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Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

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Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#671

Post by jashmatthews »

manigandham wrote: post #616
jashmatthews wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden and Germany, for example, are heavily regulated but have more innovation in terms of GDP% than the USA. If you're talking about why we don't see more visible commercial innovation from European countries then it's more about access to the enormous amounts of capital to build a big name startup like Uber etc. Nobody notices the legions of small bootstrapped or seed to profitable software businesses across the E…

How do you measure "innovation in terms of GDP"? I certainly don't see trillion-dollar world-changing companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon coming from those regions. What small business could replicate the impact of Windows, or Gmail or the iPhone?

Like the car? Volkswagen is twice the size of Microsoft by revenue.

I'm going with the OECD definition here: https://data.oecd.org/rd/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.htm

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#672

Post by jashmatthews »

haneefmubarak wrote: post #649
manigandham wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you measure "innovation in terms of GDP"? I certainly don't see trillion-dollar world-changing companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon coming from those regions. What small business could replicate the impact of Windows, or Gmail or the iPhone?

(not the parent) I would think that since innovation and growth (caused by innovative use of resources or increase in efficiency or novel products and services) in general should be relative to the population and its state to begin with, nominal GDP growth per annum would be a reasonable metric as a proxy for the wildly non-measurable "innovation in terms of GDP"; for reference, here's the data for 2018: USA: 2.9% Ca…

No need to approximate: https://data.oecd.org/rd/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.htm

Germany is at 3.4% of GDP spending on R&D and the USA at 2.8% France is also right up there at 2.2%

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#673

Post by chillacy »

beagle3 wrote: post #440
chillacy wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put some numbers on that, AirBNB compensation is no joke. They're paying senior engineers 200k+ base and nearly 200k stock. https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Airbnb I have (regrettably) not found many companies in other countries which pay that well, except maybe Google Zurich, which is hard to get in I hear.

Link 404s for me. Do you know how many of their employees are in that range? And especially how many of those being let go are in that range?

Whoops, corrected: https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Airbnb&track=Software%20Engi...

I don't know specific numbers at AirBNB or their layoff details but you would hit the equivalent L5 at other large bay area companies in about 5 or 6 years.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#674

Post by jashmatthews »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #586
blackoil wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Among other differences, for example, a German President is personally liable for the financial obligations of their company. If the company goes bankrupt, so does he. In US new enterprise have a very high failure rate, how do entrepreneurs survive in such environment?

They are protected by US corporate law. The debts of a corporation are the responsibility of the corporation. A corporation (Inc.) is treated like a person from that perspective. If a corporation runs out of money and cannot pay its debts and declares bankruptcy, the management is under no obligation to cover the debt, and the debt holders are out of luck. A CEO (and other company execs) can be held personally liable…

German execs are also insulated from the debts of the company. Many German startups even use English (now Irish) limited companies.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#675

Post by Gustomaximus »

lostmsu wrote: post #296
chadlavi wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first I misread this as 14 days and was wondering why everyone is calling this such a "lavish" severance. Now I get it.

I first misread it as "14 months" (as usually you count in months), but it was way out of bounds.

Not way out.

I was at a company in the UK where a department closed. They offered 3 months, plus a month per year served. And for first round they offered a 6 month bonus for volunteers vs stay and try to get an internal transfer.

I was surprised how few volunteers there were. I don't think I've had a job I wouldn't walk from for a years pay. Those that were chopped second round were pissed.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#676

Post by virtualritz »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #665
hkmurakami wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iirc a German friend got more than 12 months severance for a lay-off in SAP. It’s interesting to Compare differences in norms around the world.

From what I've seen 12 months pay in Germany is probably equivalent to 3.5 months pay in the US.

Pardon my frankness but that's BS.

What are you referring to here? How much money buys you? Aka: costs of living?

How much you make, converting EUR to USD?

What industry? IT?

I worked in a leadership position at a multi-national in Berlin for almost five years. I know the salaries the engineers had in CA & Chicago vs Germany. US was maybe 20% more max. In terms of what it buys you ... not so much. See below.

Cost of living in Munich (one of Germany's most expensive cities) vs. SF.[1] And then Berlin (one of Germany's cheapest cities) vs. SF.[2]

[1] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

[2] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#677

Post by throwaway_12351 »

filoleg wrote: post #511
three_seagrass wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft isn't FANG, and even then, who do you think Microsoft's B2B customers serve and get their revenue from? Even those that are still B2B eventually need cash flows from consumer businesses. Hence the statement that we won't fully realize the losses until Q3. Less spending by consumers depresses all businesses, some sooner than others, but FANGs are definitely hurting.

>who do you think Microsoft's B2B customers serve and get their revenue from The cool thing about B2B, as opposed to consumer offerings, is that the contracts on those are usually multi-year. Just because the client enterprise suddenly receives less revenue from customers, it doesn't mean that they would be able to stop paying MSFT until the contract term is over. Unless this current lockdown situation lasts multiple…

Bankruptcies, Bankruptcies, Bankruptcies. All these contracts go underwater once the companies file chapter-11. Gold Gym has already started, most retailers are following the suit. That said, Microsoft (my previous employer) is well diversified to come out net positive or neutral.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#678

Post by unishark »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #643
ekianjo wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You own a factory. Your employees don't. There's a power imbalance in the employment relationship. You make it sound like employers are all fat rich people smoking cigars while everyone else is in a sweatshop. The reality is that 99% of businesses are very small in size (as in, one owner and very few employees) and it's often much more a partnership than the power imbalance you are talking about. Yet the same laws…

More Americans work for large employers than small or mid-sized ones.

Is this stat still up to date? It changes drastically between booms and recessions. In some years small businesses have had far more employees. A fact which should affect policymaking as much as the ratio at any given point.

Either way I'd expect fewer americans still work at large businesses than at small and mid-sized businesses combined.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#679

Post by govg »

rhizome wrote: post #519
jdminhbg wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the pandemic ends eventually, one way or another. The question is what happens at that point: bacchanal or hermitage.

Polio didn't stop. Smallpox is not extinct.

There are like a couple of hundred cases of Polio every year in the world and for all practical purposes Small pox is extinct.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#680

Post by adwn »

rhizome wrote: post #519
jdminhbg wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the pandemic ends eventually, one way or another. The question is what happens at that point: bacchanal or hermitage.

Polio didn't stop. Smallpox is not extinct.

> Smallpox is not extinct.

I beg to differ:

"Through the success of the global eradication campaign, smallpox was finally pushed back to the horn of Africa and then to a single last natural case, which occurred in Somalia in 1977. A fatal laboratory-acquired case occurred in the United Kingdom in 1978. The global eradication of smallpox was certified, based on intense verification activities in countries, by a commission of eminent scientists in December 1979 and subsequently endorsed by the World Health Assembly in 1980." (from https://web.archive.org/web/20070921235036/http://www.who.in... )

The Wikipedia page starts with "Smallpox was an infectious disease". I believe this is one of the most powerful sentences I've ever read on the Internet, and it gives me so much hope for what we can achieve.

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