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Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

blog.dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#501

Post by geodel »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #435
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that should make that person one of the people on proverbial track That's a satisfying thing to say, but as practical advice it's absolutely terrible . Often that person's leadership wasn't the problem, but even when it was, that doesn't necessarily mean that the company will be better-off without them. And that's the question -- what will make the company most likely to be the most successful going forward? Even if…

> Often that person's leadership wasn't the problem Then what is the problem? Ultimately you’re paid the big bucks for being held responsible. Why isn’t it never something like the CEO doesn’t get any stocks that year. I’m not saying he needs to leave the company but maybe he should take a substantial hit to his pay. He has enough money to put food on the table for many years, unlike the people who are let go where i…

Held responsible for what? The what part is written in contract for execs, movie stars, sport persons. I have not seen in any category people not getting paid per their contract for poor performance.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#502

Post by pjmlp »

anon291 wrote: post #485
pjmlp wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, MBAs have to learn exponential growth is impossible to accomplish forever. Companies should be managed to be profitable, while paying employees and business expenses. Anything other is a pipe dream that eventually blows up, but since only employees suffer while the MBA guys go to become CEO of yet another adventure, who cares. /s

The myth of exponential growth is not that companies can't grow exponentially forever (since that's the case for most companies) but rather that the valuation of these companies depends on exponential growth (it does not). Most public companies in the United states do not experience the exponential growth many tech startups do, but do perfectly well for themselves, their customers, and their employees. No one is push…

Except that isn't what happens, instead every year a new goal that has to be X % higher is set, and when expectations are not met, the employees are the ones landing on the street for stupid values of X%.

The one signing off on X% might even get a bonus for doing that, and enjoy some Bahamas vacations.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#503

Post by s1artibartfast »

keybored wrote: post #455
csallen wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People enjoy having a purpose and a mission in life. Leading a team of people that you put together, in order to improve a project you started, and knowing that doing so will improve both your lives and theirs, is incredibly fulfilling. Even if the day-to-day is full of hardships. In fact, working to overcome hardship is one of the primary source of meaning in life. Kids are another example. They're expensive, they'r…

Dreaming of winning the lottery and Going On Permanent Yacht Vacation is precisely the difference between being a worn out low-level worker and being a high-level executive who has all their needs met (or at least has the resources to have them met). With the latter you can have enough resources for you next ten generations and still go to work and optimize shareholder profits while thinking to yourself that you are…

you are not wrong, but I don't think that is necessarily a huge criticism.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#504

Post by anon291 »

cruffle_duffle wrote: post #366
gcr wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The severance packages suck. COBRA is the single largest expense for departing employees. Industry standard is to offer 18 months, not 6. Many job searches take longer than 6 months, so employees will be left high and dry right when they need it most.

> COBRA is the single largest expense for departing employees. Life pro tip: Do not use COBRA!!!!! It is almost always much, much cheaper to find an ACA compliant healthcare plan on your state's health insurance market. For one thing the plans will often be cheaper (though with fewer features). For another ACA plans qualify for tax credits, etc and COBRA doesn't. When I got laid off I made one of the worst financial…

Forget ACA compliant health plans. When I was laid off, since my income / week was $0 (Oregon), we just got medicaid for my kids, and pregnant wife, and I paid an extremely modest amount for a solid plan. There is no reason to use COBRA. It's a relic and probably should be done away with.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#505

Post by anon291 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #423
cruffle_duffle wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> COBRA is the single largest expense for departing employees. Life pro tip: Do not use COBRA!!!!! It is almost always much, much cheaper to find an ACA compliant healthcare plan on your state's health insurance market. For one thing the plans will often be cheaper (though with fewer features). For another ACA plans qualify for tax credits, etc and COBRA doesn't. When I got laid off I made one of the worst financial…

COBRA can be good if you are on a platinum plan and have a lot of foreseeable health expenses. HDHP COBRA makes no sense at all.

Please check though, because my kids qualified for medicaid despite my six-figure income. The state of Oregon qualifies by week, so even if you made $10 million / year, if your expected income in the week is $0, you qualify for that week (yes, I literally asked them this question, and he said yes, that is how it works). According to our DHS, there is no upper limit on yearly income that would mandate a clawback of benefits received[1] . And in Oregon at least, OHP is accepted everywhere, and is usually better than the platinum plans (no payments taken from users, ever)

[1] As another example, I asked if I didn't work Jan - Nov, and then made $10 million in December, would my kids qualify for mediacid Jan - Nov, and he said yes.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#506

Post by _yb2s »

gardenhedge wrote: post #472
_yb2s wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One hardly needs $2B to slack off on a boat in the Caribbean… many people do so on surprisingly nice ~30 foot sailboats you can buy with a few months work at minimum wage, and wild seafood is free I see a lot of people that say “If I won the lottery I’d….” and then describe something they could definitely do without winning the lottery… which makes me think they still would not actually do so if they won

If you win the lottery there's no risk in doing it

Sure there is- opportunity cost, the real dangers and skills required to operate a vessel at sea, etc. You can pay a professional crew to do everything for you, but then you'll probably feel pretty useless, and be looked down upon by the people you meet along your journey that do it themselves.

The sea doesn't care how rich you are, and being a helpless dependent is boring and infantilizing no matter how big your boat - and you don't develop skills without taking risks.

Ultimately, I don't think people are often that conscious of their real goals and motivations. It's easy to say you have no choices in life because of financial and time constraints, but I don't think those are the real reasons most people choose to do or not do things.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#507

Post by thrownaway561 »

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…

I still hate the fact that people can borrow money against a stock. Stock should be sold, period. That is how the market sets a price for stock, through the volume of it being sold and bought. By allowing people to borrow against a stock, let's them get the money for the stock while still holding it. That artificially increases the stock price and value.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#508

Post by crazygringo »

ericmcer wrote: post #376
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?

It always seemed common sense to me that once a piece of software became stable and profitable you would need a much smaller engineering staff than when it was being built. The opposite seems to happens and orgs 10X their engineer headcount once they start making money. It makes sense to keep some high performers and a few redundancies to stabilize/modernize it and make small improvements, but it feels like tech got…

> once a piece of software became stable and profitable you would need a much smaller engineering staff than when it was being built

This is not generally the case, except in monopoly situations.

Your software product generally has a competitor, and they're busy trying to make theirs better than yours -- whether with more features, better integrations, whatever it is.

So your staff size generally stays about the same in order to build more features desired by customers to prevent customers from switching to your competitor and you go out of business. And certain features, by themselves, can be more complex than the entire v1 of a product. And/or involve massive refactoring, etc.

The companies that get to reduce their team size are often because they're in a monopoly position, and then customers suffer because the software gets stagnant and the features they need don't get built. That's capitalism failing.

Also, something like an internal chat app isn't always a bad decision. If your company is above a certain size headcount, it can literally be cheaper to build small tools than to license them. Especially when you can more deeply customize and integrate them, which you often simply can't with off-the-shelf software.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#509

Post by azemetre »

Something weird I noticed about Dropbox: I cancelled my paid account two years ago. I had 5 terabytes of storage being used (mostly shitty concert vids and food pics).

Everyday they email me telling me I’m over my limit. They always “threaten” to delete the data but it’s been two years since I cancelled.

My Qs are: why are they hoarding my data for so long? Why would they want to do this? How cheap is storage for them to want to do this? How likely is it that they have sold my data to train various LLMs with?

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#510

Post by bityard »

JediPig wrote: post #471
eweise wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. last time I got laid off, I got paid through that day. nothing else.

This is why people should build a huge ass f-u fund and not look back.

Yep, this is what I do. Individual responsibility is an unpopular idea these days but the way I look at it, I am the one who is ultimately in charge of my family's wellbeing. That is far too important to entrust to a corporation's generosity or the whims of lawmakers.
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