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Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

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Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#411

Post by pacija »

jlmorton wrote: post #190

> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…

Terribly bloated corporations all around.

We had such situation in socialist Yugoslavia in the 80s, just before it collapsed. Most people just "went to work" without doing anything useful or producing anything valuable while still getting fairly good money. Government kept printing money while increasing foreign debt to keep people content as opposed to let unprofitable companies close so that people get laid off but hopefully regroup into more profitable ones. It lasted for some time, but when it finally came to an end it was really ugly.

I feel sorry for everyone that gets laid off, but perhaps that is better than the alternative.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#412

Post by beepbooptheory »

Apocryphon wrote: post #404
beepbooptheory wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a single company anywhere that doesn't intermittently layoff employees? Like, I think its good, of course, to analyze and criticize, but why particularize it so case by case in all these threads? It just feels like a lot of missing the forest for the trees. If you were studying an animal that has been shown in all prior research to intermittently eat its offspring, you wouldn't then stop at each animal and a…

> this is just how these animals sustain themselves. Because in economics not everyone is a Keynesian who just ascribes behavior to animal spirits.

Hehe I think you might be reading that too literally :). I was just using an analogy to make my point.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#413

Post by red-iron-pine »

kortex wrote: post #326
jlmorton wrote: post #190

> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…

It's typical paper-thin plausible deniability of corporations justifying actions. - Oil supplies are tough so we are raising gas prices (we know we can get a few weeks/months of crazy profits and blame it on the energy crisis) - Supply chain issues are tough so we have to tighten out belt (excuse to not give out raises/bonuses) - The macroeconomic environment is tough, so we gotta lay off 7-10% (we have wanted to tri…

Something strong has to drive it. Hopefully that's economic pressures and not guillotines, but it may come to that.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#414

Post by greedo »

travisgriggs wrote: post #266
adamors wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was recently laid off at one of these % cuts at another company, these cuts target specific groups, for instance people who have higher salaries. Well paid people won't just quit.

I’ve seen this happen over the years and I’m always curious why there isn’t a discussion beforehand that offers the “overearners” a chance to stay at a reduced salary. I’ve asked people who were in those positions, and they’ve often indicated that they would have stayed at a lower salary, at least for a while.

Lower salaries really are just paying employees to look for new jobs on the company's dime. If my pay was lowered 10%, I'd be looking immediately.

At one of the companies I worked at, the strategy was the opposite. Lower employee salaries in the hopes that people would quit.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#415

Post by xwolfi »

gregors wrote: post #213
jlmorton wrote: post #190

> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…

Disney is laying off 7k workers... >>> “While this is necessary to address the challenges we’re >>> facing today, I do not make this decision lightly,” said >>> CEO Bob Iger, " From the same article >>> ...the company released better than expected financial >>> results for the fourth quarter of 2022. Disney revenue in >>> the quarter rose 8% to $23.5 billion, edging past >>> estimates of $23.4 billion Truly they are…

But to be fair if a company can continue to operate or even grow while laying off employees, were these employees necessary in the first place ? I mean, should profit be given to employees, or owners ? Should company sacrifice their profit buffer to give it to employees they dont need ? Do they have a social responsibility to employees ?

I m european so we see work in a way more controlled, mutualized way were companies are expected by the state to provide for the citizens, but the success of the american model is that they disagree with us and are way more liberal with all of it. Should they change to copy us ?

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#416

Post by jldugger »

jlmorton wrote: post #190

> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…

> Everywhere you look, the economic indicators are solid.

Sure, if you cherry pick the indicators. There's a pretty big one you're tiptoeing around: the Fed Funds Rate has gone from 0.25 in 2022 to 4.75.

> I do not have insight into Gitlab's customers, or the current state of Gitlab's business.

Well, that is to your detriment, both as a persuader and decision maker. Gitlab is publicly traded, and their fiscal year ended Jan 31, so you have a wealth of data you could be consulting to make the case. Yahoo Finance shows[1] they have zero debt, and margins at negative fifty percent -- for every dollar take in they lose a dollar fifty.

It's not too hard to imagine the company has been losing money while money was cheap to grow marketshare versus GitHub, but now that rates are up it will be much harder to issue debt and pay it back. It's not to hard to paint Gitlab as a company in transition from loss leader to profitability by cutting costs and reducing long term investments as they become more expensive. And I think describing that as a response to macroenvironment conditions is appropriate.

[1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GTLB/key-statistics?p=GTLB

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#417

Post by Apocryphon »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #412
Apocryphon wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is just how these animals sustain themselves. Because in economics not everyone is a Keynesian who just ascribes behavior to animal spirits.

Hehe I think you might be reading that too literally :). I was just using an analogy to make my point.

But as amusing as it is to riff off of your analogy, your point is still wrong. When studying the behavior of human beings, and corporations are people, friend, it is important to try to fathom the motivations of their decisions. You can’t simply look at the behavior of companies, even in aggregate, and pretend it’s scientific to say, “ah, that is simply how they sustain themselves.”

And in this case perhaps what people are upset about isn’t simply moralism, but the potential irrationality that drives the behavior we are all witnessing.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#418

Post by dehrmann »

brnewd wrote: post #350
pwinnski wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't every big company. Apple hasn't, and they're the biggest of all. I think that is the point: it does not feel accurate to say that "macroeconomic conditions are tough" or that you expect slowdowns while recording record levels of revenue, and yet company after company after company is using these imaginary tough headwinds to justify laying off 6-8% of staff, often while paying dividends or issuing stock buy-b…

Apple isn't the best example. For instance their Safari development team is already severely underfunded, there is barely anyone to fire.

That's a long-term strategy to encourage native development and keep people in the app store.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#419

Post by pwinnski »

brnewd wrote: post #350
pwinnski wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't every big company. Apple hasn't, and they're the biggest of all. I think that is the point: it does not feel accurate to say that "macroeconomic conditions are tough" or that you expect slowdowns while recording record levels of revenue, and yet company after company after company is using these imaginary tough headwinds to justify laying off 6-8% of staff, often while paying dividends or issuing stock buy-b…

Apple isn't the best example. For instance their Safari development team is already severely underfunded, there is barely anyone to fire.

That Apple doesn't agree with you on development priorities for Safari does not mean the Safari dev team is severely underfunded.

They could be, or not. They seem to issue a preview release every two weeks or so[0], so they are clearly making progress on something.

0. https://webkit.org/blog/

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#420

Post by bombcar »

bentlegen wrote: post #255
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney is laying off people because their movies keep bombing in the theaters. All they do is remakes and spinoffs of the famous old IPs they devoured, but that gravy train is coming to a stop. After a while people get tired of watching more half-baked Star Wars and Marvel sequels of bootleg quality. They're running out of franchises to milk, and making something new and original is not in their corporate culture.

I’m guessing you didn’t read the article because Avatar made in over 2 billion dollars, exceeding even their expectations, becoming the 6th highest grossing film of all time. Or maybe it bombed, beats me.

The quality of Pixar has certainly suffered - the movies have a “sequel direct to DVD” feel vs the amazing blockbuster of ancient days.

But theater attendance is way down either way - and streaming make have cannibalized other revenue streams more than people think.

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