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

news.shopify.com

441–450 of 531 posts

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

#441
post #409

"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…

I agree; there many odd writing choices. For example, this is a very confusing end to the first sentence: > to pay unshared attention to our mission ...unshared attention?

This might be a bad direct translation from the German saying "ungeteilte Aufmerksamkeit" which can also be translated as "undivided attention"

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

#442
post #224

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.

What I've been told about Shopify is that they were seen as a good place to get "western" experience before jumping ship (often for folks who couldn't pass the higher bar for US immigration) because they were already not very competitive with companies in the valley.

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

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are falling into the meta-trap of misunderstanding the Luddites. The Luddites weren't idiots, nor they were against progress. They revolted because the way the new technology was applied was destroying their specialization, and in many cases, destroying their lives . The promise of "reallocating skilled workers to new areas" is bullshit at the individual level. What's being reallocated is the new generation, the…

For hundreds of thousands of years, pre-historic man became very skilled at cutting rocks in order to make stone age tools. Generations upon generations of early humans learned, worked on, and passed down to their children the way to perfectly smash rocks against each other in order to cut them into pointy shapes. In this way they made arrow heads, knives, axes, and so on. It's hard to believe, but this primitive tec…

The changes were over hundreds if not thousands of years. Everyone had time to adapt. Here the people are just discarded. I'm not saying we should keep inefficient work. The society hopefuly adapts and creates a safety net for upcoming changes. I'm pissimist, so I think more pain is coming and no way are we going to be allowed to have a repeat of 1917 in Russia. Just more rejects, outcasts and general misery.

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

#444
post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually anybody else who they'd hire as a CEO would also have more than enough money to comfortably retire. Lutke has more reputation/passion/history/identity tied up in the company than anyone else would - where money isn't a driving factor, deep connection to the thing you're working on is probably the most important motivation.

Lutke and Zuckerberg are billionaires. It is literally impossible for them to run out of money. Their grandchildren's grandchildren will be born incomprehensibly wealthy. They have won at capitalism. But they also captain their first large enterprises: do they know what they're doing? Can they transition these firms into businesses that will endure? Or will they capriciously chase shiny objects while they waste the t…

> It is literally impossible for them to run out of money

Musk has reminded me that even billionaires are one accidentally legally binding agreement away from pissing away $40B

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

#445
post #224

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.…

Shopify was never paying top of market in the first place. They might be able to get better talent for the same price, but "a fraction of the price" to me has a connotation of "1 over (an integer bigger than 1)", meaning 1/2 or less what they were paying previously... and this is certainly not the case for them.

If you're going to suggest 9/10 is also a fraction or something I'll counter that 4/3 is also a fraction, and no one uses "a fraction of the price" to refer to an increase in price

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

#446
post #436

I'm impacted. And it sucks. It sucks because I really liked the company. I liked the culture. I liked the leadership style. I liked the mission. I genuinely think that company is doing good for the world, and making money in the process. The challenge now is that the leadership have burned a lot of trust with the employees. They repeatedly said no more layoffs were coming, but with this move they all benefitted finan…

I'm sorry for you.

The CEOs / Executives are literally appointed by the board who in turn are voted in by shareholders. It is their job to increase the share price.

The world is better of with efficient capital deployment.

So, I don't understand how the smartest people in this world don't understand the fundamental working of capital markets.

Note: it's the same shareholders that have allowed to get $200-$300k TCs when smart people around the world toil the same as you for $60k. So, you can't have it both ways

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

#447
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They promised me an onsite interview to simply meet the team and potentially secure an offer. Was that your first tech onsite? The onsite is an interview you have to pass, you're not guaranteed an offer. Also why did you not bring your laptop to your tech interview lol Honestly, sucks to fly out far and get rejected but that's part of the process my guy. Most onsites are 5 back to back interviews.

> ...why did you not bring your laptop to your tech interview lol I have several reasons for not bringing my personal hardware to a corporate interview, and a couple about the specific situation as described: * I wouldn't travel with my laptop to an on-site that was described as a meet-and-greet. * The recruiter promised suitable hardware would be available at the surprise technical on-site interview: "Despite my lac…

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

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? :)

C-Suite are appointed by the Board.

If the board thinks they are not doing their job, they will be fired.

How is it not difficult to understand for a self-appointed smart crowd?

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

#449
post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lutke and Zuckerberg are billionaires. It is literally impossible for them to run out of money. Their grandchildren's grandchildren will be born incomprehensibly wealthy. They have won at capitalism. But they also captain their first large enterprises: do they know what they're doing? Can they transition these firms into businesses that will endure? Or will they capriciously chase shiny objects while they waste the t…

> It is literally impossible for them to run out of money Musk has reminded me that even billionaires are one accidentally legally binding agreement away from pissing away $40B

But he's still a billionaire!

There is no tangible difference between being worth $1B and $100B beyond social cachet. It is impossible to spend meaningful money at that level.

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

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shopify already pays at the low end. I mean, not even relative to FAANG; you can make a similar salary at a government job as an engineer.

They pay competitively now, but it took half the company quitting during covid covid for them to get to that point

When did this change? I interviewed in fall 2021 and got a decent offer but ultimately took a higher offer elsewhere.
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