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Layoffs at Block

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Re: Layoffs at Block

#481

Post by missedthecue »

MeetingsBrowser wrote: post #92
gusmally wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't think LLM impacts on productivity were a factor at all?

If LLMs really multiply productivity, why would you fire people and handicap the boost? I have 100 people that can now do the work of 200 people thanks to a new tool. How is the logical response to fire half of them and bring my productivity back to where it was before?

Because there isn't an unlimited amount of productive work to be done. Sure, a bowling ball factory in a world that demands unlimited bowling balls should take the productivity multiplier AND retain the employees, because they ought to make all the bowling balls they possibly can.

But CashApp jira tickets are not a bowling ball factory in a world with unlimited bowling ball demand. At a certain point, you're just paying people to sit around, or even worse, pretend they're busy.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#482

Post by vkou »

princevegeta89 wrote: post #450
operatingthetan wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's for the people who still work there.

It surely still does look stupid for the same people though..

A lot of employees are really stupid, and will believe (or close their eyes to) all sorts of bullshit.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#483

Post by ojbyrne »

Skidaddle wrote: post #453
neya wrote: post #421

> today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: > i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. > i’m sorry to put you through this. POV: Dude who has effortlessly fired people before deflects blame for over-hiring in the first place. I swear people should start blacklisting CEOs an…

I remember when Zuck said cut once, cut deep

It’s not clear to me whether you’re characterizing that as trenchant business advice or cynical bullshit. Meta has had several rounds of layoffs now so it surely can’t be the former.

Also Guy Kawasaki probably isn’t the first to say this, but I’d guess he predates Zuckerberg: https://guykawasaki.com/the_art_of_the_/

Re: Layoffs at Block

#484

Post by _heimdall »

alephnerd wrote: post #306
tombert wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm convinced that these "AI Layoffs" are these companies trying to save face from the absurd overhiring that they did in 2022 and 2023 because apparently they thought that these no-interest loans/free money would just last forever. No one really "knows" how to grow businesses so the easiest way to spend a lot of money quickly is hiring lots of people, whether or not they are "necessary". Then this free money dries u…

> I'm convinced that these "AI Layoffs" are these companies trying to save face from the absurd overhiring that they did in 2022 and 2023 because apparently they thought that these no-interest loans/free money would just last forever. Partially. The first nail in the coffin was the change in assumptions around output. Before 2023, there was an assumption that more bodies means more output. After the massive X/Twitter…

> It's harder to layoff someone you have had beers or coffee with

Interesting, in my experience this hasn't mattered at all. Generally those close enough to an employee to have had beers with them aren't the ones making any decisions related to layoffs, and may themselves be on the chopping block.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#485

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

nradov wrote: post #382
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is pretty spot on. It's already been mentioned a ton before how many of these "we're having layoffs to better utilize AI" stories are really just cover for axing lots of unprofitable projects that were birthed during the ZIRP/early pandemic era. I think the additional wrinkle with AI is that it's having an impact, just not really in the way these execs are saying. Before ChatGPT, there was lots of specul…

There's still enormous potential for technology solutions in the healthcare space. The population in every developed country is getting older and sicker. AI can help a little bit with building those solutions but there are no magic bullets: we still need lots of people grinding away on hard problems.

Perhaps this is too US-centric, but as someone who used to work in health fintech, I strongly disagree.

The US healthcare system is well and truly f'd, but I think 98% of these issue are government and society policy issues. If anything, I see so many companies trying to take advantage of the complete dysfunction in the US healthcare system to be yet another middlemen siphoning money from systemwide inefficiencies.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#486

Post by SanjayMehta »

princevegeta89 wrote: post #438
neya wrote: post #421

> today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: > i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. > i’m sorry to put you through this. POV: Dude who has effortlessly fired people before deflects blame for over-hiring in the first place. I swear people should start blacklisting CEOs an…

>>I had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. I chose the latter. Jesus.. why do CEOs and other executive members end up writing such useless language in their posts....! Essentially, both these points are the same if you look at the employees. However, the writing has to be bloated in such a way that there is something else involve…

> such useless language in their posts

"Your call is very important to us."

"We take security very seriously."

PR speak + copy/paste and now LLMs.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#487

Post by vessenes »

danpalmer wrote: post #353
senko wrote: post #254

This is one of the best (if not the best) layoff letters I've seen online (no affiliation, don't know anyone working there, purely outsider perspective). * Severance packages upfront because realistically that's what everyone worries about first. * Reasoning second. I appreciate the one clean cut vs prolonged bleeding. * Owning the decision and respecting the people that got you there. Opting for an awkward allhands…

> I appreciate the one clean cut vs prolonged bleeding. That's a false dichotomy, you could reduce headcount via attrition which is better in some ways. There's also no reasoning on product impact. Is the strategy to cut products that aren't making money? Is the strategy to cut 40% across everyone because everyone can go faster? > Owning the decision Does it? It came across to me as an inevitability of AI, not "we ov…

You cannot attrite 40% of the company in 5 months, without creating an incredibly toxic environment. Dorsey knows this; ultimately he lost Twitter over his inability to right size it. I would bet dollars to donuts he promised himself he wouldn't do it again - under no circumstances is 40% cut over six months preferable to a clean fast cut.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#488

Post by [deleted] »

keeda wrote: post #452
neya wrote: post #421

> today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: > i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. > i’m sorry to put you through this. POV: Dude who has effortlessly fired people before deflects blame for over-hiring in the first place. I swear people should start blacklisting CEOs an…

> I swear people should start blacklisting CEOs and refuse to work under them if they're part of the blacklist. Look at the job market. They know they can get away with it and so they don't care. My current theory is that this is partly why executives are desperate to get AI to work, and why investors are ploughing billions into AI. They know they've burnt too many bridges, and they need AI to work so they never have…

[deleted]

Re: Layoffs at Block

#489

Post by _heimdall »

hirsin wrote: post #321
alephnerd wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm convinced that these "AI Layoffs" are these companies trying to save face from the absurd overhiring that they did in 2022 and 2023 because apparently they thought that these no-interest loans/free money would just last forever. Partially. The first nail in the coffin was the change in assumptions around output. Before 2023, there was an assumption that more bodies means more output. After the massive X/Twitter…

The Twitter layoffs being used as proof of _anything_ is misguided no matter what you're trying to say. If success is losing half their revenue, reverting to revenue numbers from a decade ago, I gotta know what failure looks like. You might argue that the revenue losses aren't correlated to their headcount changes and probably make a good argument, but I mean... It's not a great one

I've never seen the motivation behind buying Twitter to have been revenue, or free speech for that matter. Elon wanted a unique content source to train LLMs on and he got it. Whether that proves out as a good training dataset is still up in the air, but I can't imagine he cared about Twitter revenue.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#490

Post by Bayko »

shaftway wrote: post #444
senko wrote: post #254

This is one of the best (if not the best) layoff letters I've seen online (no affiliation, don't know anyone working there, purely outsider perspective). * Severance packages upfront because realistically that's what everyone worries about first. * Reasoning second. I appreciate the one clean cut vs prolonged bleeding. * Owning the decision and respecting the people that got you there. Opting for an awkward allhands…

It should be good. It's the third time he's written this exact same announcement, including "taking the blame" and "making the difficult choice to cut a large group instead of smaller cuts over time" and "thanking the expendables that got the company where it is."

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