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Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

wsj.com

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Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#651

Post by tekknik »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #617
14 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh we will be getting locked down again in the fall I am sure of that. Canada didn’t upgrade it’s definition of fully vaccinated for no reason. Come fall those “fully vaccinated” will be allowed to enter restaurants and work while those who oppose further shots will be told stay home

Hard to convince people to lockdown when they see their friends and family getting Covid and bouncing back in a week. There was legit fear of the disease in 2020-21. It has now morphed into a strong flu - and the data shows it.

I wonder if those of us saying the same thing in 2021 will get an apology. Of course I know we won’t.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#652

Post by aiisjustanif »

akg_67 wrote: post #553
strix_varius wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth is that a majority of tech companies don't need 50%+ of their employees. Totally agree. The problem is, nobody knows how to tell which ones. On the ground it's obvious. I'm sure everyone here knows who on their team is crucial to their current production stack, and also knows others who would have no impact (or even positive impact!) if they left. One level up - the direct EM - has most of that context to…

> The problem is, nobody knows how to tell which ones. I guess there is no leetcode BS for firing. May be someone create one so that circle of sucks can be completed.

I worked somewhere that did this. They restructured the same teams with new managers, mandatory tests to get into your same “new” team. Strangler Fig Pattern style.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#653

Post by strix_varius »

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…

> developers ship code

Developers ship solutions to problems, which often involves some code. A developer who solves the problem in a fast, cheap, maintainable way with an off-the-shelf package is superior to a developer who solves the same problem in a slow, expensive way with many thousands of lines of unmaintainable code.

> but in general productivity measured in code changes frequency / volume

Oh my. I don't even know what to say to this other than:

- https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/536587-measuring-programmin...

> anyone who argues against this is ether on the poor side of this measurement or work in a cash flush environment where no one cared about this

If you can't point to the person on your team who's churning out mountains of crap because they think productivity is measured in lines of code, then...

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#654

Post by strix_varius »

flohofwoe wrote: post #591
dougk16 wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've coded for 10 or 20 years, and now just sit back and design interfaces, write specs, evaluate technologies, mentor juniors, do code review, and of course the ultimate mind blow when you're trying to figure out who to fire: they remove code instead of add it. Unfortunately for the company, these "imposters" do indeed get weeded out in preference to the recent college grad copy/pasting thousands of lines of Stac…

> they remove code instead of add it If you can remove code from your code base without hampering the functionality, that's usually a much better time investment than writing new code.

Yes, that was OP's point.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#655

Post by aiisjustanif »

vineyardmike wrote: post #579
buscoquadnary wrote: post #230

So several times I've had the opportunity to join fast growing startups that offered quite a bit more compensation, and equity as well. One of the things that I always took consideration of was the stability of the company vs where I was at. Many of these people made a bet that working for Robinhood would pay off, it didn't that is part of the risk that came with the SV salaries, and the stock. I get that it sucks, b…

I’ve heard a lot of tech people not consider stability because it’s so easy to just get a new tech job. Everyone was hiring. Everyone was throwing money everywhere. Why be stable when you can find an employer easier than calling a taxi. Obviously that’s over now.

> Obviously that’s over now.

Not even close.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#656

Post by curious_cat_163 »

kortilla wrote: post #461
curious_cat_163 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Hate to go there on HN but there _is_ a moral side to this. What is the cost of making the kind of mistakes this guy did? And who should pay for them?

> Hate to go there on HN but there _is_ a moral side to this. No there isn’t. Wasting money to keep employing people isn’t good for anyone. The labor market is still tight right now so the employees are better off going to a company that actually wants them.

Ok. I see your point.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#657

Post by JohnBooty »

birksherty wrote: post #475
JohnBooty wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my industry the wave of stimulus definitely caused behavior changes, it was pretty distinct. Obviously, a lot of people did need that money to make ends meet. But it's also obvious that some % of the population was able to treat it as money they were able to play around and have some fun with.

People should be able to do that. Is it just the rich who are allowed to make profit that way. Nobody is judging rich here what they do with their money. May be because people in hn are privileged.

    People should be able to do that.
Absolutely, 100%.

I hope it didn't appear that I was saying otherwise - I was purely stating an observation.

I would feel that way about any kind of government payments, "aid" or otherwise. However, I think it's especially true for money marked as economic stimulus payments. That money is specifically meant to... stimulate the economy. It's meant to be spent.

Even rich people "playing" with money stimulates the economy, because they are spending the money.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#658

Post by spookthesunset »

55555 wrote: post #626
spookthesunset wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next up, the remote work craze. Everybody thinks they are super productive working from home but on a larger scale I imagine it took a huge hit. Plus it is dystopian as fuck. People need to be around people outside of their immediate family to stay sane and I promise you most of these new remote workers are basically never interacting with people outside their small bubbles. It’s gonna swing back. Calling it now. A t…

COVID and lockdowns literally gave the majority of people social anxiety. They won’t give their WFH up easily.

Plenty still use Covid as an excuse to avoid returning.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#659

Post by kortilla »

qaq wrote: post #605
kortilla wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they are paying for a supply of (on average) uneducated morons with no edge. Can you imagine how much a professional poker player would pay to be in a tournament with amateurs?

At market or better than market rate you have unlimited supply of trades without paying for order flow

But the people with the edge are there who can steamroll you. Better to just pay to not have them if you’re trying to make a market.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#660

Post by jupp0r »

reshlo wrote: post #620
jupp0r wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP was stating that 50% of tech workers at big companies are redundant. Armed with that knowledge he should be in a stellar position to found a company that is very profitable compared to its competitors who incur double the labor costs. This incredible competitive advantage will enable him to become the next Google eventually. Sounds plausible? No? I wonder where the error is.

Having a better understanding of who the essential employees are is necessary, but not sufficient, to run a more profitable company than the current market leaders.

I get your point, but don’t you think that if it was really so easy, somebody would have done this already? There are other factors like key people leaving if half their colleagues get laid off.

The claim itself is so extraordinary because it defies all economics.

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