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Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

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Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#51

Post by andsoitis »

germinalphrase wrote: post #33
andsoitis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CEO's job (responsibility) is not to give people jobs, but to steer a company for success on behalf of the owners. If your comment ("CEO takes full responsibility") is suggesting s/he should be fired or compensation reduced because of their misread of the future, that would be quite silly. Companies don't fire people for making mistakes (in fact if you make no mistakes you probably should be let go because you're…

"Reducing comp as punishment would also not make sense, for obvious reasons." If leadership is financially incentivized for positive outcomes, why shouldn't they carry downside financial risk as well?

If a leader makes poor decision after another, they will be penalized by the board (either in job prospects, having this job, or compensation).

Ultimately, the comp for the CEO is set by the board and that is determined by supply/demand (which inputes performance of the CEO). Penalizing someone for one mistake in anticipating the future would make a company so risk averse that returns would be very low - not a good outcome for the owners.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#52

Post by RohMin »

idopmstuff wrote: post #26
RohMin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Empathy for those laid off shouldn't vary based on visa status. These are real people losing their jobs, searching for another job in an already saturated market.

I completely disagree. Not all job losses are the same, and visa status makes an enormous difference in the consequences of losing one's job. I've been laid off. At the time, I had plenty of savings and nobody depending on me besides my dog. I took some time off and was later able to find a new job. The company didn't have any H-1Bs at the time, but if it did they certainly would've been in a much worse situation tha…

I feel that the original post rubbed me the wrong way. The whole "others have it worse, so toughen up" doesn't serve to help anyone.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#53

Post by toxican »

f6v wrote: post #23
voytec wrote: post #3

The real question is: does the CEO take full responsibility?

I mean, it’s a funny joke. But this attitude only upsets people who thought jobs were not transactional. Kind of reminds me of stories by people who paid for sex and found out the sex worker didn’t want to cuddle afterwards.

I mean it's not like the sex worker spends the entire session talking about how they're all in it together and they're a team and then at the end releases a public statement about how difficult the decision not to cuddle was for them.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#54

Post by triceratops »

f6v wrote: post #23
voytec wrote: post #3

The real question is: does the CEO take full responsibility?

I mean, it’s a funny joke. But this attitude only upsets people who thought jobs were not transactional. Kind of reminds me of stories by people who paid for sex and found out the sex worker didn’t want to cuddle afterwards.

> But this attitude only upsets people who thought jobs were not transactional

It's entirely possible to believe your job is transactional while expecting accountability for all underperforming colleagues, at all levels. Rather than just the rank-and-file.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#55

Post by bombcar »

mcv wrote: post #24

I really get the feeling that many companies are just blindly doing whatever other companies do. One starts large layoffs, and suddenly everybody is doing it. At other times, when one goes on a hiring spree, they all go. One tries to reduce salaries, they all do. One pays enormous bonuses, and they all do. It's like CEOs aren't really thinking for themselves, just copying whatever the market does.

The CEO answers to the board, and the board is usually of the type to at least ask the question "Everyone is jumping off a bridge, why aren't we?"

And sadly the easiest answer is "we ARE jumping off the bridge, see?"

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#56

Post by InTheArena »

Oh my sweet summer child....

As someone who lived through the .COM crash and implosion and then 2008, any company with "strong cash reserves" and "trajectory to profitability" is not making more money than they are spending. They are, to use the SV term - losing runway. This is catastrophic because it's infeasible to raise money right now to extend the runway. If the plane is not airborne (making significantly more money than they are consuming) by the end of the runway, they crash and burn, taking themselves and the company's investors with them.

My experience has been highly capitalized, but running way in the red are the worst possible place to hide when a significant economic event occurs. Confluent has raised capital 11 times (from a quick crunchbase article) and has a product that is open source core, giving its customers an escape path.

I'd also point out that this is a bit snowflake. The average annual corporate turnover rate is way higher then this number. If not for the immediacy of the headwinds, almost every company could handle this by simply not rehiring after attrition.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#57

Post by markus_zhang »

scarface74 wrote: post #7
voytec wrote: post #3

The real question is: does the CEO take full responsibility?

I don’t get this mentality. From a meta level, Confluent isn’t profitable. In this environment, what would you have Confluent to do? The second point, a job is always transactional, you exchange labor for money and at any given time, either party can stop that transaction Also, if you are a tech person in any major city in the US, you are more than likely making at least twice the median wage in that city. If others…

As long as CXO takes real responsibility by cutting their salary to a significant percentage and refusing stock refreshers (or whatever called) I'm fine. By saying "I take full responsibility" but still maintains the original pay is not convincing. Since tech CXOs usually take very large stock and cash compensations (well into multi-millions), just imagine how much cost can be saved by cutting all CXO compensation by 50%.

The company can also initiate a vote of all employees to remove this cut of CXO compensations, so that if CXO is really doing well overall I'm sure he will be recognized and his compensation defended by the whole company.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#58

Post by tetrep »

mcv wrote: post #24

I really get the feeling that many companies are just blindly doing whatever other companies do. One starts large layoffs, and suddenly everybody is doing it. At other times, when one goes on a hiring spree, they all go. One tries to reduce salaries, they all do. One pays enormous bonuses, and they all do. It's like CEOs aren't really thinking for themselves, just copying whatever the market does.

I think it's less blindly doing and more seeing your attractive friends dieting and becoming more self-conscious about your own weight.

I don't want to give reactionary CEOs too much credit, but I dont think it's fair to describe it as blind.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#59

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

mcv wrote: post #24

I really get the feeling that many companies are just blindly doing whatever other companies do. One starts large layoffs, and suddenly everybody is doing it. At other times, when one goes on a hiring spree, they all go. One tries to reduce salaries, they all do. One pays enormous bonuses, and they all do. It's like CEOs aren't really thinking for themselves, just copying whatever the market does.

I would venture that word of mouth is spreading among the elites who are on the boards of all these companies - a storm is coming so everything needs to get tied down - so the CEO’s as captains of the ships are following the advice.

Whether the storm actually hits, what gets wrecked, what doesn’t. That is a completely separate issue to these people.

Re: Tell HN: Confluent laying off 8% of staff

#60

Post by equalsione »

mcv wrote: post #24

I really get the feeling that many companies are just blindly doing whatever other companies do. One starts large layoffs, and suddenly everybody is doing it. At other times, when one goes on a hiring spree, they all go. One tries to reduce salaries, they all do. One pays enormous bonuses, and they all do. It's like CEOs aren't really thinking for themselves, just copying whatever the market does.

From November, 2022

"Activist investor TCI Fund Management is calling on Google's parent Alphabet to pursue aggressive cost cutting on the back of a hiring spree during the pandemic, claiming the business could be more efficiently run."

- https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/16/tci_fund_google_cut_c...

I would assume Google was no the only one to receive such a letter, nor were TCI Fund Management the only investment fund sending out such letters

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