51–60 of 219 posts
Layoffs are going to suck regardless, but this is one of the best severance packages I've seen in this wave: * 15 weeks base pay + 1 week per year of employment * 6 months COBRA + $300 mental health * no 1-yr cliff, options can be exercised thru next year * you can keep all your equipment
Crazy. Usually it's just "Pay stops today, benefits at the end of the month. Hand in your badge - off you go."
Layoffs are going to suck regardless, but this is one of the best severance packages I've seen in this wave: * 15 weeks base pay + 1 week per year of employment * 6 months COBRA + $300 mental health * no 1-yr cliff, options can be exercised thru next year * you can keep all your equipment
Crazy. Usually it's just "Pay stops today, benefits at the end of the month. Hand in your badge - off you go."
> I am very sad to make this decision. It’s a consequence of the approach that Matt and I took in scaling the company over the last year, and we take full responsibility for the impact that will have on the lives of our departing team members. Why do CEO's always say this empty nonsense. If you accept responsibility, you accept consequences - what consequences is Geoff Schmidt going to be facing? Hurt feelings? Give…
I tell potential hires explicitly that this can fail, and that there's a runway, and that it's uncertain. I've seen so many places try to sell people that it's just kicking ass all the way to the bank.
So, when a CEO makes this kind of statement, I would refer back to the initial messaging before getting out my coals and rake. Nobody made anyone sign on to a nascent software company. It absolutely sucks to find yourself without income, but you've got to know your risk tolerance. And, by that, I mean you need to know how well you tolerate risk, and you need to know your exposure. If management wasn't forthright, well, that's really shitty.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're talking about Brooks's law, that's a pretty specific observation that doesn't seem like it applies here. It's very specifically about adding workers to a project that is already behind schedule. It doesn't certainly doesn't mean anything as broad as "a company cannot do more things by increasing its employee count."
But of the reasons Books gives, most apply regardless of the project being late, such as the communication overhead and the fact that splitting the project neatly is difficult.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
just curious, can one collect unemployment during severance?
not an expert, but my understanding is it depends on how the severance is paid off. If the company keeps you on payroll and pays you weekly, then you cannot collect unemployment. If the company gives you a lump sum then you may be able to. If a condition of the severance is that you sign a document saying you are quitting instead of being fired, then you cannot collect unemployment. My understanding comes from recent…
This is false. If a company makes you sign a statement that you are quitting instead of being fired as a condition of getting severance, they are committing unemployment insurance fraud and are subject to civil and criminal sanction in most states.
(The point of trying to make employees do this is to avoid claims against the company's unemployment insurance account in the state. How UI works differs from state to state, but in all instances claims against UI increases the company's ongoing UI expense.)
Why are software companies still grappling with the mythical man month? You'd think by now we'd have learned our lesson. More hands /= more productivity, at least on a linear scale
Less often, but much better, are people being hired and put onto new teams, focused on new projects and products. Developers can scale horizontally, but not vertically.
> I am very sad to make this decision. It’s a consequence of the approach that Matt and I took in scaling the company over the last year, and we take full responsibility for the impact that will have on the lives of our departing team members. Why do CEO's always say this empty nonsense. If you accept responsibility, you accept consequences - what consequences is Geoff Schmidt going to be facing? Hurt feelings? Give…
The business they built is failing. The emotional toll is extreme. Founders I know are either in poor health due to stress, or place an outsized emphasis on staying healthy. You and others who post this every time seem to be saying "Ah yes, you're not suffering enough in my eyes". How much suffering is enough? Should your degree of blood thirst be applied to employee actions? Are blameless retrospectives a mistake an…
> I am very sad to make this decision. It’s a consequence of the approach that Matt and I took in scaling the company over the last year, and we take full responsibility for the impact that will have on the lives of our departing team members. Why do CEO's always say this empty nonsense. If you accept responsibility, you accept consequences - what consequences is Geoff Schmidt going to be facing? Hurt feelings? Give…
This comes up every thread about layoffs -- accepting responsibility means not passing the buck and saying "it was out of our control!" or "this was due to outside circumstance X". The explicit consequences are up to the owners of the company, not the court of public opinion. The owners wouldn't be beyond their rights to demand the CEO's resignation, although neither are they obligated to do that either since everyon…
Unless there is someone else who can do better job, it doesn't make sense for him to step down. However, I do wonder if it would appeasing to take voluntary pay cut as a more visible form of taking responsibility. Just a thought.
Is there a reason why these big layoffs are done just before thanksgiving, Christmas etc?