Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#461

Post by slightwinder » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 4:20 PM UTC

recroad wrote: post #44

TIL that nobody knows what they're doing. Jokes aside, how do you end up having more than 500 excess people than what you need? What is management exactly doing during the time they went from 1 excess person to 500? Did they just hope the "macroeconomic headwinds" would become tailwinds? Didn't they at some point see that they have more people than valuable work, and maybe we should deal with that problem instead of…

> Jokes aside, how do you end up having more than 500 excess people than what you need?

What you need can change over time. As I remember, Dropbox acquired a bunch of companies of the years, so maybe some of them originated from there. They also had many new products and tried to move into new directions, which probably also brought many new people.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#462

Post by pjmlp » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 4:20 PM UTC

ericmcer wrote: post #350

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…

Seriously, that severance is awesome. Of all the tech workers struggling, the ones from companies big enough to throw 4+ mo severance packages are not the ones I am worried about. Any smaller company your severance is a pat on the back.

In many countries severance package is guaranteed by law.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#463

Post by hankman86 » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 4:20 PM UTC

The uncomfortable truth is that pretty much any business can cut staff by 20% without impacting overall performance. Provided that you manage to weed out the tail end of the performance bell curve that is.

Most of the time, reducing staff is a healthy move for the business and the impacted employees. The company will not only save cost, but strengthen its culture of high performance. And under-achieving employees are often fundamentally unhappy in their role. While the short term impact of being made redundant can cause some distress, these people can still use the occasion to reset their careers.

So all in all, no reason for grief.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#464

Post by surgical_fire » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 4:21 PM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #41

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.

Genuine question: what do people want from a CEO in this situation? What consequences do you want the CEO to face? A token reduction in pay? Being fired?

Something like this, maybe?

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/13/nintendo-ceo-once-halved-sal...

I mean, this is actually taking responsibility for your decisions as CEO.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#465

Post by alpb » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 4:22 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #380

Very generous severance packages and companies/laders should be commended for this. If it's a one-and-done big cut with generous packages to save the company, then good on them. Somehow overhiring and maintaining said headcount long enough to need to do a 20% cut is probably less commendable, but not exactly an outlier there in the current climate. I've always wondered about all these standalone "point solution" comp…

They've been doing 20% layoffs two years in a row now.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#466

Post by AdmiralAsshat » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 4:22 PM UTC

Remember how there used to be a blog (or maybe it was a Tumblr, I forget) that documented every "Our incredible journey" post that inevitably announced the start-up's closure?

I think we need another one for "An update from ", as this has seemingly become the standard subject to use when you're announcing layoffs or data breaches. I saw an identical headline earlier today from Sony announcing a studio closure:

https://sonyinteractive.com/en/news/blog/an-update-from-play...

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#467

Post by aylmao » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 4:23 PM UTC

beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #419

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?

> 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? I think a lot of the low hanging fruit in tech has been eaten up, bought up and consolidated, or actually was recognized as much more difficult and expensive than they actually thought. The lea…

I agree with both comments. ~500 can surely build some amazing tech, smaller teams have done more. I personally do think there's still a lot of relatively low-hanging fruit left, especially with the boom of possibilities due to AI, or simply what one can do with modern CPU/GPU performance, new browser APIs, modern tech factors, etc.

I also do agree and think leadership talent and vision in a lot tech companies is painfully lacking. This are the companies that could burn some money and use their wedge in the market to build some really cool things, but they wont. I guess to some degree, ironically, the money they're making might be part of the problem.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#468

Post by dandigangi » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 4:26 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #462

ericmcer wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, that severance is awesome. Of all the tech workers struggling, the ones from companies big enough to throw 4+ mo severance packages are not the ones I am worried about. Any smaller company your severance is a pat on the back.

In many countries severance package is guaranteed by law.

USA: lol ok but no

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#469

Post by alluro2 » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 4:27 PM UTC

siliconc0w wrote: post #195

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?

I'm a libertarian in most things but I still don't like layoffs from profitable companies. Like it's probably not good for our society that people have to up end their life every few years and probably move to find a new job. Both my parents stayed in the same job for their careers and it meant they could stay in the same place, have kids, build ties to the community, etc. Seems important if you want to not die out a…

Fully agreed - yet, we as a society consistently and systematically trade (or let "others" trade) much more critical aspects of life, such as quality of air, water, food etc. for short-term profits, even though that very often has no clear/direct positive impact on any other comparably valuable aspects of our lives.

So it's no wonder that "some people losing their jobs and needing to move for a new one" is irrelevant, when the only goal is profit maximisation, even though we don't even understand what for.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#470

Post by randomdata » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 4:27 PM UTC

siliconc0w wrote: post #195

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?

I'm a libertarian in most things but I still don't like layoffs from profitable companies. Like it's probably not good for our society that people have to up end their life every few years and probably move to find a new job. Both my parents stayed in the same job for their careers and it meant they could stay in the same place, have kids, build ties to the community, etc. Seems important if you want to not die out a…

> Like it's probably not good for our society that people have to up end their life every few years and probably move to find a new job.

The thing is, Dropbox is done (as in feature complete). Like when the construction of a building completes, many people are "laid off" because they aren’t needed anymore. Yeah, you need to keep some people around for things like maintaining the building, but not to the scale of the original workforce required to build it.

It is "good" that the excess labour is freed up to go work on the next "building". What may not be good is that the workers didn't think to associate with each other like construction workers do. Construction, being a much more mature industry, typically keeps a clear separation between the workers and the building so that then construction is done the entire excess group of people can be lifted on to the next project instead of all going their separate ways.

Software will undoubtedly go that way eventually. But it is, in the grand scheme of things, still early days for it as an industry. We haven't yet learned the lessons that older industries have.