Man, total amateur hour. A layoff post without talking about how it's the hardest thing the CEO has ever done, or saying the responsibility lies with me? No mention of how deep he cares about those departing? And delivered on a Monday? Why didn't they use ChatGPT to compose this like everyone else?
Changes at YC
311–320 of 562 posts
Re: Changes at YC
#312> Unfortunately, this means we will no longer need some of the roles on the late stage investing team. Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today. I hate this passive voice. It implies there was nothing that could be done, that this was just a force of nature. That it wasn't an active choice by YC, but rather just some eventuality. Most of us understand the necessity of hard decisions. Own the outcomes. It's ok to…
A lot of the tradition of passive voice comes from lawyers because you can’t always say somebody was fired or transferred or laid off. There can be different standards of local employment law for different employees. Passive voice can be the least risky of defamation or expressing favoritism to those who didn’t get cut.
That said, it’s abhorrent to see YC cling to tradition here, especially in light of the industry-wide layoffs as well as just how insanely rich YC is versus the headcount at question here. This is absolutely a place to question tradition and seek progress.
And also yeah maybe even own the consequences.
Re: Changes at YC
#313> Unfortunately, this means we will no longer need some of the roles on the late stage investing team. Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today. I hate this passive voice. It implies there was nothing that could be done, that this was just a force of nature. That it wasn't an active choice by YC, but rather just some eventuality. Most of us understand the necessity of hard decisions. Own the outcomes. It's ok to…
> Most of us understand the necessity of hard decisions.
Do we? Because you suggested that they could have not fired them.
Re: Changes at YC
#314In case you are wondering, that is about 20% of the staff. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/13/y-combinator-cuts-nearly-2...
I wonder what the revenue per employee of YC is. 85 employees, with 1/6 companies unicorns (though some of that is paper valuations, but still huge returns).
> "When they do, a shocking percentage of them will go on to make a startup worth a billion dollars (on average 6 out of 100 startups in recent batches)."
That's 6/100 (6%). 1/6 is 16%.
Re: Changes at YC
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're not quite the same, those two terms have taken on different meanings. "Fired" has come to mean "for cause", and "laid off" has come to mean "not for cause".
And "laid off" means eligble for uneployment; "fired" often does not.
Ehhhh… fired for misconduct, sure. Fired because you can’t do the job? You probably qualify for unemployment.
Employers sure have a vested interest in making you believe otherwise, tho.
Re: Changes at YC
#316In case you are wondering, that is about 20% of the staff. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/13/y-combinator-cuts-nearly-2...
I wonder what the revenue per employee of YC is. 85 employees, with 1/6 companies unicorns (though some of that is paper valuations, but still huge returns).
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Re: Changes at YC
#317In case you are wondering, that is about 20% of the staff. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/13/y-combinator-cuts-nearly-2...
I wonder what the revenue per employee of YC is. 85 employees, with 1/6 companies unicorns (though some of that is paper valuations, but still huge returns).
I think that’s 6 out of 100 instead of 1/6
Re: Changes at YC
#318> Unfortunately, this means we will no longer need some of the roles on the late stage investing team. Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today. I hate this passive voice. It implies there was nothing that could be done, that this was just a force of nature. That it wasn't an active choice by YC, but rather just some eventuality. Most of us understand the necessity of hard decisions. Own the outcomes. It's ok to…
From my experience these things are an after thought, the people writing this stuff are disconnected from the people making the actual decisions and I guess the typical audience that reads it. The people who do the marketing, HR, or "run socials" tend to be from the demographic that over values safe corporate speak. CEOs occasionally write these but usually it's some pre-written stuff that gets signed off on.
We all review these like a ton of thought went into some blog post, and maybe it should, but often it's just a lower end employee who is asked to translate things into an announcement when they played zero role in the hiring/firing part.
Considering how much these posts always bother people [1] maybe higher ups should care more about the blog posts too.
[1] At least a few in every HN thread, whether most people actually care/read it might be different.
Re: Changes at YC
#319[deleted]
Re: Changes at YC
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
Laid off is itself a less harsh version of fired.
There’s usually a significant difference for the individual where laid off means you get unemployment while fired (implies cause) does not.
Depends on the cause. In most situations that aren’t blatant misconduct you qualify for unemployment.