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DigitalOcean is laying off staff

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Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#231

Post by avip »

raiyu wrote: post #181

Hey folks, Cofounder of DigitalOcean here. Letting people go is always a complicated matter at any scale. Whether you are a ten person company and firing one employee or you are 500 people and firing a larger number. Wanted to address a few statements from the hackernews community here. We are not prepping the company for sale. As unfortunate as the layoffs are they were really due to two CEO changes in the past 18 m…

Confused to see CEO of a big company just says the truth in simple terms.

Did you pass that through legal? :)

Thanks, yours, another loyal not-customer-support-harassing 5$/m DO customer.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#232

Post by sneak »

raiyu wrote: post #181

Hey folks, Cofounder of DigitalOcean here. Letting people go is always a complicated matter at any scale. Whether you are a ten person company and firing one employee or you are 500 people and firing a larger number. Wanted to address a few statements from the hackernews community here. We are not prepping the company for sale. As unfortunate as the layoffs are they were really due to two CEO changes in the past 18 m…

Why would you lay people off if not to cut costs?

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#233

Post by robryan »

iudqnolq wrote: post #204
jjeaff wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple, there is a lifetime value for a customer. As long as the referral payout doesn't exceed the lifetime value, it should be profitable. Although some undoubtedly pay more than the lifetime value of a customer as a "growth hack". This of course can't go on forever.

My point was it seems insane to me that the lifetime value of a customer who has billed something to a credit card would be over $120, especially in the space of Email as a Service. I would guess (without any knowledge) that it'd actually be closer to $12 because of all the people who try it out and then never continue. They take in less than the referral payout in revenue for a customer who sends tens of thousands o…

The big customers are probably so big that it makes the whole thing worth it.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#234

Post by arantius »

adamc wrote: post #88
dothrowaway wrote: post #10

(Throwaway, obviously) I'm a DO employee on the tech side of the house. According to the CTO, the primary reason for this was actually reorg, not financial though that obviously played a part. Mostly managers got cut, with the goal of flattening the org. I'm keeping my ear to the ground but it doesn't seem like there's going to be more cuts any time soon at least. Apparently we're still hiring a ton this year, so tha…

Offered because I love words: jibes ("fits"). https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-tribu-words-wor...

Amazing, TIL. I'm usually picky about words, but I've gotten this one wrong. Turns out the verb "jive" like was used here actually means to speak falsely -- a sort of literally/figuratively meaning inversion.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#235

Post by raiyu »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #227
raiyu wrote: post #181

Hey folks, Cofounder of DigitalOcean here. Letting people go is always a complicated matter at any scale. Whether you are a ten person company and firing one employee or you are 500 people and firing a larger number. Wanted to address a few statements from the hackernews community here. We are not prepping the company for sale. As unfortunate as the layoffs are they were really due to two CEO changes in the past 18 m…

> We are not running out of money Are you running at a profit or at a loss?

Our profit/loss for the year is determined by growth rate.

In 2013 when we hit product market fit, we ran at a huge loss (on a percent of revenue basis), so much so that we wouldn't be able to survive without raising capital from investors. That or 90% of the customers signing up wouldn't be able to launch a droplet.

We are running at a modest loss now, which is ok because we are growing and also because whenever you launch a new product or feature the up-front costs are much higher to get the initial product built and there is no revenue contribution from it until it's launched and has ramped up.

But even so we did manage a completely net profitable year in our history in 2017, which I'm very proud of, and have been at a slight loss in other years. We still have plenty of our Series B raise in our bank account.

When you look at today's IPOs they are losing 40% more money than they collect in revenue! We are no where close to that. As we have been net profitable already, and now are just fine tuning our investment vs return, so that we can continue to grow responsibly.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#236

Post by raiyu »

avip wrote: post #231
raiyu wrote: post #181

Hey folks, Cofounder of DigitalOcean here. Letting people go is always a complicated matter at any scale. Whether you are a ten person company and firing one employee or you are 500 people and firing a larger number. Wanted to address a few statements from the hackernews community here. We are not prepping the company for sale. As unfortunate as the layoffs are they were really due to two CEO changes in the past 18 m…

Confused to see CEO of a big company just says the truth in simple terms. Did you pass that through legal? :) Thanks, yours, another loyal not-customer-support-harassing 5$/m DO customer.

Haha, thanks but I'm just a cofounder not the CEO, and no it didn't pass through legal =]

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#237

Post by creeble »

dghughes wrote: post #102
ogre_codes wrote: post #27

I love DigitalOcean, my second favorite hosting company so this is concerning. As a recent Layoff survivor, this whole paragraph sets off alarm bells: > In that context, it’s notable that the company not only appointed a new CFO last summer, but also a CEO with prior CFO experience. It’s been a while since DigitalOcean has raised capital. According to PitchBook, DigitalOcean last raised money in 2017, an undisclosed…

I love DigitalOcean too they have great tutorials. It's one of the best sites around for clear, well-written tutorials.

2nd that, said elsewhere too. If there are multiple tutorials on installing a package, I always pick the DO one first!

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#238

Post by christophilus »

raiyu wrote: post #181

Hey folks, Cofounder of DigitalOcean here. Letting people go is always a complicated matter at any scale. Whether you are a ten person company and firing one employee or you are 500 people and firing a larger number. Wanted to address a few statements from the hackernews community here. We are not prepping the company for sale. As unfortunate as the layoffs are they were really due to two CEO changes in the past 18 m…

I’m really glad DigitalOcean exists. Ignore the haters.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#239

Post by calpaterson »

JDiculous wrote: post #178
Meekro wrote: post #54

Digital Ocean is a great company in a brutal, low-margin industry. Based on having run a similar (now mostly defunct) company in the past, I would guess that 80% of their customers are on the $5/mo plan. That $5/mo has to cover the hardware costs: you're buying expensive physical servers to put the VPSes on, and lots of SSDs too. SSDs have a limited lifetime measured in writes, and some of your customers will leave b…

How is AWS so profitable then?

They charge considerably more

http://calpaterson.com/amazon-premium.html

And they have a lot of lock-in too.

Re: DigitalOcean is laying off staff

#240

Post by notjustanymike »

alexitosrv wrote: post #221
notjustanymike wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind teaching StackExchange a thing or two about PR while you're doing a good job here?

In case someone else, like me, is wondering about what is going on with StackExchange, I think notjustanymike means this: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/342039/firing-commu...

Correct!
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