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Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

blog.patreon.com

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Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#311

Post by water-your-self »

cafed00d wrote: post #139
unity1001 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Tech companies should never really break off with former employees. Any former employee is a future potential employee that you can re-recruit when the time comes. Also, talent is difficult to find. Which makes people the center. Whatever you build, you will build it with people. So you need people. Be them new employees, be them former employees.

> Any former employee is a future potential employee that you can re-recruit when the time comes Not only that, all former employees are de-facto "background check references" / "evagenlists" / "detractors" of your company. Forever! (well, not exactly forever... but close enough) I can't recall a single year over the last 10 years where younger engineers, cousins, nephews or friends have asked me about the 2 companie…

Would love to hear your take on Amazon.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#312

Post by LightG »

honkdaddy wrote: post #294
COGlory wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I take full responsibility for choosing that original path forward, and for the resulting changes today, which will be so difficult for our team. What does "take full responsibility" mean? Is he laying himself off instead of the employees? Is he paying the employees he's laying off out of his pocket? Is he resigning so this doesn't happen again? I'm confused how you can just say "I take full responsibility" without…

Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the expression, but usually when English speakers say they "take full responsibility" for a tragedy or unfortunate occurrence, they mean from a moral and blame-based standpoint, it's rarely related to the finances of those affected. The laid off employees are the ones ultimately worse off by the outcome, that goes without saying, what you're missing is that this is different from being…

Back in the day it meant falling on your sword and letting someone better/new take over.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#313

Post by _Adam »

>So within the next 10 minutes, teammates who will be leaving the company will receive a calendar invitation to a video call with a leader in your function and a teammate from the People team. In that meeting, you’ll review the details of your separation and have an opportunity to ask any questions you may have.

I would have sent the invite out beforehand to avoid the entire companying spending the next ten minutes in complete uncertainty about their futures.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#315

Post by abigail95 »

flavmartins wrote: post #174
TulliusCicero wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how consistently HN people underestimate the workload involved in basically any software product, and how often this blog post is relevant: https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/ > I can't think of a single large software company that doesn't regularly draw internet comments of the form “What do all the employees do? I could build their product myself.” Products are nearly always more complicated internally tha…

People who say this have never worked in an enterprise, global software company. Or if they did, they may not be working on key projects. Just SCALE ALONE is enough to expand a group of engineers a significant amount. A personal project is fine to run 1 AWS or Digital Ocean instance to run the application, database. But global distribution that has to support tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even million+…

How many people worked at WhatsApp/Instagram before acq?

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#316

Post by dan-robertson »

COGlory wrote: post #290
BryanBeshore wrote: post #42

Full post from Jack Conte's Instagram post: "Hi everyone - I have some sad news to share: today, Patreon is doing a layoff of about 80 employees, about 17% of our team. This was ultimately my decision, so I wanted you all to hear directly from me about the reasoning. Before I do, I want to say two things: first, today will be painful for many people, and I am deeply sorry to the incredible teammates who will be leavi…

>I take full responsibility for choosing that original path forward, and for the resulting changes today, which will be so difficult for our team. What does "take full responsibility" mean? Is he laying himself off instead of the employees? Is he paying the employees he's laying off out of his pocket? Is he resigning so this doesn't happen again? I'm confused how you can just say "I take full responsibility" without…

It means ‘there are layoffs because of poor management decisions and it isn’t your fault if you’re being laid off and it isn’t your fault if you feel you pushed the company towards these management decisions that ultimately led to your colleagues being laid off’.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#317

Post by r00fus »

phpisthebest wrote: post #257
kube-system wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart has 943 software engineering positions open right now. They're making more than $15/hr: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/walmart-global-tech/salarie...

While true the parent comment was talking about Seasonal jobs that retail adds at the end of the year, these are not programming jobs that are added but cashiers, stockers, etc.

I wasn't. My point stands - people, including myself, have no trouble getting software related jobs in any season. Other markets/industries it may vary.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#318

Post by thelittleone »

jrockway wrote: post #163
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been survived a few layoffs that work this way. How many times have you been laid off?!

There are probably a large number of HN readers that have weathered the dotcom bust, the 2008 financial crisis, and the 2022 financial crisis. If you were born 1980-ish and you haven't been laid off 3 times, congrats!

Being laid off twice was a rewarding experience both financially and for my career. It forced me to step out of my comfort zone. Now, being outside my comfort zone is my comfort zone.

In the first layoff I knew the company was planning a round in the next 18 months and I'd been there 6 years. I waited around for the payout. Layoff law in Australia is more favorable to the employee, the payout was 10 months. I took a week off before starting the next job on a substantial salary increase.

The most important is not to take it personally as a failure. That can mess with self confidence and interview performance and general well being. At my HR interview they had the team there and some "transition coach" they seemed worried about us. I was actually thrilled as I planned to leave anyway.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#319

Post by lmm »

bo0tzz wrote: post #11
behnamoh wrote: post #9

The pandemic is over and so are most remote "jobs" that people started doing on Onlyfans, Patreon, etc. a couple years ago.

Your quoting suggests that you think what people on onlyfans and patreon do aren't "real jobs", but in fact to succeed in those spaces needs very hard work.

Hard work alone doesn't make something a job. If someone was offering a professional level of service (delivering what they said they would, on time, and issuing refunds when they didn't without their clients having to ask for it) then I'd say they were doing a "real job". Most of onlyfans/patreon aren't, IME.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#320

Post by avg_dev »

aeyes wrote: post #282
avg_dev wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure this says more about me than anything but if a company lays me off there is zero chance of me exercising options in that company. Edit: I read the link and it appears to apply to RSUs as well. What I said about options is true but RSUs, different story. I’d sell those for sure.

Why not? Options are usually "in the money" so if you don't exercise them you are throwing away money which you already earned.

Perhaps I’ve had bad luck but I’ve never had options that would have been worth anything.
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