Snap expects layoffs to save $34M a year • Hacker News Board

Re: Snap expects layoffs to save $34M a year

#61

Post by xstartup » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 9:46 AM UTC

lulmerchant wrote: post #50

pm90 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People said that about Facebook as well and yet now its super profitable. Not disagreeing with what you say; I would be very interested in a side by side analysis of FB and SNAP to see why one succeeded and one is struggling. Perhaps one main reason is simply that FB is aggressively trying to kill SNAP whereas FB itself didn't have that kind of a determined opponent.

They're not really comparable when you look at the numbers. Facebook had 500 million active users, a steadily growing user base (1 billion was projected within a year at the time of the IPO), and a clear monetisation strategy. Snap had 150 million active users, most importantly it's growth was seriously stunted, and it's monetisation strategy was rather 2 dimensional. Facebook IPO'd at around $100 billion, Snap IPO'd…

Why the growth stunted for SNAP? Maybe it's because FB did smth?

Re: Snap expects layoffs to save $34M a year

#62

Post by CocaKoala » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

pkaye wrote: post #56

CocaKoala wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the 400k/year is cost per employee, which does not directly translate to "paychecks and benefits per employee". The employer pays payroll taxes, needs to pay rent on square footage for the office to support the employee, etc. That's all going into cost per employee, but isn't money the employee sees directly.

Assume 200k/year in the employee salary. Break down how much the other things you mentioned above will add?

From some quick googling:

Office space in San Francisco is ~$5 per square foot per month, and an employee needs somewhere between 100-250 square feet of office space. So if you give them a small 175 square feet, then you're at ten grand per year.

Medicare is %2.9 percent of salary, half paid by the employee and half by the employer. Social security is %12.4 percent, again split between employer/employee for 6.2 percent from each. . It looks like California's unemployment tax is another %4.2

I have no idea what the average cost per employee things like health insurance and other benefits cost; I'm sure you can google as expertly as I can, so now that I've shown some good faith in giving you a starting point I trust you're willing to take it to the finish line.

There's probably some other taxes that I'm missing, since I don't run a business and have never had call to learn about the ins and outs of these things. Usually it comes up in conversations around negotiating for raises to give somebody some perspective about how much they care about an extra ten grand a year (a lot) versus how much their employer cares (it's basically a rounding error compared to how much their bottom line for retaining an employee is).

Re: Snap expects layoffs to save $34M a year

#63

Post by iaw » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 6:22 PM UTC

gxs wrote: post #4

rtx wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was documentary posted here yesterday, The China Hustle. It showed Chinese companies showing fake transactions to boost revenue numbers. This could be that kind of scam, hire lots of people to show growth.

You are right, it's definitely a possibility. But as an aside, when I worked as Zenefits, we hired irresponsibly, but the intentions weren't to be deceptive; the mistake was thinking that the hockey stick curve would climb forever.

Look, at this rate in ten years we'll be making 10x global GDP! Just have to make sure we keep up on hiring...