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

821–830 of 1001 posts

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#821

Post by anon291 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #806
anon291 wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please check though, because my kids qualified for medicaid despite my six-figure income. The state of Oregon qualifies by week, so even if you made $10 million / year, if your expected income in the week is $0, you qualify for that week (yes, I literally asked them this question, and he said yes, that is how it works). According to our DHS, there is no upper limit on yearly income that would mandate a clawback of be…

That is interesting to know, and does seem to be true if that $10 million is the lottery and is truly random income and is truly instantaneous. If you are working on a company that you sell, it may not be the case.

that is not what I was told. I bluntly pointed out that I expected to make good money that year despite being laid off (and I did), and he said it did not matter, since I was unemployed, my expectation for the current week was zero. It has nothing to do with whether you have a lotto ticket or a company exit.

Although obviously if you're working at your company, you are not unemployed and do not have zero income expectation.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#822

Post by miningape »

whatshisface wrote: post #622
miningape wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised what lifestyle creep does to people. Often people don't pay off their debts and instead scale their debts to their new income - it's stupid I know. I agree they should be in a better position because of their income, and I'd say more than an average amount are. But there are still a lot of people in that bracket who absolutely would have the floor pulled out from under them. People are often caught…

Depending on the resale value of what the debt is for (homes mainly) maintaining your leverage ratio can work out great for you. Mortgages are the only way most people are able to invest with leverage and the source of a lot of generational wealth.

That's true, but if you over-leverage yourself and the market goes through a downturn it can spell financial ruin. It's not something to lightly do without the cashflow/assets to back up your financial knowledge - which most people don't have.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#823

Post by stevenAthompson »

coldpie wrote: post #732
stevenAthompson wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It feels like you're only thinking about it at a personal level.

From a higher level perspective, we didn't give them those cars, they bought them. And buying them provided tangible benefits to the people who made them and the companies that serviced them, etc. The money was freed from the dragon hoards of the unproductive and actually SPENT on something. Spending is useful. Hoarding isn't.

Could it have been better spent? Sure, but spending it at all is better than leaving it to rot collecting a few points interest without actually producing anything of value.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#824

Post by Manuel_D »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #783
rsanek wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're telling me you maintain the ability to pass the various interviews that the modern FAANG SWE gauntlet requires year-round? Good for you if so, but this doesn't match the experience of any of the folks that I've worked with across my career.

Who said anything about FAANG? I don't work in that world and in fact you literally could not pay me to do so. It seems miserable as hell. But Dropbox isn't in that world either. And in any case, I've never ever had to prepare for a job interview at all , let alone for multiple months. They aren't that hard in most cases.

Dropbox is (or at least was) renowned for having one of the hardest software developer interview loops.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#825

Post by wahnfrieden »

GiorgioG wrote: post #118
empath75 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Layoffs happen even in well run companies.

Actually they don't. Well run companies have cash reserves and expect to have periods of ups and downs. They don't pray to the alter of the next quarterly report.

They do it to suppress wages, not only because of economic instability. It’s worked - wages are down across industry. Wage suppression is one of the responsibilities of a well run business (the CEO together with HR hires consultant help for this or they hire a benefits and wages role, and it’s referred to as market positioning)

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#826

Post by reverius42 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #548
Clent wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claims to take full responsibility but since he has not resigned he has not taken any responsibility he has just said the words.

That's not what it means. As CEO, it's his responsibility to make/approve the decision to do the layoffs, or not. The buck stops with him. That's all that it means. It doesn't mean he's liable for any hardships.

If that was what responsibility meant, then by definition any CEO is fulfilling their responsibility.

The moral meaning of responsibility here means that the CEO takes responsibility for the lives and livelihoods of those affected -- which does feel a bit hollow when the CEO presumably is not only not affected negatively, but probably will be rewarded for increasing shareholder value.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#827

Post by reverius42 »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #825
GiorgioG wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually they don't. Well run companies have cash reserves and expect to have periods of ups and downs. They don't pray to the alter of the next quarterly report.

They do it to suppress wages, not only because of economic instability. It’s worked - wages are down across industry. Wage suppression is one of the responsibilities of a well run business (the CEO together with HR hires consultant help for this or they hire a benefits and wages role, and it’s referred to as market positioning)

It's pretty cynical to say that wage suppression is one of the responsibilities of a CEO. But perhaps not off the mark.

If only we had the equivalent on the other side to balance the equation. Some kind of a group of individual employees, who work together to counter wage suppression efforts.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#828

Post by [deleted] »

trod123 wrote: post #805
teractiveodular wrote: post #799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a great depression No, it's not even close. Unemployment in 1933 was 25%.

You are comparing apples to oranges. Unemployment calculations from data recorded during that time have since changed. The same unemployment numbers are not the same mathematical objects being compared. At this point, we can never know the true scope of unemployment to make any comparison definitively, because the measurements no longer accurately collect the necessary information for such a comparison. You don't see…

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#829

Post by reverius42 »

harimau777 wrote: post #198
absoluteunit1 wrote: post #29

The severance package is great! I don’t think I would be upset (unless I was extremely passionate about a project I was working on)

Considering how horrible the job market is right now, four months of pay may not go very far.

I've heard of folks with 10+ years of experience not finding work in 9 months or more.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#830

Post by pixelatedindex »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #662
pixelatedindex wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

It certainly would be some real accountability. They didn’t perform well and they’re mostly compensated in equity, so they get less of it. When they perform better, they’ll get more equity. Why wouldn’t this encourages the CEO perform better? The sword cuts both ways.
Post reply on HN