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Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

blog.patreon.com

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Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#441

Post by KerryJones »

preston4tw wrote: post #96
q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: post #53

This bit from the employee announcement about how they're handling equity vesting [1] is worth highlighting as a pretty classy move, all things considered: > We’re waiving the one-year equity vesting cliff for all departing employees so that everyone has an opportunity to be a shareholder, regardless of your tenure. [...] All departing teammates will qualify for an extended option exercise period of 5 years, and we h…

I always thought it was awesome that a company to support creators was creator lead. I came across Jack Conte in 2010 before Patreon existed. He was a music creator on YouTube that made what he was calling Video Songs, songs with each instrument part video'd and mixed together, and selling his music collection through e-junkie at the time. He was one of the first creators I ever financially supported. Some of the vid…

As a former Patreon team member, he has done an incredible job of attracting creator-focused team members -- one of the most mission oriented groups I've ever been a part of.

Don't mistake that for being a good CEO. He gives deep-felt apologies every time he does layoffs... which he does frequently. Often because he just doesn't like what people are doing. He also frequently communicates with the public in a more heart-felt manner than he does his own employees. He's great at putting out a great face.

- 5 days ago - Security Team - https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/09/patreon-security-layoffs/

- 2021 - https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/patreon-lays-off-36-emplo...

- 2020 - https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/21/patreon-lays-off-13-of-wor...

- 2019, September layoffs (can't find the links for these ones)

- 2019, June layoffs

- 2018, June layoffs

Also, to be clear. I was not one of the ones laid off. But I did see my entire team besides my manager vanish one day and then be told I'm expected to do the team's work for the next 6 months.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#443

Post by ShamelessC »

pentagrama wrote: post #281
ShamelessC wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens more and more when I visit Twitter now, too. _Really_ annoying and I have zero intention of creating an account on either of those sites.

If you use Ublock Origin, you can enable the "annoyances" filter and the Twitter login overlay is removed.

Thanks - had no idea about that. Enabling it now.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#444

Post by cbozeman »

rchaud wrote: post #435
cbozeman wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but this is how an extraordinarily large amount of high-level individuals think - they just won't admit it. If you're able to automate a large portion of your workforce, why wouldn't you? You'll be rewarded for it in every aspect. You'll be praised by the Board of Directors for cutting costs and improving productivity (since algorithms and robots don't have to sleep, never g…

Thanks for 'breaking it to me', I had no idea /s Have you considered that part of the fabric of civilized society is...being civil with the people that you interact with, and require cooperation from? You can hold any opinion of them that you like, but the difference between a competent manager and an incompetent one is how they can translate their personal disdain for their direct reports, in a way that doesn't trea…

This is just patently untrue and plays out in every office across the entire world every day.

What makes someone a competent manager is whether or not they complete their assigned tasks and projects that come down from above.

You don't like people who are direct and brutal in their feedback. Got it.

Hell, you can turn back the clock to 2004-2008 World of Warcraft and see this for yourself. The best guilds in the world had leadership that was brutally forthright - bordering on downright cruel - to their membership, but they still managed to execute, because when everyone's goals are aligned, you'll be surprised the shit people are willing to entertain. And not only were these people not being paid, they had to pay to play the damn game!

And yes, I know the analogy doesn't map perfectly onto work for several reasons, but the crux of the idea is there: a harsh taskmaster can move mountains with a little bit of fear (I'll replace you with a shell script if your performance doesn't improve) and a lot of honesty.

In the future, you could save us both a lot of time and effort by just saying, "I don't like this management style."

But I've seen it in video games, I've seen it in startups, I've seen it in Fortune 500 companies, and I've seen it in the military. Properly implemented, it works wonders.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#445

Post by michaelcampbell »

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!

I was born mid 1960's-ish and have lucked out; only laid off once. But I well remember all of those crises.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#446

Post by preston4tw »

KerryJones wrote: post #441
preston4tw wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought it was awesome that a company to support creators was creator lead. I came across Jack Conte in 2010 before Patreon existed. He was a music creator on YouTube that made what he was calling Video Songs, songs with each instrument part video'd and mixed together, and selling his music collection through e-junkie at the time. He was one of the first creators I ever financially supported. Some of the vid…

As a former Patreon team member, he has done an incredible job of attracting creator-focused team members -- one of the most mission oriented groups I've ever been a part of. Don't mistake that for being a good CEO. He gives deep-felt apologies every time he does layoffs... which he does frequently. Often because he just doesn't like what people are doing. He also frequently communicates with the public in a more hea…

Yeah, I'd imagine in many respects he's unqualified to be a good CEO since he, as far as I can tell, essentially stumbled sideways into the role as co-founder. There's the upside of the CEO being a creator themselves but the downside of not having a background in business or necessarily the other qualities a good leader possesses.

Patreon has a great mission though and I can see how it would attract creator-focused team members. There are some impressive Patreon alumni in their own right.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#447

Post by odessacubbage »

xenadu02 wrote: post #341

I subscribe to a single Patreon. It's an artist publishing an online comic. I pay for day-ahead access vs the public site. Reading the thing I pay for is fucking _painful_ on Patreon. So is trying to use their comment system to interact with the creator or other fans. Everything is slow-loading infinite scroll with tons of "load more" links. It is absolutely dreadful and every time I interact with the site I'm remind…

most of the sites that scrape patreon's content have better interfaces and loadtimes than patreon

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#448

Post by xani_ »

honkdaddy wrote: post #425
xani_ wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what they think they are saying. What it actually means is "It is my mistake that I admit is mine, you get fucked, I keep my chair and take zero actual consequences for it"

I mean if it's helpful to you, people can deconstruct the meanings of their colloquialisms so it's more clear, but for most English speakers it's not really necessary. Are you ESL? If I told someone "we'll be working on this report til the cows come home", I wouldn't expect that it's necessary to explain that the expression doesn't actually have anything to do with cattle, and instead just means I'm expecting this to…

That only works if expression isn't purposefully vague or misleading, which most of corpo PR speak is.

"Taking responsibility" (taking care of the kid) of condom breaking is a bit different than "taking responsiblity" (doing absolutely nothing of substance) in corporate world.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#449

Post by Aachen »

niek_pas wrote: post #419
Aachen wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that I'd need to first get a credit card. Most people here don't have one because you never need it here, but indeed for paying for american stuff I tried getting one. Happened to be after moving to Germany. Was denied, don't have a credit score (not here at least, and afaik the Netherlands doesn't have this system of random magic score calculations without actually being indebted) and neutral wasn't good enough.…

It's not very clear from your comment where exactly you are, but in The Netherlands credit cards are quite common — almost everyone I know has one, and I was raised here.

I never see anyone, always normal debit cards instead of paying on credit (loan), and the first question you get when your card's color looks unfamiliar and it doesn't work on the first try is whether it's a credit card because those aren't commonly supported. It's virtually nonexistent. My dad has one for booking hotels abroad afaik, but while in NL you just never need it and I never see them around.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#450

Post by SamReidHughes »

nonethewiser wrote: post #362
colinmhayes wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark is completely unaccountable to investors. He can do whatever he wants as long as he has good faith reason to believe it will benefit shareholders.

This is confusing to read. Shareholders are investors.

Facebook has a dual class share structure giving Zuckerberg >50% of the votes.
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