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Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

blog.dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#401

Post by heyjamesknight »

amelius wrote: post #365
andygcook wrote: post #208

For context, Drew Houston's total compensation for the year in 2023 was $1.5M: > According to our data, Dropbox, Inc. ... paid its CEO total annual compensation worth US$1.5m over the year to December 2023. That's a notable increase of 34% on last year via https://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-why-dropbox-inc-nasdaq-... Even if Drew took minimum wage, that would save ~15 jobs assuming $100K all-in comp (which seems lo…

> Layoffs suck and no one wants to do it, but sometimes it's needed to save the ship. But they always fire the weak employees, not the ones that can easily help themselves. Maybe we should have some laws that randomize the layoffs ...

This is a joke, right? If a company is underperforming, then the underperformers are the first to go. Market economies require efficiency. Capital flows in the direction of success. Impeding this flow with regulation is a great way to create a malfunctioning economy.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#402

Post by [deleted] »

amelius wrote: post #365
andygcook wrote: post #208

For context, Drew Houston's total compensation for the year in 2023 was $1.5M: > According to our data, Dropbox, Inc. ... paid its CEO total annual compensation worth US$1.5m over the year to December 2023. That's a notable increase of 34% on last year via https://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-why-dropbox-inc-nasdaq-... Even if Drew took minimum wage, that would save ~15 jobs assuming $100K all-in comp (which seems lo…

> Layoffs suck and no one wants to do it, but sometimes it's needed to save the ship. But they always fire the weak employees, not the ones that can easily help themselves. Maybe we should have some laws that randomize the layoffs ...

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#403

Post by indy »

amelius wrote: post #365
andygcook wrote: post #208

For context, Drew Houston's total compensation for the year in 2023 was $1.5M: > According to our data, Dropbox, Inc. ... paid its CEO total annual compensation worth US$1.5m over the year to December 2023. That's a notable increase of 34% on last year via https://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-why-dropbox-inc-nasdaq-... Even if Drew took minimum wage, that would save ~15 jobs assuming $100K all-in comp (which seems lo…

> Layoffs suck and no one wants to do it, but sometimes it's needed to save the ship. But they always fire the weak employees, not the ones that can easily help themselves. Maybe we should have some laws that randomize the layoffs ...

Isn't firing the weak employees the correct long term strategy? Especially with regards to ensuring that the remaining employees stay employed

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#404

Post by mrthrowaway999 »

pizzathyme wrote: post #43
lifeisgood99 wrote: post #2

"As CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision" Oh hey another one that takes responsibility by taking on 0 consequences.

Unpopular opinion, but I don't understand this type of comment. It sounds like people want executives to get some kind of punishment or pain as a consequence of laying people off. But what would that even look like? A fine? That would probably make no practical difference, and would discourage them from making changes that need to be made. Fire them? Then you would probably get a worse decision maker in the driver se…

People come in two flavors: conflict theorists and mistake theorists.

Conflict theorists think that every event is a result of power struggler. So if someone gets hurt, someone must be punished for that.

Mistake theorists think that the world is complex and sometimes bad stuff happens because most people operate with good intentions most of the time. Often, that means no punishment needs to be metted out.

To mistake theorists, conflict theorists look like ideological blood thirsty savages. To conflict theorists, mistake theorists look like enemy troops.

This is a gross oversimplification but it always shocks me to see how much more conflict theorists there are on hn now than before. So many comments here blaming the CEO or capitalism, most of which are going off extremely scant information.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#405

Post by JAlexoid »

amelius wrote: post #365
andygcook wrote: post #208

For context, Drew Houston's total compensation for the year in 2023 was $1.5M: > According to our data, Dropbox, Inc. ... paid its CEO total annual compensation worth US$1.5m over the year to December 2023. That's a notable increase of 34% on last year via https://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-why-dropbox-inc-nasdaq-... Even if Drew took minimum wage, that would save ~15 jobs assuming $100K all-in comp (which seems lo…

> Layoffs suck and no one wants to do it, but sometimes it's needed to save the ship. But they always fire the weak employees, not the ones that can easily help themselves. Maybe we should have some laws that randomize the layoffs ...

Why would you fire your best and brightest? That would be like throwing out good fruit, when there are spoiled ones.

No, it's a very poor idea to force companies to lay off at random.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#406

Post by Matticus_Rex »

duped wrote: post #360
andygcook wrote: post #208

For context, Drew Houston's total compensation for the year in 2023 was $1.5M: > According to our data, Dropbox, Inc. ... paid its CEO total annual compensation worth US$1.5m over the year to December 2023. That's a notable increase of 34% on last year via https://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-why-dropbox-inc-nasdaq-... Even if Drew took minimum wage, that would save ~15 jobs assuming $100K all-in comp (which seems lo…

> Layoffs suck and no one wants to do it, but sometimes it's needed to save the ship. Layoffs are the trolley problem but you get to pick how many people are lying down on each side of the track and if you want yourself to be one of them. That said, if one reaches the conclusion that under their leadership they were forced to downsize by 20% (either due to over hiring, failure to reach revenue/growth targets, whateve…

>that should make that person one of the people on proverbial track

That's a satisfying thing to say, but as practical advice it's absolutely terrible.

Often that person's leadership wasn't the problem, but even when it was, that doesn't necessarily mean that the company will be better-off without them. And that's the question -- what will make the company most likely to be the most successful going forward? Even if the current trouble is because of some of that leader's mistakes, the answer is often to keep that leader. Sometimes it isn't.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#407

Post by onion2k »

meindnoch wrote: post #395

This is the first wave of the LLM layoffs.

That's quite unlikely. If Dropbox could save a decent amount of their engineering effort using LLMs with 20% less people, then they could also increase their engineering effort by a decent amount using LLMs and keeping the same workforce. Assuming the team aren't completely useless, being able to go faster would be significantly more valuable than any cost saving made here.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#408

Post by _yb2s »

echoangle wrote: post #295
bhouston wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Drew Houston's total compensation for the year in 2023 was $1.5M That is insanely low for the CEO of a public company of Dropbox's size. But I suspect he owned a lot of shares in the company so when it went public, so he doesn't need salary, it is just a rounding error in terms of his wealth. EDIT: Yeah, he is worth $2B according to Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/profile/drew-houston/

I always wonder what gives these people the drive to continue. Maybe I’m lazy and lacking vision but if I were worth 2B, I don’t think I would go to the office every day just to get accused of mismanagement when I have to lay people off. I would take my yacht to the Caribbean and slack off.

One hardly needs $2B to slack off on a boat in the Caribbean… many people do so on surprisingly nice ~30 foot sailboats you can buy with a few months work at minimum wage, and wild seafood is free

I see a lot of people that say “If I won the lottery I’d….” and then describe something they could definitely do without winning the lottery… which makes me think they still would not actually do so if they won

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#409

Post by pembrook »

iaw wrote: post #382
pembrook wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's horrible. And you might even have to stay at a 4 star instead of a 5 star resort in Bali when you take a vacation during your severance, job market is tough. Even worse, you might have to miss one contribution to your FATfire investment account to deal with the extra risk. Compounded, that missed contribution might mean you'll have to retire at 46 instead of 45. How dare these companies treat these people…

I don't think your tone aligns with the community guidelines[1]. Please consider not being snarky and sarcastic but actually responding to the merit of what people say here. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

As a fellow tech worker, I genuinely believe all the things I mentioned are upsetting. It's happened to me before!

I realized though that I was probably going to be okay, and what I actually needed was some perspective.

Sometimes the contrast of "sarcasm" is the only way to shake you out of your bubble and give you that perspective.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#410

Post by Hilift »

elric wrote: post #90

I'm always a bit confused by profitable companies with (presumably) large reserves laying off lots of people. I get that they want to remain profitable. But sure 500ish people could be put to some use? A new product, a new market, a spinoff. Whatever? Are you telling me that no one in such a big, wealthy company of clever engineers has any use for a bunch of talented people?

Remember Better, the mortgage company? They were briefly notable for laying off 900 people on a Zoom call. However, no-one asked why a re-envisioned mortgage application/process was failing in the best possible market. My opinion is Dropbox most valuable commodity is the millions of Windows PCs with a system level scheduled task that is vulnerable to "hijacking"... basically they are a data stream.
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