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Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

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Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#641

Post by [deleted] »

username_my1 wrote: post #619
twawaaay wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No heuristic is perfect, but it's fairly easy to quantify empirically from activity/records. Developers who are productive (actually write and ship large amounts of quality code) tend to be valuable and those that don't, aren't. If you are factory line worker, yes. If you are a developer or a manager (a "knowledge worker") -- what you could be observed to be doing has usually little correlation with result for the…

I keep hearing this argument about "knowledge workers" yet writers produce books, designers produce design documents, developers ship code. sometimes you slow down because you're starting something new or you're blocked by other people, but in general productivity measured in code changes frequency / volume and the impact of the feature being worked on is rather straightforward (how many users use the feature, how mu…

[deleted]

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#642

Post by twawaaay »

adam_arthur wrote: post #639
twawaaay wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No heuristic is perfect, but it's fairly easy to quantify empirically from activity/records. Developers who are productive (actually write and ship large amounts of quality code) tend to be valuable and those that don't, aren't. If you are factory line worker, yes. If you are a developer or a manager (a "knowledge worker") -- what you could be observed to be doing has usually little correlation with result for the…

The level of self importance expressed in all of these responses is quite amazing. Being a developer/engineer is not a particularly unique or hard to acquire skill, it's highly prized only because it's a new domain and there's an imbalance of supply and demand of workers. In the longer run, wages will certainly regress far closer to the median. What defines productivity will of course be context dependent, but the ma…

Way off course. Replace developer with manager and you still get the same problem.

It is all about knowledge and making decisions. Nothing to do with the fact that software development is a new area.

Architecture (buildings) is a very old trade. And yet you would not dare to measure architect's performance by the number of sheets of drawings they produced.

Some architects are sought even if they produce little drawings.

It is all about knowledge and decisions.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#643

Post by bumby »

sumedh wrote: post #640
bumby wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about CEOs like Jack Welch, who everyone lauded as a paragon of management? He was handsomely paid but his decisions crippled the company years later because of bad foresight? I think the main issue ITT is that it’s very hard to measure and distinguish a good CEO from a bad one, yet they are almost all paid as if they are great leaders.

> yet they are almost all paid as if they are great leaders. The board of directors are the ones who measure CEO performance and set compensation but most of the times they just rubber stamp whatever the CEO does.

One of the criticisms is that the boards are incestuous. Another issue may be that stock options are much more common now. I know the argument is this should align the CEOs interest with the shareholders but the counterpoint is it incentivizes a short term outlook.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#644

Post by MandieD »

this_user wrote: post #40
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…

Because then you'd still have more people than you need, except now everyone is poorly motivated, and your best people will just leave. Germany does actually have a model called "Kurzarbeit" (literally "short work") to reduce hours across the board while some of the wage losses are being offset by payment from the unemployment insurance system. The idea is to avoid layoffs during times of recession etc. which would a…

I really wish that the US's Paycheck Protection Program had been modeled on Kurzarbeit - the money is distributed to workers via their employers, saving a lot of bureaucracy, but because it's directly tied to previous wages, would have prevented a lot of the shenanigans we saw with PPP in the US.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#645

Post by fleddr »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #409
fleddr wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually respect he French attitude and willingness to stand up for their rights and way of life. We can endlessly debate whether they take it too far but in the backdrop of the rest of the world doing fuck all, I see it as a positive.

Sure, I didn’t actually expect an off-hand remark like that to be taken as a serious comment on the French labour situation. (It’s... complicated, seems to have no good solutions, and I have mixed feelings about it given that France is one of the few places in Western Europe that has actual, genuine socialists rather than social democrats, but yes, the fact that there does seem to be a serious discussion going on, wi…

True, it's complicated, but I can offer the counter generalization that the US view on European worker protection is dramatically overstated.

Case in point, Germany did not have a minimum wage...AT ALL...until 2015. In the Netherlands, there's an entire class of workers on "zero hours" contracts, which give said workers none of the traditional protections.

Protections that even in the best of cases, an indefinite work contract situation, are strongly hollowed out by now.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#646

Post by mikeyouse »

smabie wrote: post #554
mikeyouse wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re actually curious about the EMH, you should really read something deeper than non-finance people paraphrasing it poorly.

Finance people (well, the ones that actually make money trading) don't put much stock in EMH either..

I assume you mean they don’t put much stock in the strong EMH - Which is true, but the concept is the underpinning of most risk-weighted investing and some form of it (eg weak or semi-strong EMH) lines up nicely with why index funds outperform on a very broad basis.

I’m trying to think of a good analogy to CS.. maybe “Good engineers don’t put much stock in artificial intelligence”

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#647

Post by adam_arthur »

twawaaay wrote: post #642
adam_arthur wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The level of self importance expressed in all of these responses is quite amazing. Being a developer/engineer is not a particularly unique or hard to acquire skill, it's highly prized only because it's a new domain and there's an imbalance of supply and demand of workers. In the longer run, wages will certainly regress far closer to the median. What defines productivity will of course be context dependent, but the ma…

Way off course. Replace developer with manager and you still get the same problem. It is all about knowledge and making decisions. Nothing to do with the fact that software development is a new area. Architecture (buildings) is a very old trade. And yet you would not dare to measure architect's performance by the number of sheets of drawings they produced. Some architects are sought even if they produce little drawin…

Architects are measured by their results that can easily be reflected in artifacts and real world outcomes.

How can you suggest otherwise?

An architect that isn't able to produce any evidence of their work or contributions, sounds like a strong hire in your mind!

Those are called coattail riders, by the way. 80% or so in the tech industry could give them good company

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#648

Post by primeblue »

aikinai wrote: post #595
cudgy wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ridiculous housing appreciation is practically a global phenomena that is due to artificially low interest rates and easy credit driven by many of the central banks around the world. What you describe (housing supply restrictions) is a local phenomena in a few markets like San Francisco and not the primary reason behind the incredible speculative nature of the recent housing market. China has been building in hyper-s…

Japan has the lowest rates in the developed world and a very generous central bank but no housing appreciation. No one expects housing to appreciate (except in limited, specific situations) and then no one votes or sets policy specifically to prop up prices. There’s a dynamic market with plenty of development and supply in the right types of housing and price points and everyone’s happy pretty much.

No post body was provided.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#649

Post by miked85 »

pipeline_peak wrote: post #463
adam_arthur wrote: post #358

The truth is that a majority of tech companies don't need 50%+ of their employees. Google could lay off vast swathes tomorrow and be immensely more profitable without any loss in revenue. The 2010s will be remembered as the golden era for tech employment. The second we start getting industry wide layoffs, the insanely high wage inflation we've seen will kick into reverse much faster than you probably believe possible…

> The truth is that a majority of tech companies don't need 50%+ of their employees. Then why are they hired? It can’t be image alone

The same reason a product is never finished and there is a never-ending churn of "features" nobody wants or needs.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#650

Post by twawaaay »

adam_arthur wrote: post #647
twawaaay wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way off course. Replace developer with manager and you still get the same problem. It is all about knowledge and making decisions. Nothing to do with the fact that software development is a new area. Architecture (buildings) is a very old trade. And yet you would not dare to measure architect's performance by the number of sheets of drawings they produced. Some architects are sought even if they produce little drawin…

Architects are measured by their results that can easily be reflected in artifacts and real world outcomes. How can you suggest otherwise? An architect that isn't able to produce any evidence of their work or contributions, sounds like a strong hire in your mind! Those are called coattail riders, by the way. 80% or so in the tech industry could give them good company

Most architects produce a large number of fairly similar, mundane designs.

Some architects produce small number of well researched an thought through designs that make them sought after in the market and allow them to charge exorbitant prices for their services. They are name that is attached to the design and the owner of the building will tell their guests this and this architect designed my house.

See, it is not all about the quanitity.

Same goes with fashion design, writing books, and so on.

It is called knowledge work.

It is called this because the person uses their individual knowledge to perform the work rather than some kind of reproducible recipe.

A car mechanic that only looks up procedures in the book is one thing.

A car mechanic that has intimate understanding of the car and experience solving various types of problem is a knowledge worker. He might listen to your car's engine sound and go directly to solving the problem and his performance compared to the other guy will be in no way correlated with the amount of time he spent on the problem or number of times he hit his hammer.

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