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Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

news.shopify.com

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Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#361

Post by mikeryan »

bartread wrote: post #266

"We are changing the shape of Shopify significantly today to pay unshared attention to our mission." What a way to lead, and what an absolutely grotesque euphemism (not to mention a barbaricly tortuous use of English). Why do companies write like this? It's just awful. I'm only half-joking when I suggest that if they'd taken this text and asked GPT-4 to rewrite it in a compassionate tone they'd have got a better resu…

This looks worse out of context. The next sentence is pretty clear on what's going on.

There are a number of consequences to this, and I don’t want to bury the lede: after today Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics; this means some of you will leave Shopify today

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#362

Post by bryanmgreen »

As a Shopify user, I am conflicted about the Flexport acquisition.

On one hand, it was really nice having a fulfillment partner directly related to the webstore. It gave a sense of harmony for future growth of services. From a stock perspective, it was a money suck, but hey, look at Amazon.

On the other hand, the Shopify web platform feels a little neglected and I hope this will allow them to re-focus. From a stock perspective, maybe this will help get their immediate finances in order.

They've made some solid improvements and additions, but there are a lot of little things that need attention. One of my quibbles is that you can't make private or unlisted products. They're either visible to everyone, or disabled. There are a lot of people asking for that feature, and it's not a hard one to implement. There are a lot of things like this that probably wouldn't take a lot of resources to implement but would significantly improve the merchant experience.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#363

Post by time_to_smile »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #300
rcme wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a business perspective, this is great for Shopify. The labor market for software engineers has seriously softened as a result of all the layoffs. Go look at job openings and their posted salaries. When Shopify beings hiring again, they are going to be able to hire talent at a fraction of the price. Also, this is largely a coordinated effort from activist investors specifically targeting large tech salaries. E.g.…

It's not just tech compensation. The zeitgeist right now is that employee comp is/was simply too high. There have lots of murmurings lately that amount to that at many different levels of the capital chain. Perhaps what's interesting about now is that people are quite okay with saying it openly. Tech is an easy target since it is well-known, and the pandemic inflated the importance of tech artificially to some degree…

> Gone is the naive belief that rare/valuable skills secure higher salaries over a long period of time.

While I agree that this is a naive belief to have (at this point in my career I think there's almost a slightly negative correlation between skill and TC) the general talent pool for software engineers has, at least in my experience, dropped tremendously while TC has exploded.

The most important skills for getting high paying jobs in the last few years has been grinding leet code, then grinding systems design etc, etc. Software engineers no longer have "rare/valuable" skills, they have highly commodified, easily replicable skills (at least at the interview level).

Software engineers today simply aren't that skilled (at least on average) despite what they want to believe. It reminds me a lot of dotcom bubble where anyone with a pulse that could turn on a PC could get a high paying job.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#364

Post by mabbo »

brotoss wrote: post #141

Referring to "main quests" and "side quests" in a mass layoff notice is extremely cringeworthy

It's not so bad, given the company culture. I'm one of the people impacted and it never occurred to me that anything was off by that statement.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#365

Post by jross225 »

symlinkk wrote: post #352
organsnyder wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shopify calls its first interview the "life story" interview, and (in my experience) it was a great place for me to talk about my career, reflect on past successes and mistakes, and demonstrate empathy and self-awareness.

So only people who have slick enough social skills to bullshit their way through that will get hired. The quiet unassuming engineer who spend their free time programming will get passed on and the extroverted engineer who spent their free time partying will get hired.

Lol, no.

1. That is a very deterministic statement 2. This is a part of the process, not the entire process. There are still technical elements tested during the interview. 3. The signal that they are looking for, but do not tell candidates, is a story about overcoming obstacles.

What I will say about the lifestory, is that it aligns with the skillset required to do well in a corporate environment. Namely telling stories, being relatively interesting, and having some ability to sell yourself and your accomplishments (in addition to being technically competent which is tested elsewhere).

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#366

Post by umeshunni »

organsnyder wrote: post #203
tmshu1 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share a bit about what they did well in the behavioral interviews? Do you have specific examples? Would love to learn some best practices

Shopify calls its first interview the "life story" interview, and (in my experience) it was a great place for me to talk about my career, reflect on past successes and mistakes, and demonstrate empathy and self-awareness.

Uh. I hope this was for a non-technical role. Otherwise, it sounds like a bad idea and best and a torturous thing that filters out a lot of non-native, non-extroverted people.

But then again, that's probably why the environment seems 'fun'

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#367

Post by racl101 »

They say they don't wanna bury the lede but the statement still confuses me:

> don’t want to bury the lede: after today Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics;

Does that mean layoffs AND part of their company being sold off.

Or does it mean employees being reassigned because part of the company is being sold off?

Granted I don't know much about Shopify.

But when I read things on the face of it ... it sounds confusing.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#368

Post by agluszak »

mikeryan wrote: post #361
bartread wrote: post #266

"We are changing the shape of Shopify significantly today to pay unshared attention to our mission." What a way to lead, and what an absolutely grotesque euphemism (not to mention a barbaricly tortuous use of English). Why do companies write like this? It's just awful. I'm only half-joking when I suggest that if they'd taken this text and asked GPT-4 to rewrite it in a compassionate tone they'd have got a better resu…

This looks worse out of context. The next sentence is pretty clear on what's going on. There are a number of consequences to this, and I don’t want to bury the lede: after today Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics; this means some of you will leave Shopify today

> Shopify will be smaller by about 20%

So are they going to fire 20% of the C-suite and upper management as well? :)

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#369

Post by jonny_eh »

rcme wrote: post #224
bambataa wrote: post #143

Is this the same CEO who decided to double the engineering team in a single year? https://techcouver.com/2021/01/06/shopify-to-double-engineer... Aren’t CEOs paid ludicrously well to make long term decisions, rather than just flail around?

From a business perspective, this is great for Shopify. The labor market for software engineers has seriously softened as a result of all the layoffs. Go look at job openings and their posted salaries. When Shopify beings hiring again, they are going to be able to hire talent at a fraction of the price. Also, this is largely a coordinated effort from activist investors specifically targeting large tech salaries. E.g.…

> When Shopify beings hiring again, they are going to be able to hire talent at a fraction of the price.

Wouldn't it be the opposite? When the market recovers, they'll competing with everyone else for talent, when instead if they held onto their talent, they could be paying less.

Re: Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics

#370

Post by mabbo »

Arubis wrote: post #155

“We will also keep Slack and internal email open today for everyone so we can share farewells.” That’s drastically different. Most orgs that’ve run layoffs over the last few years have terminated access immediately, or even before informing those losing jobs. This feels more human, and I hope it goes well for them.

It let me exchange personal email addresses with a lot of great friends I won't get to work with anymore. I truly appreciate that Shopify did that for us.
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