Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#691

Post by VirusNewbie » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 6:19 PM UTC

hankman86 wrote: post #463

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…

I was originally a huge fan of dropbox, and still a customer, though reluctantly these days.

Dropbox has fallen so far behind many other companies. Google photos search is amazing, it merges people even if they don't have contacts, it has really good image recognition, it has some sorting/ordering amongst many various dimensions.

Why can't I make small edits to text files in dropbox? Why haven't they added any useful apps?

Why are they not the best photo organizer/searching system?

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#692

Post by herf » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 6:19 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #670

ghaff wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you pay cash for a house and put 60% more in an annuity, you cover the total costs. Not cheap though.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#693

Post by marcosdumay » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 6:21 PM UTC

elric wrote: 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?

It absolutely says a company is done innovating, and shouldn't expect any large growth from now on.

And somehow, the P/E of its stock almost always increases... Forcing it to double down on growth, that it can't do anymore.

Corporation governance is broken nowadays.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#694

Post by bink » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 6:21 PM UTC

bravetraveler wrote: post #428

dsnr wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> enter a sort of maintenance mode There exists such a mode: it's called dividend distribution. But currently DBX and many other tech companies aren't paying any dividends to stock holders. So if it's not growing and not paying dividends, what is the company doing?

Providing goods/services. Perhaps the qualifier "being publicly traded" will help

I think the question is more for investors. If the company isn't growing and isn't paying a dividend, why would I buy shares?

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#695

Post by VirusNewbie » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 6:21 PM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #409

iaw wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your tone aligns with the community guidelines[1]. Please consider not being snarky and sarcastic but actually responding to the merit of what people say here. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

As a fellow tech worker, I genuinely believe all the things I mentioned are upsetting. It's happened to me before! I realized though that I was probably going to be okay, and what I actually needed was some perspective. Sometimes the contrast of "sarcasm" is the only way to shake you out of your bubble and give you that perspective.

Sarcasm is bad. It would have been fine to say "I think there is a social contract of it being acceptable to lay off workers making 400k".

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#696

Post by objektif » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 6:23 PM UTC

sgerenser wrote: post #619

benbayard wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California has the WARN act which I believe requires notice of 50 days, which people usually use to give severance. In the USA when someone is told they will be fired, usually we do not keep them on staff so severance is the usual middle ground.

It's 60 days, not 50. But 60 days of severance would be significantly less than what they are offering. They're definitely not doing it strictly to avoid regulatory scrutiny, more like to avoid bad press and a bad reputation in the tech market. When things eventually swing back up, companies still want to be able to hire the best talent, they don't want to be grouped with companies like Twitter.

What is wrong with Twitter?

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#697

Post by Sivart13 » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 6:23 PM UTC

yalogin wrote: post #249

I don’t know how but over time all the “new fangled” tech companies have the same approach to hiring. They just keep growing headcount as its own workstream. Google started it I think, their HR just interviews and grabs the talent without a need. Matching employees to a role that already got hired to a company is just insane. That is the reason why I never interview with anyone that wants to do a generic hire. These…

Once you're a big enough company hiring needs to be its own workstream just to keep up with attrition.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#698

Post by Workaccount2 » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 6:23 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #362

Workaccount2 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public company CEO pay is almost always paid by shareholders not by the company itself. It's so misleading that these "CEO compensation is 100x employee pay" stats always get kicked around like it is an apples to apples comparison. It's not. CEO's get paid in stock which they need to redeem from shareholders. Employees get paid with cash which them redeem from the company's checking account. They are different source…

The company's checking account also belongs to the shareholders, albeit indirectly. The remarkable thing is how readily shareholders will accept narratives which give the CEO very large amounts of compensation. The notorious $50bn is a high mark: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/06/13/tes... - but that is very much taking value away from shareholders and handing it to the CEO in huge amounts.

It doesn't indirectly belong to share holders, it directly does.

But that doesn't change the fact that employee's are paid with money that is generated by the business itself. Stock compensation comes from the wallets of shareholders and is totally disconnected from the operations of the company (although generally proportionate).

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#699

Post by jrs235 » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 6:24 PM UTC

xeromal wrote: post #653

dixie_land wrote: post #578

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.

>if I have to flip burgers to keep my house

Sadly it seems it's unlikely they'll hire you even though they might need the help that bad because they're afraid of paying to train you and then you leaving once something better, and in your line of work, comes along.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#700

Post by duped » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 6:24 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #550

sangnoir wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Often that person's leadership wasn't the problem, but even when it was, that doesn't necessarily mean that the company will be better-off without them How convenient (for them)! When the company is doing well, they get millions in bonuses because their irreplaceable leadership skills - which make them 2000x more valuable than the least paid worker - were instrumental to the organization's success. When the chips a…

> must be nice to claim "macro-economic headwinds" as justification for poor performance and poor planning, but still get paid bonuses for the never-mentioned "macro-economic tailwinds" What would you do if you owned a business? Fire leadership every time they make a wrong call? Or ban them from admitting they made a wrong call?

If the leadership mistakes lead to the loss of livelihood and healthcare of thousands of employees because of their mistakes, yes, they should be included in the firings, or strongly considered for them - more so than any of the people getting laid off who made no mistakes, except working for a bad leader.