SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#491

Post by AdrianB1 » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 8:21 PM UTC

ecshafer wrote: post #442

AdrianB1 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is normal to layoff about 5% per year, you trim the one in the 20 that is the weakest and it has positive, not negative effects. Going to 10% is a bit stretch, but still workable. In the last companies I worked, if up to 20% of the people left one day it would have an immediate positive impact on the performance, less complexity to deal with and more focus to work on real stuff.

5% is insane, I would never work for a company that regularly laid off that many people. Firing under performers is one thing, but to systematically clear house is toxic. How are you supposed to build a career if one of your coworkers/friends is canned every year, so everyone is wondering what year is theirs? So people overwork themselves to make sure it doesn't happen to them. You need to show your employees safety,…

5% is normal attrition in a company, depending on the specifics it can be even higher. The difference is between people that leave on their own (good or bad) and shaving the lowest 5% out. In this world most companies don't have very high standards, even mid-performers can be quite bad. If you are in any way competent, you'd never have any such problems.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#492

Post by icpmacdo » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

7e wrote: post #447

MarcysVonEylau wrote: post #438

It all makes sense when you look at basic facts. Rocket reuse became a normal occurance, probably earlier than the majority of the industry anticipated. Their competitive pricing took the market by storm, changing the equation of sending anything to space. There are less new payloads to launch in 2019, because it takes much longer to contract and build a satellite than to send it to space, and the market hasn't yet a…

The launch market is very small and it's always taken longer to build a satellite than to provision the launch vehicle. These layoffs are a direct result of SpaceX's recent failures to raise money.

Can you link to the failure to raise money? I thought they just secured 500 million.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#493

Post by yholio » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 8:29 PM UTC

njarboe wrote: post #441

sitkack wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they can't justify keeping those people around I would have put them on other Musk projects to keep them from going to the competition. SpaceX doesn't have a monopoly on low cost launch. The next place to figure out how to 3d print a tungsten titanium copper nickel chromium iron one piece rocket nozzle will also have that advantage.

If Musk is really more interested in getting humanity into space as soon as possible then padding his already large bankroll, having some competition can really keep people and companies focused on making quick progress. I have heard him say he would like some more companies competing with SpaceX in interviews for just this reason and his actions seem to suggest he his main goal in life really is making humanity a mu…

Musk is incredibly stretched and has very nearly missed bankruptcy several times. It seems highly unlikely he can afford the largesse to hand over any business to his competitors. A SpaceX-2 without billions sunk in R&D could drastically undercut their launch prices and capture the lion's share of the market, without having any intention to go to Mars. This would be great for the launch market and access to LEO but would delay colonization.

It's pretty clear Musk sees his for profit endeavors - Tesla, commercial and government launches, Starlink - as cash cows for a long term investment into something no one in the market is yet ready to finance. Until that changes and Mars becomes an interesting commercial proposition, Musk will ruthlessly pursue his business and leave nothing on the table, precisely to acquire the funds to bootstrap his vision.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#494

Post by amayne » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 8:29 PM UTC

russellbeattie wrote: post #377

aristophenes wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two points in rebuttal. First, companies can expand more confidently if they know they can reduce more easily if they need to. It is more efficient for companies to be able to right-size themselves. Bolstering this point of view is that the USA has a 4% unemployment rate, which is about as low as you can get without things starting to break down. The US economy has been outperforming almost everyone too, creating mor…

That 4% number is complete crap, and you know it. Even if it was accurate, which it isn't, 48% of the U.S. earn less than $30k a year [1] with few benefits. Corporations need to be flexible, but they also need to provide stable long-term employment so our society can grow and prosper. When Henry Ford launched the Model T, he made sure to pay his workers $5 a day so they could actually afford to buy the cars. It was a…

The Ford pay thing is poorly understood. The factory had ridiculously high turnover and it severely impacted productivity. Nearly half the $5 wage came from a bonus after a committee visited your home and decided you were living morally according to Henry Ford’s standards: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/04/the-stor...

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#495

Post by amunategui » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 8:35 PM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #135

freewilly1040 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1x1 scenario still involves calling the laid off employees into meetings in sequence while everyone else stresses out wondering if they are next. Layoffs are brutal no matter what you do.

Not only that, but as someone who has been through this in the past... What happens is you find out your department or wing of the building is next. You continue to try to do your job, meanwhile your manager starts walking towards you and stops at a couple cubicles down from you. You breath a slight sigh of relief. Meanwhile you and everyone else is prairie-dogging as others in the office start getting called out, an…

Great description - horrendous thing to go through.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#496

Post by amayne » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 8:39 PM UTC

the8472 wrote: post #375

aristophenes wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two points in rebuttal. First, companies can expand more confidently if they know they can reduce more easily if they need to. It is more efficient for companies to be able to right-size themselves. Bolstering this point of view is that the USA has a 4% unemployment rate, which is about as low as you can get without things starting to break down. The US economy has been outperforming almost everyone too, creating mor…

> Bolstering this point of view is that the USA has a 4% unemployment rate As a counterpoint, Germany has much stronger employee protection laws and unions and has a comparable unemployment rate. That said, resizing is still possible there, it just has some lag.

Germany counts its non-labor workforce very differently than the US. It’s hard to make a comparison (people over 58 aren’t counted, etc.)

I don’t know if it’s better or worse, just different.

https://www.dw.com/en/debunking-the-myth-of-low-german-unemp...

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#497

Post by teleclimber » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 8:54 PM UTC

roedog wrote: post #208

The SoCal aerospace job market is hot right now. The driver is multiple large program starts at multiple contractors who are competing for people. This should make it possible for everyone to land on their feet. (I've reached out to my former colleagues who left to join Space X) What's odd is why SpaceX is cutting staff with the new development underway on the larger rockets and the satellite business. I'm curious ab…

> What's odd is why SpaceX is cutting staff with the new development underway on the larger rockets and the satellite business.

You're missing that they finished up falcon heavy development last spring, falcon 9 block 5 a little later, and crew dragon is finishing up now. That's a lot of development manpower freed up. To much for starship probably, and I don't know if many of the launcher skills are applicable to satellites.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#498

Post by syntaxing » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 8:59 PM UTC

AdrianB1 wrote: post #425

syntaxing wrote: post #410

It's not unsual to layoff 10% of your workforce in hardware companies but it is unusual for a "growing" company. To put in perspective Pratt and Whitney laid off about 10-15% a couple years ago when they were in between the phasing out of the old engine and ramping up the new engine. Sometimes companies are unlucky because there is a drought where the demand for the new stuff is lower than the demand of old stuff but…

It is normal to layoff about 5% per year, you trim the one in the 20 that is the weakest and it has positive, not negative effects. Going to 10% is a bit stretch, but still workable. In the last companies I worked, if up to 20% of the people left one day it would have an immediate positive impact on the performance, less complexity to deal with and more focus to work on real stuff.

To expand on this point, when you hear layoffs you probably immediately think about the engineers given the demographic of this site and how you wouldn't working for a company like this. However, layoffs have a tendency to hit sales and production harder than the technical team. Production and sales usually outnumber engineers to begin with and has a higher turnover rate due to the nature of the work.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#499

Post by theptip » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

kurthr wrote: post #451

HeadsUpHigh wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX switched from carbon fiber construction for their next rocket to stainless steel. My guess is at least a big part of this workforce reduction relates to people involved in cf which are no longer needed. Additionally they had a lot of people working on crew dragon which as it now nears it's launch might not be needed any more( e.g. pica heatshield, electronics, software developers etc). Same goes for the now ma…

I just don't buy the Carbon Fiber vs Stainless construction. They aren't used for the same thing (low weight structural stiffness vs heat conduction, radiation & appearance). From what I understand it was a water tank contactor that did the hopper in Boca Chica... and it will never face lanch/re-entry stresses. That won't replace anyone.

> They aren't used for the same thing

The old BFR design had a large carbon-fiber hull, the new one has a stainless steel hull. Unless I'm missing your point, that's a major piece of the rocket that's no longer made with carbon fiber. (The giant molds that they were building for the BFR hull, for example, are now redundant.)

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#500

Post by johnchristopher » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 9:25 PM UTC

SerialOwl wrote: post #490

johnchristopher wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees rarely leave for "arbitrary" reasons.

When I left my previous employer, the reason was absolutely arbitrary. The new one paid more. I didn't have to wait for the old company to not pay me the agreed upon salary, spend months offering them a "compensation improvement plan", and documenting their failure to follow it in fear that they might sue me for leaving for the "wrong" reason. It's amazing how people pretend at-will employment is somehow equal for bo…

> When I left my previous employer, the reason was absolutely arbitrary. The new one paid more.

That is literally the inverse of what arbitrary means:

existing or coming about seemingly at random or by chance or as a capricious and unreasonable act of will

Now:

> I didn't have to wait for the old company to not pay me the agreed upon salary, spend months offering them a "compensation improvement plan", and documenting their failure to follow it in fear that they might sue me for leaving for the "wrong" reason. It's amazing how people pretend at-will employment is somehow equal for both sides when only employees can actually terminate the employment at-will.

Where I live you have (it's the law) to keep on working (and being paid for that work) for a certain number of weeks (depending on how long you have been working at that company). So the company can find a replacement, so you can wrap up things and pave the way for the transition. It's not rare that you can come up with an agreement that let you do that from home (because you are leaving on bad terms) or that the employee takes his vacant days or extra hours to fill up that period.