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Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

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Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#291

Post by dougmwne »

jg42 wrote: post #197
dougmwne wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Study up for technical interviews. Do some real interviews for practice. Update your resume. Network. Build a larger emergency fund. Check your budget and plan through how you could lower your expenses if the hammer falls. Think through alternative income you could build.

This, but with one twist: "... plan through how you could lower your expenses if the hammer falls." Don't just plan - implement that plan now. You won't be any worse off, and will be much better prepared if the hammer actually falls. If the hammer does NOT fall, then the money you saved while in this mode is just a nice little problem to have - pay down other debt, save it, etc... I went through the 2000 .com bust an…

That’s fair advice, it’s just that it can be quite difficult for many people to keep their expenses cut to the bone. Many people don’t even know what they are spending. I think a first step is to understand your budget, maybe then make some easy cuts to start increasing your savings, and have a plan how you might cut to the bone quickly if you needed to.

For example, you might analyze your spending and realize that you’d save a lot of money by cutting daily Starbucks and avocado toast and that it’s trivial to make that at home. So you do that now to get some extra savings with no pain. You might also realize that moving back in with your parents is the single biggest thing you could do for your budget, but not a thing you would do unless you were laid off. But you could still have the conversation and be ready to pull that ripcord fast instead of waiting till you were out of money after a layoff.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#292

Post by claytonjy »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #236
claytonjy wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the storm they're worried about, if not mass layoffs concentrated within an industry? Inflation is almost down to normal, employment is still high and will remain so as long as the construction sector avoids layoffs due to the coming cash infusion from federal spending bills. Seems to me the only storm coming is the one created by these same execs, though I understand each of them is incentivized to follow th…

> Inflation is almost down to normal Huh? Normal inflation in the US is 2% - that's the Fed's target. Last month, inflation was 6.5%. Being 250% above target is not "normal".

That's an unweighted trailing average where the bulk of the increase came from earlier months.

Instantaneous inflation in December 2022 annualizes to 2%.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#293

Post by CydeWeys »

CSMastermind wrote: post #286
Wonnk13 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol right. I want to rollover my Mcmillen score just like a 401k

> Mcmillen score I'm unfamiliar with this term and a quick search didn't produce any meaningful results. What is it?

Think reddit karma, but for making memes.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#294

Post by spaceman_2020 »

claytonjy wrote: post #292
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inflation is almost down to normal Huh? Normal inflation in the US is 2% - that's the Fed's target. Last month, inflation was 6.5%. Being 250% above target is not "normal".

That's an unweighted trailing average where the bulk of the increase came from earlier months. Instantaneous inflation in December 2022 annualizes to 2%.

"The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.3 percent in December, following a 0.2-percent increase in November. The shelter index continued to increase, rising 0.8 percent over the month."

Food inflation increased over November. Shelter index increased at an annualized rate of nearly 10%.

Sometimes, you have to dig deeper than the headline.

Source: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#295

Post by gen220 »

adamwong246 wrote: post #268
redleggedfrog wrote: post #153

Layoffs signal weakness, from every angle. They hired indiscriminately and now are doing catch and release. Or they lacked foresight of their market. Or they are financially mismanaged. Or they are directed by a unqualified board. Or they are unable to cope with their market shrinking. Or they are a behemoth that grinds up workers as part of their operation (a lot of what we're seeing now). Or they're jumping off the…

So many companies just lit all their "social capital" on fire, especially Google. They have maintained the "don't be evil" mantra for so many years but who will ever believe that lie ever again?

Based on goomics [1], I think the social capital has been rotting or at best fragile, for a while [2] [3].

Alas, money-printing machines emit strong reality-distortion fields. As long as it's working, they'll have no issue finding people to hire.

[1]: https://goomics.net

[2]: https://goomics.net/240/, 2018Q1

[3]: https://goomics.net/155/ 2012Q

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#296

Post by claytonjy »

WookieRushing wrote: post #186
claytonjy wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slack is an interesting one. Suppose you're a company spending a lot on it, too much. What are your options? Replacing slack with a comparable like Teams or Gchat is at least a step back in user-friendliness that will be grumbled about by engineers and others, and if you use a lot of integrations there might be significant switching costs. Moving away from instant messaging as a communication pattern sounds great to…

It’s millions a year and ms teams is near free. In a cost cutting environment this is near perfect.

How big of a team costs that much? Looks like the highest listed price is $180/person/year before it becomes "call us" pricing. Im sure that enterprise plan can get expensive, but even at $500/person/year that's at least 2000 users.

I'd hope there's lots of things higher on the list of effective cost savings before trying to migrate that many users, and integrations, and history.

Such migrations are happening and will continue to happen, but I expect most will go about as well as the one discussed in a sibling comment.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#297

Post by snotrockets »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #183
ghaff wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's very reasonable for the board to at least ask: "Why do we think we're so special?" Which may have a good answer. But also may not.

What if the answer was "There's data to show layoffs are counter productive, not just for us but for most of these companies. They're jumping off a cliff and we don't have to follow" ?

Board members are not selected for their ability to follow reason.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#298

Post by snotrockets »

chadash wrote: post #194
InTheArena wrote: post #56

Oh my sweet summer child.... As someone who lived through the .COM crash and implosion and then 2008, any company with "strong cash reserves" and "trajectory to profitability" is not making more money than they are spending. They are, to use the SV term - losing runway. This is catastrophic because it's infeasible to raise money right now to extend the runway. If the plane is not airborne (making significantly more m…

> almost every company could handle this by simply not rehiring after attrition The problem is that there's a selection bias for attrition. It's possible that your worst employees are the ones who stick around the longest.

> It's possible that your worst employees are the ones who stick around the longest.

That's another failure of management, rather than the line employees.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#299

Post by snotrockets »

andsoitis wrote: post #51
germinalphrase wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Reducing comp as punishment would also not make sense, for obvious reasons." If leadership is financially incentivized for positive outcomes, why shouldn't they carry downside financial risk as well?

If a leader makes poor decision after another, they will be penalized by the board (either in job prospects, having this job, or compensation). Ultimately, the comp for the CEO is set by the board and that is determined by supply/demand (which inputes performance of the CEO). Penalizing someone for one mistake in anticipating the future would make a company so risk averse that returns would be very low - not a good o…

If that leader is a founder of a company with a dual-class stock, they won't

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#300

Post by BaseballPhysics »

mcv wrote: post #24

I really get the feeling that many companies are just blindly doing whatever other companies do. One starts large layoffs, and suddenly everybody is doing it. At other times, when one goes on a hiring spree, they all go. One tries to reduce salaries, they all do. One pays enormous bonuses, and they all do. It's like CEOs aren't really thinking for themselves, just copying whatever the market does.

Absolutely.

The 4Q22 numbers are out. US GDP increased nearly 3%. The job market remains super tight for many classes of workers. There's simply no evidence of a broader recession.

Are there headwinds? Sure! Household debt is up, consumer spending is down as a consequence--but this is relative to a previous year when we were still feeling the effects of the COVID stimulus--and interest rates are up which will drive down debt-funded investment.

But, companies are cutting because 1) some got bloated during the COVID hiring surge and now need to cut back, 2) some always wanted to cut headcount but they didn't want to do it without air cover, and 3) some just follow the leader.

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