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Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

blog.dropbox.com

661–670 of 1001 posts

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#661
post #90

I'm always a bit confused by profitable companies with (presumably) large reserves laying off lots of people. I get that they want to remain profitable. But sure 500ish people could be put to some use? A new product, a new market, a spinoff. Whatever? Are you telling me that no one in such a big, wealthy company of clever engineers has any use for a bunch of talented people?

>bunch of talented people

Very bold assumption

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why isn’t it never something like the CEO doesn’t get any stocks that year. Performance based compensation is absolutely standard for CEOs- Both in terms of options and stock grants.

> Performance based compensation is absolutely standard for CEOs- Both in terms of options and stock grants. Yes but you’re still making $1.5M after a 34% haircut. That seems like a reward, and not any real sense of taking responsibility when you have to let go 1 in 5. Wouldn’t it be better if he just got a base salary of 200K or something and no stocks for that year? He already has a bunch of equity and if he does w…

In what sense do you think it would be better? Would it advance CEO performance or the company? Would it bring the world more into alignment with some sense of moral justice?

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#663
post #660
post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said reasonable, not "endlessly-patched-up nonsense that conservatives want to gut at every turn"

I feel like "Medicaid could be better" is a statement everyone can agree on, but my point stands that the meme that US healthcare is some Mad Max apocalyptic wasteland where you're completely on your own and left to die in the street is categorically false. Not a single person in the US is denied healthcare based on inability to pay.

> Not a single person in the US is denied healthcare based on inability to pay.

Yes, because that's the law. Then they hand you an exorbitant bill on the way out, which you can't pay. Then you get hounded by collections. Then your credit score tanks. etc. etc. etc.

Not everything is a direct line, the end result is the same.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#664
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All West Coast states have free healthcare (medicaid) available if your income is below a certain threshold. And there is no time limit on that. It won’t help with rent, but at least these folks won’t be completely without healthcare access.

There's pretty much no way they'd qualify for Medicaid if they were a dev at Dropbox. The income limit for Medi-Cal is $20,783 for a single adult, $28,208 for a household of two adults. Chances are they were past that income limit the first few months of the year. You don't just immediately qualify after making $140k annualized for the first 10 months and then hit $0 one day. Plus, they're getting 16 weeks of salary.…

True but even making $140k/year does qualify you for tax credits on ACA marketplace health insurance plans. COBRA is kind of obsolete, honestly. You should be switching over to a insurance plan purchased through your state's health insurance marketplace.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#665

The uncomfortable truth is that pretty much any business can cut staff by 20% without impacting overall performance. Provided that you manage to weed out the tail end of the performance bell curve that is. Most of the time, reducing staff is a healthy move for the business and the impacted employees. The company will not only save cost, but strengthen its culture of high performance. And under-achieving employees are…

Evidence, please. From what I've seen in person, it doesn't work this way at all. Companies don't have a great fix on whom to cut, and it usually just makes the other employees feel stressed (and start looking at other jobs), while the unemployed suffer very significant life stress.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#666
post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember Better, the mortgage company? They were briefly notable for laying off 900 people on a Zoom call. However, no-one asked why a re-envisioned mortgage application/process was failing in the best possible market. My opinion is Dropbox most valuable commodity is the millions of Windows PCs with a system level scheduled task that is vulnerable to "hijacking"... basically they are a data stream.

It was not failing in the best possible market. Better was a successful lender for mortgage refinancing. Better struggled to establish itself within the purchase market which has far more complex relationships.

And once 30-year mortgage rates got to 5% or higher, the refinancing market basically dried up. Without much of a purchase mortgage business they basically had no business, regardless of how much better their technology was.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#667

Something weird I noticed about Dropbox: I cancelled my paid account two years ago. I had 5 terabytes of storage being used (mostly shitty concert vids and food pics). Everyday they email me telling me I’m over my limit. They always “threaten” to delete the data but it’s been two years since I cancelled. My Qs are: why are they hoarding my data for so long? Why would they want to do this? How cheap is storage for the…

Maybe they are just good people and don't like to do evil things like deleting someone's life memories?

This is a company, so no.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#668
post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Request: Any tech-recruiters on here who can validate this? I spent a single month in June job hunting (mid-level SWE, DE roles) and it was terrible. Hundreds of applicants per position. It felt like being a fresh-grad again. But that's just my anecdata

No luck from your connections at previous jobs? That's always the best way in.

When I was looking none of that helped at all. People in my network would refer me to all kinds of jobs posted online but basically once submitted you'd still be ghosted. I'm not even sure those were real jobs because to this day they have the same listing posted.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I feel a lot of my coworkers fell under this trap: if you need cashflow for mortgage on your 4m mansion in (affluent neighborhood), you can't really afford it.

I make a decent salary as a programmer (150k) but my house only cost 250k and my mortgage is about 1400. How I see it, if I have to flip burgers to keep my house, I can pull it off. I can't imagine have a mortgage that's 10gs a month.

For a lot of people this isn't possible. You won't find a liveable home in my country for under 600k.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#670
post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only mortgages that don't require cashflow are the paid off mortgages. Even if someone has a year of savings, or two years, or three, after that amount is drained, they need cash flow again. So how does one buy a house without being dependent on cash flow?

Well, you need cashflow on a house in general. Even with a paid-off mortgage, I'm easily $10K/year and probably closer to $20K if I'm not pushing various stuff off.

Property tax alone is around $13K/yr for me. Insurance is another couple grand. Only after that comes wear and tear and maintenance items.
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