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Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

wsj.com

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Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#61

Post by atlasunshrugged »

soneca wrote: post #49

> ”In his message Tuesday, Mr. Tenev said the new round of changes at the company are particularly concentrated in its operations, marketing and program management departments.” People here on HN often say how bad is to be an engineer in a non-tech company. It seems that it’s much worse to be a non-engineer in a tech company.

As a nontechnical person, I can say I don't blame co's for cutting these roles first. Marketing, HR, program management, etc. are great at creating additional layers and busywork that makes it seem like they're absolutely critical to a company functioning. I was mostly in sales/bd and what I did love about the job was that there were pretty objective criteria to look at to see performance- how many partnerships or deals were in the pipeline, how many did you close, what dollar value, what was the csat on closed deals, etc.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#62

Post by ghaff »

yuan43 wrote: post #34

Why not cut pay across the board? I know this is not the cultural norm, but I am curious how long this norm can persist. Without the ability to cut pay, layoffs are the only option for companies burning cash and losing altitude. That locks pay increases at the same inflated point that the bubble supported but which reality does not. To go one step further, is there a single advanced economy in which pay cuts, rather…

It can work to some degree especially at smaller companies where cash flow matters a lot.

I experienced this in the dot-com collapse but probably ripping off the bandaid is a better approach in many circumstances especially when cash flow isn't the driver.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#63

Post by sianemo »

eatonphil wrote: post #54
jrochkind1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize it's not something that happens, but I would say "taking responsibility" would mean taking, oh, I dunno, $50M of that $800M in compensation in 2021, and distributing it to those laid off? (How the hell is your life different with $750M instead of $800M anyway?)

Lots of execs take "only" $100ks of compensation in salary and the rest in stock.

He's perfectly capable of giving stock to these employees as well.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#64

Post by niyazpk »

ab_testing wrote: post #47

Somehow I feel that all these VC backed firms just add employees for the sake of adding employees. I use Tastyworks - another free online brokerage that it almost at feature parity with Robinhood. They have stocks, options, futures and even some selective crypto. They also make money using PFOF just like Robinhood. However on Linkedin, their employee count is less than 100 (99 to be precise) On the other hand, Robinh…

Sure, but also, none of my (investing) friends use Tastyworks, and almost all of them are using RH as their primary investing platform!

Companies in hyper-growth stages may hire/fire differently than others.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#65

Post by Dma54rhs »

soneca wrote: post #49

> ”In his message Tuesday, Mr. Tenev said the new round of changes at the company are particularly concentrated in its operations, marketing and program management departments.” People here on HN often say how bad is to be an engineer in a non-tech company. It seems that it’s much worse to be a non-engineer in a tech company.

No post body was provided.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#67

Post by twblalock »

soneca wrote: post #49

> ”In his message Tuesday, Mr. Tenev said the new round of changes at the company are particularly concentrated in its operations, marketing and program management departments.” People here on HN often say how bad is to be an engineer in a non-tech company. It seems that it’s much worse to be a non-engineer in a tech company.

In general the non-engineers at tech companies get treated pretty well and I don't think they are more likely to get laid off than they are at other companies. They also generally get the same kind of RSUs/options/stock comp as anyone else at the company: those are not normally restricted to engineers, although engineers often get more compensation than others.

Marketing, advertising and sales people are especially vulnerable at any company: if the company expects consumer confidence and purchases to decline, those are some of the first roles that get cut anywhere.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#69

Post by babypuncher »

yuan43 wrote: post #34

Why not cut pay across the board? I know this is not the cultural norm, but I am curious how long this norm can persist. Without the ability to cut pay, layoffs are the only option for companies burning cash and losing altitude. That locks pay increases at the same inflated point that the bubble supported but which reality does not. To go one step further, is there a single advanced economy in which pay cuts, rather…

With the job market still being as strong as it is, cutting pay like that would be a disaster.

If my employer told me they were cutting my pay by 20% one morning I would already be out doing interviews by the afternoon.

With layoffs you at least control what talent you are giving up in exchange for a smaller payroll. With across the board salary reduction, your most talented employees will get up and leave and the people who remain will be demoralized and poorly motivated.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#70

Post by CSMastermind »

soneca wrote: post #49

> ”In his message Tuesday, Mr. Tenev said the new round of changes at the company are particularly concentrated in its operations, marketing and program management departments.” People here on HN often say how bad is to be an engineer in a non-tech company. It seems that it’s much worse to be a non-engineer in a tech company.

Same thing I would say.

In my view the difference between a tech company and a non-tech company is what percentage of the company's value is stored in the intellectual property rights of their software. The higher that number the more of a 'tech' company you are.

In non-tech companies software engineering is a cost center and at tech companies things like operations are cost centers. In both cases you need them for the business to function but they don't deliver lasting business value on their own so you look to minimize costs.

Many non-tech roles have the problem of being easily replaceable while many tech role have the problem of being expensive.

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