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Changes at YC

ycombinator.com

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Re: Changes at YC

#261

Post by nostrademons »

zamnos wrote: post #176
jefftk wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"fire" != "laid off"

At the very least, we can agree that " Changes at YC" is burying the lede?

Only if you're not fluent in corporatease. Whenever I see an e-mail entitled "Changes in [some organization]", I assume that one or more of the following is true:

  1. The leader is leaving.
  2. People are getting laid off.
  3. They're exiting a line of business.
  4. They sold the company.

Re: Changes at YC

#262

Post by tshaddox »

lcw wrote: post #123
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

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…

“They are no longer with us” is widely understood and very unlikely to be ambiguous. If you said “they were impacted” I would lodge the same complaint.

Re: Changes at YC

#263

Post by Tade0 »

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.

When I saw the March "Who is hiring?" I couldn't help but think "truly, who is?".

My friend is on the lookout for a new role and his experience so far is that it's mostly CV hoarders who approach him on LinkedIn. One case we all but confirmed because I used to work for the company which was supposedly hiring, but I asked a person from there and nope, not very actively, no.

Re: Changes at YC

#264

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

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"

He missed a bet in not describing that as a "powerful human mandibular compression"

Re: Changes at YC

#265

Post by O__________O »

gingerrr wrote: post #257
O__________O wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN rarely comments on bans, though almost 60 submissions have been posted in past 30-days and every single one is dead. Here’s a comment from dang, the only official HN mod, related to “hardwalled” submissions: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35074950

Oh, got it! Thank you for scrounging that up I was specifically looking for mention of that site, no wonder I didn't find it. Makes a ton of sense in general and it's lame we no longer get a special exception to their wall.

Related comment from Garry:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35143443

Re: Changes at YC

#266

Post by cardosof »

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

I, too, prefer that companies spoke in direct, plain terms, without PR shenanigans.

Does anyone know why do they do this, though? Is it to de-risk potential lawsuits or do they believe people prefer that way ("sounds professional")?

Re: Changes at YC

#267

Post by cloverich »

maximinus_thrax wrote: post #235
300bps wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you have some data to back that up? I'm not sure if a small percentage of employees are so expensive as to be the tipping point for a company to go out of business.

Employees are one of or the most expensive part of doing business for many. I guess you could google Gross vs Net margins in various companies or industries as an example (maybe here[1]). But layoffs aren't merely firing people, they are "firing people and not re-hiring for their positions or work." So it's often closing out on entire product strategies, such as the case here with YC.

[1]: https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile...

Re: Changes at YC

#268

Post by bobobob420 »

lucb1e wrote: post #250

The change that the title hints at: > we’re going to decrease the amount of late stage investing we do Which allows letting go of 17 employees involved with that, which is 20% of employees. EOF (and that was already more info than the article contained)

can those employees not be staffed to other projects? surely the skillsets are reusable. Something is very fishy about this and the timing.

Re: Changes at YC

#269

Post by madeofpalk »

xavdid wrote: post #131
kylecazar wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

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...

"Officer involved shooting"

Re: Changes at YC

#270

Post by fairity »

I can think of a few reasons why YC would make this decision without admitting so publicly:

1) Too much negative signaling risk when they don't make follow-on investments

2) Negative returns given the recent downturn

3) The increasing business need to make non-founder-friendly changes in late stage companies (e.g. replacing CEO)

4) Anu/Ali deciding to leave first to start their own fund

I wonder if any of these reasons is a predominant driver.

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