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Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

blog.dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#441

Post by prmoustache »

Epa095 wrote: post #129
BossingAround wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? 16 weeks of salary, or 4 months of pay. In my country, you get 3 months of pay as standard when you're fired from your job. Doesn't seem that great to me to be honest.

But are you not expected to work those 3 months? 4 months of pay without work is decent, but not amazing.

> But are you not expected to work those 3 months?

When you are leaving on your own term yes.

When you are laid off you are technically still an employee for those 3 months but nowadays many companies will just tell you to not show up for security reason.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#442

Post by mv4 »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #371
mv4 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember Gavin Belson? "But make no mistake. Though they're the ones leaving, it is I who must remain and bear the heavy burden of their failure."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u48vYSLvKNQ same vibe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiKuxfcSrEU

so accurate it's scary

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#443

Post by jumping_frog »

colechristensen wrote: post #306
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staffing your business (or even team) with the right number of people to accomplish a job is a real challenge that the majority of managers don't engage with, instead simply trying to grow their little kingdom to the largest size they can, both for intrinsic power reasons, and also to foster greater jobs for themselves later on. If I see a manager put "led a team of 40" on their resume, in the interview, I ask "did y…

>many hands make light work, but I'd like to emphasize further the but . The speed of tasks scales with the inverse log of the organization size. In other words, as you get bigger, every project gets slower, regardless of how many people you have working on it. A project that would take a week in a tiny organization might take a month in a medium organzation and 2 quarters in a large organization. Sometimes there are…

In a large orginaization, launching a new feature requires interaction with lot of other existing teams which slows speed down. Auth, permissions, metrics, etc. The new feature must seamlessly interact and integrate with existing systems.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#444

Post by steveBK123 »

scarby2 wrote: post #429
steveBK123 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably from what I've seen it is TOO random or non-performance based. Some combination of personal dislike and unfamiliarity. The people making the cuts are not line managers and are sometimes given very short amount of time to make their cut list. So "oh I know that person" stays vs "I have no idea what they do / they asked me a pointed question in a meeting once" goes.

I've been laid off twice, neither time has been performance based. once i was on a team of 2 ICs and a Manager - only the manager stayed - the company is now about to fold. Other time i was let go as part of the entire US arm

Yes, most layoffs I've seen in my career are of the "mass layoff" variety, and these are generally far from being performance based.

There's just too many people, the decision making is too quick, at too high a level.. and more driven by cost / future strategy (so which teams to cut deeper).

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#445

Post by pembrook »

BossingAround wrote: post #120
ahstilde wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like it's 25% better than what you get in your country?

Personally, I'd consider this nothing to write home about. It's OK. Not great, not terrible. If we're laying off 20% of the company, I'd expect the package to be somewhere in the 6-12 months range. To me, that would seem more fair, considering they are completely restructuring the whole company.

I'd rather take having a tech industry at all and the 2-4X bigger US salaries (and 30% lower average taxes) than having my fellow citizens shoulder the burden of giving me 6-12 months of daycare.

In the US luckily the job market is still quite dynamic (and extremely tight by historical standards) so only in an extreme scenario would someone with Dropbox on their resume need 12 months to find another job.

They might have to take a pay cut from a 99th percentile salary to a 96th percentile salary though. Rough, I know.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#446

Post by andyjohnson0 »

matchbok wrote: post #324
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #299

> "As CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision and the circumstances that led to it, and I’m truly sorry to those impacted by this change." As with other CEOs who say such things in similar situations - does this "responsibility" amount to anything? Like loss of salary or options or seniority. Or is this just empty words? I appreciate that this action is probably necessary to safeguard the business but, as s…

Most people understand that companies need to adjust in size. There’s nothing moral about it.

(Your comment was dead but I vouched for it because I want to explain why youve failed to appreciate an important distinction.)

tldr: the redundancy is not the announcement

I think people (and I include myself) do understand that companies need to adjust their workforce. I think that decision is not wholly moral in nature. But it does have a moral component - and Dropbox seems to appreciate that somewhat in the assistance they're providing the people who are leaving.

But what isn't moral is an individual announcing publicly that they take responsibility for acts that cause trauma to others (however constrained that decision was) while in reality that responsibility-taking involves no consequences at all the individual. None.

In the large train station in the city where I live, the automated voice announcements "apologise" for train cancellations. I'd argue that this is as empty and insulting as this CEO's email - because no responsibility has in fact been taken. The CEOs words and the announcement software are as morally empty as eachother.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#447

Post by slightwinder »

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?

Every new product or market usually also needs additional investments, maybe even new workers with relevant domain knowledge. And Dropbox did try new products and markets, but what if it's not working out? Should they continue until money runs out?

And some interesting part of this announcement is the mentioning of the grown overcomplex management. This kinda smells of some shrinking for health-benefits. For some reason or another, they grew into a wrong direction, and maybe now remove the unhealthy parts to be able to operate better.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#448

Post by onion2k »

sk11001 wrote: post #378
kraig911 wrote: post #183

Dropbox my one critique is can you please make it affordable again. I just can't justify the cost as there are cheaper services out there. I don't care about PDF signing etc. I fear OneDrive/Google Drive are eating you lunch because it's a hard sell to be competitive against them price wise.

Steve Jobs was right - Dropbox is a feature, not a product.

A feature of what? Surely Jobs didn't expect a feature of Windows, OSX, Android, Linux, and ChromeOS to all seamlessly interact with one another.

I don't doubt that Jobs might have seen Dropbox as a feature that Apple could have implemented across the Apple ecosystem, but that's a pretty limited view of where the value of Dropbox lies.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#449

Post by pixelatedindex »

heyjamesknight wrote: post #401
amelius wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I’ve seen instances where the people with the most seniority are let go first because they cost the company more.
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