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Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

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Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#781

Post by AniseAbyss »

ctvo wrote: post #638
crazygringo wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely backwards. They didn't hire "for the sake of hiring" -- they hired specifically to build up their podcasting and audiobook efforts, which were totally new products within the app. Which they thought were essential to staying competitive -- e.g. what if people start moving over to Amazon instead with its Music+Wondery+Audible, or other competitors? Now it's turned out those bets haven't been as succ…

I think trying to normalize a ~20% workforce reduction as business as usual is a little bit much here. Management made a lot of mistakes to get to this situation. It wasn't we tried a few things and it didn't work out, it was we burrowed too much money, spent too much money, and risked too much. What other tech company has cut this deeply recently? You name their competitors, like Amazon and Apple -- is it happening…

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Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#782

Post by ntlk »

saadullahsaeed wrote: post #756
rez9x wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently left Spotify for Apple Music, in large part because of this new development path. I don't want podcasts, audiobooks, etc mixed in with my music. I prefer separate apps. I think what bothered me more was the focus on branching into these new paths without any innovation in the music department--I'm sure there was innovation that wasn't visible to me. I'm tired of the same black and green color scheme. I don…

This is precisely why I also switched to Apple Music, it was annoying to have Spotify constantly pushing podcast content to me as someone who had no interest in Podcasts and no way to enable a "music only" mode either.

I switched to Apple Music for exactly the same reason.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#783

Post by pie420 »

Closi wrote: post #490
maxglute wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need, I was being flippant. I don't work in tech but dealt with large orgs. Broad point is, by all means, have your headcount for signing labels, localization, maintaining physical infra. But past a certain amount of brains and you get feature/vision creep that starts degrading core product. Where/when that point is of course highly subjective. But how many employees does a music streaming service need? I don't kn…

Well I just googled and Valve has 1,139 employees, and Spotify will now have 7,800 - It's nowhere near 20x. Still a big gap, although I suspect they are very different offerings and companies. Differences include: * Spotify needs to sell ads (to support it's free tier). This requires engineering and people to sell the ads. * Spotify is in a more competitive market than Steam (who have a nearly de-facto monopoly) so m…

Spotify is also a de facto monopoly.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#784

Post by DrThunder »

bede wrote: post #66
mvdtnz wrote: post #7

I wonder how those losing their jobs feel about Spotify's reported $200 million investment in Joe Rogan now.

As a scientist working in public health, this decision burned my faith in Spotify. They were taking down conspiracy theory podcasts daily while bankrolling Rogan to provide a platform with insane reach for cranks like Robert Malone. I cancelled my subscription for a few months in protest.

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Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#785

Post by righthand »

dalbasal wrote: post #775

So... Bodybuilders do this thing called "bulking and cutting." The best way to add muscle fast is to overeat. Work out lots. Sleep lots. Eat lots. You get fat, but you also get muscular because food is never a limiting factor. Then, they lose the extra fat with a crash diet. Google, FB and such are such money machines that they never have to cut. They can just bulk. The others... they want some of that rapid growth p…

But Google and Facebook did cut earlier this year?

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#786

Post by Tao3300 »

josefresco wrote: post #520

I consider Spotify like Hulu - existing as a puppet to give "the industry" a centralized distribution service. I don't ever expect them to make a profit, unless they decide to pivot and sell what's left to another corp. Am I wrong?

I think you're kind of right. The thing about Spotify is that my initial reaction was "it's about damn time". It's not like it was technical innovative. Everything needed to make it had been around for at least a decade, they just had to get all the legal stuff figured out first.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#787

Post by ctoth »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #582
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was blind but now I see, we ARE human resources, and it's very likely none of us are irreplaceable, none of us matter really all that much to our employers... Interestingly, there was a really good article in the NY times yesterday that made that exact point: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/business/economy/doctors-... Basically, the article was talking about how being a doctor or pharmacist used to be a very…

Quite a stretch from "This company hired too many people and ended up having to lay off some" and "Hmm, maybe we're not as irreplaceable as we like to think" to "Let's all make ourselves less attractive to our employers by threatening to gang up on them." But I guess unionization is the universal solvent for every HR problem around here.

I'm just trying to understand why on earth you wrote "gang up" here.

The corporation has an HR department. Usually, this consists of more than one person. The corporation has a hell of a lot more money, legal resources, (money is speech, my friend) and so on than you do. Why isn't it obvious... the most natural thing in the world... That you would also want more than just you on your side?

This is like saying "why did you join an army instead of just fighting the bad guys single-handed?"

I must be missing something here, because you said this and everybody just went along with it like "oh yeah why would we do that? when this seems like asking "Why did you start a company with your friend to gang up on that new project you guys were talking about instead of just doing it yourself?" Totally, completely confused.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#788

Post by kwanbix »

deng wrote: post #773

Spotify is a completely mistery to me. I'm asking: What does Spotify really have ? They don't own the music. They don't own podcasts (OK, they may have some exclusives like Rogan). All they have is a license, a bit of software, and lots of users. How will they ever turn a profit? What's the end game here? I just switched my whole family from Spotify to Deezer and it was literally a matter of minutes. There are even s…

Deezer is a completely mistery to me. I'm asking: What does Deezer really have? They don't own the music. They don't own podcasts (OK, they may have some exclusives). All they have is a license, a bit of software, and lots of users. How will they ever turn a profit? What's the end game here? I just switched my whole family from Deezer to tidal and it was literally a matter of minutes. There are even services that move all your favorites/playlists over and it worked flawlessly.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#789

Post by Hackbraten »

deng wrote: post #773

Spotify is a completely mistery to me. I'm asking: What does Spotify really have ? They don't own the music. They don't own podcasts (OK, they may have some exclusives like Rogan). All they have is a license, a bit of software, and lots of users. How will they ever turn a profit? What's the end game here? I just switched my whole family from Spotify to Deezer and it was literally a matter of minutes. There are even s…

Spotify Connect is a real game changer. I tap a song on the web player and it streams it on our living room amp, which supports it natively. No apps involved whatsoever.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#790

Post by wcfields »

sgerenser wrote: post #540
thelastknowngod wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah you're not entitled to anything in the States. There are no employment contracts and you can be fired for any reason without notice. The only reason to give severance is to avoid bad publicity. There isn't any mandate that the company has to offer anything. There really should be though especially when the company in question was able to afford $1 billion in stock buybacks just 2 years ago, and when the CEO has…

In the U.S. the WARN act does mandate 60 day notice for layoffs over a certain size. In practice, (at least with many of the recent tech layoffs) you get 60 days on-payroll during which you don’t have to do any work. Severance after that is optional but often still paid, again at least among tech companies. ~2 weeks per year of service is common, although some have offered more than that.

I got laid off in Jan 2023 and they only gave me the 2 weeks, but was able to at least negotiate that my end date fell on on Feb 1 so I could at least have healthcare until the end of the month.

"I don't recall saying good luck"

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