LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide • Hacker News Board

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#61

Post by drchopchop » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #16

LaundroMat wrote: post #4

960 is 6% of the global LinkedIn workforce. I am baffled by how many people work for LinkedIn.

I'm baffled by that number given how bad the product is. It has a lot of potential, but is completely ruined by the social media aspect and their attempt at making it yet another cesspool like Twitter or Instagram, all the way down to the algorithmic feed, likes and reactions. They should step away from the nonsense and make the tool (because yes it should be seen as a tool and not a lifestyle) easier to use, not har…

I think at this point, for most people, LinkedIn just serves as a repository for formatted resumes. Connections add a bit of value, as you can see where co-workers end up in the future.

The real problem is that for anyone with decent-sounding title, the amount of inbound spam is incredibly high. Endless outsourced development companies, recruiters, and random people wanting to connect for no discernible reason. Add to that a bunch of low-quality blogging, and I can't see how anyone can really enjoy spending time on the service.

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#62

Post by 12xo » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

CrackpotGonzo wrote: post #45

12xo wrote: post #37

What the heck do close to 10k people do at LinkedIn? Serious question. Why does this site/company require 10k people?

Sales.

Its mostly self-service and partner driven (programmatic). As an ex VP of Ad Sales, I just dont see the need... My guess is that they have several thousand offshore devs and a lot of fat from acquisitions.

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#63

Post by blocked_again » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

saas_sam wrote: post #47

blocked_again wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please link this comment in your careers page, under company culture, if you ever start a company.

Businesses earn money by providing goods & services better than alternatives. Charities earn money by begging. I'd rather work for a business.

You do know that a lot of these people were working just as hard as you are and were let go off for no fault of their own in the middle of a pandemic?

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#64

Post by saas_sam » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

blocked_again wrote: post #63

saas_sam wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses earn money by providing goods & services better than alternatives. Charities earn money by begging. I'd rather work for a business.

You do know that a lot of these people were working just as hard as you are and were let go off for no fault of their own in the middle of a pandemic?

Yes, and the employees that remain should thank them for their hard work and help them find new jobs. If LinkedIn could easily employ an extra 1,000 people without risking the 10,000 that remain, they would've hired an extra 1,000 a year ago. Doesn't work that way.

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#65

Post by retzkek » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

curiousllama wrote: post #8

Companies commonly use layoffs as an easy way to get rid of under-performing staff, realize cost savings from previous investments (e.g., automation) ahead of schedule, or efficiently reorganize divisions whose execs fall out of favor. Not going to say this is good, but a However callous it is, roles on the margin get cut when prospects for growth dim.

> a So, almost literally decimate in the classical sense? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#66

Post by yibg » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

12xo wrote: post #60

blizkreeg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't think $7B of revenue in 2019 merits 10k people? Do you think you can run that size of a business with 500?

Yes you can. Look at Craigslist or POF.com for examples. But I also forgot that LI owns Lynda.com, so there are a lot of redundancies over there.

Neither craigslist nor POF generates 7 billion in revenue. Latest number I can find for craigslist is around 700m in 2016, let’s assume it’s 1b now. And let’s assume they have 1 employee. You don’t think hiring an additional 10k employees to get an extra 6b in revenue is worth it?

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#67

Post by 12xo » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

mason55 wrote: post #59

12xo wrote: post #37

What the heck do close to 10k people do at LinkedIn? Serious question. Why does this site/company require 10k people?

This question comes up on every post about a big tech company. LinkedIn in a global company operating commercially in probably almost every country. The "social network for work" part is easy but when you start talking about things like job listings across the world and then the sales and account management and local office management and compliance and the internal tools and billing and everything else, it's quite e…

I am not surprise, just amazed that a site which is mostly self service and runs on UGC needs anywhere near this many people to operate. But then again, most of the people are probably hold-overs from acquisitions. As an ex VP of Ad Sales, I dont see how they'd need this many people in sales. Its almost all automated self-serve and partner driven. Even with a large US based team to manage the big spends, you're still not needing a large staff... But then again, these types of orgs tend to be filled with a lot of mediocre talent and suffer from BigDumbCompany syndrome...

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#68

Post by dyingkneepad » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

6c696e7578 wrote: post #33

On top of everything else, I think this goes to show how expensive Azure infrastructure really is.

How is this related to this news? Yes, I know both are owned by MSFT, but I'll need more info.

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#69

Post by saas_sam » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

wastedhours wrote: post #51

saas_sam wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally everything your company pays for is out of individual departmental budgets? You can't do internal chargebacks, shared services, or move budget around if needed? I've never worked anywhere w/ the kinda crystal ball required to make rigid dept budgets work year-round, personally.

The barriers for shifting cash around were really high, and only allowed at half ends where it had to be returned centrally and then reallocated based on business case. Less than a certain amount and you literally couldn't move it out of a department (spend it or lose it) - you could shift it inside the department easily enough, but we as marketing and them as HR couldn't do it. > the kinda crystal ball required to m…

I haven't had that joy, thankfully. But I do routinely have the joy of working with execs to reallocate spend for my products/services. The era of carefully planning out purchases 12 mos in advance is long past. Unplanned, 6-figure software expenditures are the norm now -- and companies that can make that happen without too much bureaucracy are reaping the rewards.

Re: LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide

#70

Post by decafninja » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

12xo wrote: post #37

What the heck do close to 10k people do at LinkedIn? Serious question. Why does this site/company require 10k people?

I've interviewed for roles at several top tech companies and what surprised me was that there were entire teams dedicated to working on what seemed like a tiny feature or functionality. In some cases, two entire teams - one for frontend, one for backend.

Granted, I understand there is a HUGE mind boggling level of scale involved.

But still, after going on such interviews, and talking with friends who work at FAANG, etc. it sounds like my boring mediocre job as a bank SWE is more involved and exciting than some of these FAANG jobs.

But I'd still jump through flaming hoops to jump ship to a FAANG or similar tech company.