Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

blog.dropbox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

731–740 of 1001 posts

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#731

Post by Exoristos »

mrthrowaway999 wrote: post #599
Goronmon wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A manager doesn't care that you leave because he still gets to bring home a salary, all they have to do is hire another person and maybe cut back on scope for a little while. Yeah, I'm curious how someone can have an opinions on workplaces and workers and not seem to have personal experience with the subject, especially in a community like this. Do they just come from a wealthy family so the stance is "Getting fired…

Don't people have savings? Don't people see what's happening in the industry and make sure to have 6+ months of savings? Don't people think that putting away a small portion of their immense tech salary would be a healthy thing to do?

No. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#732

Post by coldpie »

stevenAthompson wrote: post #674
coldpie wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because having a functional business model is what defines whether the use of capital is good or not. Bad outcomes from low interest rates are all these layoffs from overstaffing, all the wasted human-years on blockchain & NFT garbage during 2021, VCs blowing money on obvious failures like Juicero, etc. These are not good uses of capital, and if they had to have a real business plan to get capital in the first place,…

> These are not good uses of capital I suppose it depends on what the alternative was for that capital. Sitting in an index fund wasn't really doing anything useful for society, but providing high paying tech jobs to dropbox employees was probably very useful to society. Especially when you consider all of the downstream impacts of those employees spending. Similarly, I would ask if society gets more good out of tran…

> I would ask if society gets more good out of transferring the wealth to crypto-bro's or from it sitting in relatively low yield investment vehicles?

I think rewarding people for dumping useful labor into a black hole is bad, yeah. If we're just handing it out, we could've split all that money to everyone equally and reaped much better rewards as a society (useful social services; more family stability; less poverty) than giving a few gambling addicts overpriced cars in return for nothing.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#733

Post by midhhhthrow »

njtransit wrote: post #561
tschellenbach wrote: post #551

The same forces that enable high tech salaries, also make layoffs more likely. - The market for talent is competitive. So companies bid up to the absolute max they can - The market for managers is also competitive. Creating dynamics that lead to larger teams and raises for team members - Companies allow things like remote work, which is a perk, but also has a lot of abuse in terms of how much work gets done The end r…

A somewhat sensible take, but the issue isn’t just healthcare. A lot of your life is based off of long-term, fixed cost cash flow. E.g. you can’t pay less on your mortgage just because you got fired. Even with savings, getting laid off is highly disruptive, and, if done as part of a broader downturn in the market, you may never recover the required cash flow to enable your lifestyle.

This why we need the tiny home movement combined with progressive property taxes - 0 prop tax bracket for lowest 20% property values If you have mortgage then you don’t really own your house.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#734

Post by jokethrowaway »

mvdtnz wrote: post #669
xeromal wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And salaries are likely not 150k either

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#735

Post by bravetraveler »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #466

Remember how there used to be a blog (or maybe it was a Tumblr, I forget) that documented every "Our incredible journey" post that inevitably announced the start-up's closure? I think we need another one for "An update from ", as this has seemingly become the standard subject to use when you're announcing layoffs or data breaches. I saw an identical headline earlier today from Sony announcing a studio closure: https:…

They used this exact phrasing a year ago, lmao. Building rapport, The CEO has a name. Hi Drew.

https://blog.dropbox.com/topics/company/a-message-from-drew

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#736

Post by smetj »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #687
my_berner wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we'd all collectively blow our minds if a CEO said "I take full responsibility for the bad decisions and overhiring, so I'm resigning"

Would the CEO resigning or getting laid off, make your situation any better if you were one of those laid off? Feels like a weird hill to die on, and more like a crabs in the bucket mentality that doesn't change anything in the grand scheme of things. In the end I'm still unemployed and whatever happens to my ex-CEO doesn't change my situation one bit. As I grew older and experienced my share of layoffs, I stopped ca…

> Would the CEO resigning or getting laid off, make your situation any better if you were one of those laid off?

No, of course not. But he is the leader, and he guided the company to a point where certain areas became "over-invested or under-performing." In other words, he didn’t do a good job. So, it should be him stepping down. Nobody ever said being a CEO would be easy.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#737

Post by midhhhthrow »

tschellenbach wrote: post #551

The same forces that enable high tech salaries, also make layoffs more likely. - The market for talent is competitive. So companies bid up to the absolute max they can - The market for managers is also competitive. Creating dynamics that lead to larger teams and raises for team members - Companies allow things like remote work, which is a perk, but also has a lot of abuse in terms of how much work gets done The end r…

Healthcare attached to employment makes no sense ina world where people constantly need to switch jobs

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#738

Post by zero-sharp »

muffinman26 wrote: post #672
mrthrowaway999 wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't people have savings? Don't people see what's happening in the industry and make sure to have 6+ months of savings? Don't people think that putting away a small portion of their immense tech salary would be a healthy thing to do?

If you grew up with even the slightest feeling of financial insecurity, dipping in to savings can already feel like the end of the world. I can't imagine living with only 6 months of savings. There's no guarantee that I could find another job in 6 months, and unexpected expenses (medical, car trouble, housing repairs) can easily wipe out a month of savings anyway. In fact, given that a layoff means likely also an eco…

It's so frustrating reading the comments around here. It's like the conversation is driven by people whose circumstances fall on the upper tail end. No concept of financial insecurity. No long-term financial commitments to worry about. Infinite flexibility. Like jeez, congrats. Now try imagining somebody else that's not you.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#739

Post by jonkho »

Brystephor wrote: post #596
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.

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?

If the problem is the mortgage then rent /s. If the problem is you need money to pay the bills, well I got news for you…

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#740

Post by itake »

xeromal wrote: post #652
mulmen wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the most obvious approach would be to pay cash. The more fiscally conservative option is to only borrow money if you have capital which is earning income at a higher rate than the mortgage. This probably necessitates having more capital than the house costs.

The problem with that is that unless you have an extremely well paying job or rich parents, you have to outsave inflation and rising house prices. You may never own. Getting a loan just locks you into an inflation proof price as a "forced" savings. I don't think it's realistic at all for 85% of Americans to save for a new house.

If you save $2.5k/mo for 15 years, after 14 years (mid-30s), you’d have $800k at 8% interest.

Even in Seattle, $800k would get you a decent starter home.

(I chose $2.5k, bc 15 years ago out of college, that’s how much I saved living in GA on a $70k salary). I saved even more when I move to California in my mid 20s.

Post reply on HN