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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

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The rest of that same page you quoted from mentions we actually had _deflation_ in December (-0.1% CPI-U), because energy costs fell so much, specifically gas.

"Last month, inflation was 6.5%" is not correct by any reading of this data! Your link makes it clear that was inflation over the course of 2022, as I said in clunkier language. The graph on that same first page shows most of that inflation happened in the first 6 months of 2022.

The average of the last 6 months in that graph is 0.15, or ~1.8% annualized. That's an arbitrary cutoff (including July's 1.3 shoots up to 3.9% annualized!), but it seems clear we're on the right track. If the next 6 months look similar to the last 6, we will look back and say inflation was already under control before 2022 ended.

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

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Was this an "open-source folks will do it for free anyhow" I doubt it. Open-sourcing anything is a lot of work. Managing open-source projects is a lot of work. There are no guarantees that that project will even get any external development traction or mindshare, and if this is still an important component to you, you'll be paying developers to build it out anyway.

It is a little odd that they pulled the announcement page. But the repo is still available so who knows. Maybe they thought it would be poorly received by other employees after the layoffs? Seems like a stretch.

It was pulled because they used the term "open source", and the Confluent Community License, while being source-available and allows modifications prevents use of the code in a SaaS environment. So kinda not totally open. But it's just the confluent cli - it's not like someone's gonna base their SaaS around it, should just be BSDed or something.

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

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

The rest of that same page you quoted from mentions we actually had _deflation_ in December (-0.1% CPI-U), because energy costs fell so much, specifically gas. "Last month, inflation was 6.5%" is not correct by any reading of this data! Your link makes it clear that was inflation over the course of 2022, as I said in clunkier language. The graph on that same first page shows most of that inflation happened in the fir…

I'm sorry, but I fail to see nearly 1% monthly inflation in the biggest expense category - shelter - as a sign of "being on the right track".

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

#305
post #3

The real question is: does the CEO take full responsibility?

If employees were being encouraged to jump ship every 3-6 months for a pay raise during the pandemic, why should companies show any loyalty to them either?

If employees can jump for a significant pay raise en-mass, the companies weren’t showing loyalty to begin with.

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

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In that case, there's a natural incentive for the leader to do things that make the business successful long-term. It is in their best interest.

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

#307

> The findings of two decades of profitability studies are equivocal: The majority of firms that conduct layoffs do not see improved profitability, whether measured by return on assets, return on equity, or return on sales. Layoffs are especially hard on the performance of companies with a high reliance on R&D, low capital intensity, and high growth. Market response to layoffs was also less positive than might be exp…

This sets off my BS detector. If true, there is a bigger underlying problem

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

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of that same page you quoted from mentions we actually had _deflation_ in December (-0.1% CPI-U), because energy costs fell so much, specifically gas. "Last month, inflation was 6.5%" is not correct by any reading of this data! Your link makes it clear that was inflation over the course of 2022, as I said in clunkier language. The graph on that same first page shows most of that inflation happened in the fir…

I'm sorry, but I fail to see nearly 1% monthly inflation in the biggest expense category - shelter - as a sign of "being on the right track".

I agree that's high, even for the last year, and certainly not a good or welcome thing, but I'm very glad it's offset by gas prices coming down.

If "being on the right track" means that an increase in one category can't be offset by a decrease in another, that seems like an impossible bar to clear.

It's not obvious to me why inflation there has increased even as mortgage rates have skyrocketed due to the fed; people/institutions feel safer betting on housing prices than on stocks, lately?

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

#310

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?

The meme version of h-index.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index

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