoulders above everyone else. Google's Bard is a distant second.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#224

Post by rcme » Thu, May 04, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

bambataa wrote: post #143

Is this the same CEO who decided to double the engineering team in a single year? https://techcouver.com/2021/01/06/shopify-to-double-engineer... Aren’t CEOs paid ludicrously well to make long term decisions, rather than just flail around?

From a business perspective, this is great for Shopify. The labor market for software engineers has seriously softened as a result of all the layoffs. Go look at job openings and their posted salaries.

When Shopify beings hiring again, they are going to be able to hire talent at a fraction of the price.

Also, this is largely a coordinated effort from activist investors specifically targeting large tech salaries. E.g. https://www.businessinsider.com/google-layoffs-cut-jobs-exce...

There is essentially a vicious cycle targeting tech compensation. Activist investors are convincing boards that they're overpaying their tech talent. Then those boards approve layoffs. Then those layoffs further lower salaries. Rinse and repeat.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#225

Post by HDThoreaun » Thu, May 04, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

bambataa wrote: post #143

Is this the same CEO who decided to double the engineering team in a single year? https://techcouver.com/2021/01/06/shopify-to-double-engineer... Aren’t CEOs paid ludicrously well to make long term decisions, rather than just flail around?

Over hiring in the face of uncertain macro conditions and consumption changes is probably the right choice. If your market expands as you believe it might you're ready to step in and grow. If it doesn't grow you can just lay people off and you're back where you started. The important thing here though is that it's hard to catch up to competitors that have lapped you but it's easy to slow down when you're ahead. If you think there's just a 10% chance that covid causes e-commerce to 10x in size it makes sense to prepare as though it will and then shrink the workforce if things go back to normal.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#226

Post by bombcar » Thu, May 04, 2023, 2:38 PM UTC

rpsw wrote: post #114

> But now we are at the dawn of the AI era and the new capabilities that are unlocked by that are unprecedented. Shopify has the privilege of being amongst the companies with the best chances of using AI to help our customers. A copilot for entrepreneurship is now possible. Our main quest demands from us to build the best thing that is now possible, and that has just changed entirely. Most recent layoffs have been fr…

After IBM did it, every layoff from now on is going to explicitly or implicitly say that AI will cover for things in the future; it's some magic words to try to not spook investors.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#227

Post by joenot443 » Thu, May 04, 2023, 2:38 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #145

I worked at Shopify until the Fall. Shopify was just a really fun place to work. And in part this was because they did a really good job of interviewing. Technical, yes, but in particular behaviorally. So I can honestly say that many of the colleagues I know being let go are truly great colleagues. They were some of the most impactful people I worked with in my org (discovery) and they are a great get for any company…

The buddies I made at my first internship at Shopify are friends I still chat with to this day, despite us living all over the continent. I think that was my fourth of five co-ops, but it was by far the most socially stimulating.

I'm bummed to hear about the layoffs, I hope the culture doesn't suffer too much. Shopify Ottawa was genuinely warm and familiar in a way few tech offices are able to be.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#228

Post by subpixel » Thu, May 04, 2023, 2:39 PM UTC

rpsw wrote: post #114

> But now we are at the dawn of the AI era and the new capabilities that are unlocked by that are unprecedented. Shopify has the privilege of being amongst the companies with the best chances of using AI to help our customers. A copilot for entrepreneurship is now possible. Our main quest demands from us to build the best thing that is now possible, and that has just changed entirely. Most recent layoffs have been fr…

Think of it more like auto-pilot. You go to sleep and your shop runs promos, creates new products (digital, or digitally-printed), runs a/b test on your collections, whatever - all so you wake up to new sales.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#229

Post by red-iron-pine » Thu, May 04, 2023, 2:39 PM UTC

fnordpiglet wrote: post #130

flappyeagle wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not how recessions work.

Of course not. They’re caused by the fed.

Recessions and collapses happened long before the Fed ever existed, e.g. Tulips

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#230

Post by Cthulhu_ » Thu, May 04, 2023, 2:39 PM UTC

bambataa wrote: post #143

Is this the same CEO who decided to double the engineering team in a single year? https://techcouver.com/2021/01/06/shopify-to-double-engineer... Aren’t CEOs paid ludicrously well to make long term decisions, rather than just flail around?

It just reiterates that on a high enough level, employees are just numbers, resources and sliders to fiddle with, often having a direct correlation with share price.