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Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

blog.dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#861

Post by chii »

nickff wrote: post #614
wbl wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoid lifestyle creep! I have to say I'm bad at this myself: somehow it all adds up, while each individual expense doesn't look so bad.

There are also different types of creep, some that you can easily stop, and others that are more difficult. Specifically, everything that involves a medium to long-term obligation (such as a mortgage or vehicle loan) can cause problems if you cannot sustain it through cashflow interruptions or significant declines. Going out to expensive restaurants and Broadway shows definitely costs a lot of money, but you can imme…

the problem with restaurants and broadway is that you've already spent the money on those things when the going is good, and can't claw it back retroactively when the going is bad.

That's why a budget is necessary, and you plan for emergency (of which a layoff is one). Saving up for an emergency fund means you don't spend on luxury until it is saved, which means no broadway or restaurants (unless you're super highly paid, in which case it'd be quite fast).

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#862

Post by zo1 »

fwip wrote: post #297
zo1 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the grey goo of manager-speak. It rides both sides, but never truly picks one. The other two options: blame employees(someone not you), or take some form of punishment as an individual. I too do it sometimes, and I feel bad each time. I at least tell people what it is and that it's just the reality of the situation. I'm not gonna commit career suicide and jeopardize my family's livelihood but I also won't blame…

Ah, you're only going to endanger the livelihood of your employees' families, most of whom have substantially less wealth than you. I bet the rest of your employees don't really care that you "feel bad." At least they learned not to trust you, though.

I'm not responding in the context of layoffs nor have I fired people because of my mistakes luckily. That's a different story, and I was trying to explain to OP my take on it.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#863

Post by hello_moto »

ramraj07 wrote: post #206
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?

Often they target the lowest performers for such layoff. Of course they rarely succeed in doing that, but the idea is that these people should have been let go anyway but weren’t for various reasons.

For a company of Dropbox stature, "often" they target the people that get paid the most.

There are rationales behind it. The simplest one is that the product is matured enough so you don't need these so-called 10x engineers or seniors.

Then the lowest performers.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#864

Post by jamil7 »

elric wrote: post #834
jamil7 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be 500 middle managers which you can't do much with.

It's not. And that's not a very nice take on something that's affecting 500 people (and their families).

What I mean is, I doubt you could roll the exact people they fired into some new product or service and have it correctly staffed.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#867

Post by intended »

csomar wrote: post #849
ironmagma wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kind of ignores the core asymmetry of capitalism, that those with the capital are the ones with the power. Nobody can do a background check on a company to see who they laid off or fired before they work there.

You can do a background check. That’s not where the asymmetry is, though. The pandemic checks have showed that the asymmetry can be flipped but then almost everyone working low-tier (flipping burgers) will quit his work. The Fed has then decided to re-enslave these people. Someone gotta take the garbage.

The pandemic was an exigency though.

And the changes were the part of a system wide (civilization wide ?) response.

Someone has to take the garbage, and be paid for it.

If the job isn’t attracting workers, than by market logic the pay should be increased.

If the pay is being kept artificially low though, then there is inefficiency in the system.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#868

Post by FirmwareBurner »

disqard wrote: post #837
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's a really positive attitude, to not fixate on retribution -- kudos to you! I'd like to point out that there are other possible outcomes, like (say) the CEO and entire C-suite cutting their salary to $1 for a year (it's not like this will render any of them homeless). IMHO, that would actually constitute "taking full responsibility", as opposed to parroting words that don't connect to the reality of the situatio…

>like (say) the CEO and entire C-suite cutting their salary to $1 for a year

What's the point of being CEO then? Have the stress of running a company while working for free? Who would ever want to do that?

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#869

Post by ramblerman »

nickff wrote: post #614
wbl wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoid lifestyle creep! I have to say I'm bad at this myself: somehow it all adds up, while each individual expense doesn't look so bad.

There are also different types of creep, some that you can easily stop, and others that are more difficult. Specifically, everything that involves a medium to long-term obligation (such as a mortgage or vehicle loan) can cause problems if you cannot sustain it through cashflow interruptions or significant declines. Going out to expensive restaurants and Broadway shows definitely costs a lot of money, but you can imme…

You can still sell your house or car. The first potentially for more money.

The restaurants and broadway shows are gone.

I’m all for spending on experiences btw. But you have it backwards financially.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#870

Post by krogus »

onion2k wrote: post #407
meindnoch wrote: post #395

This is the first wave of the LLM layoffs.

That's quite unlikely. If Dropbox could save a decent amount of their engineering effort using LLMs with 20% less people, then they could also increase their engineering effort by a decent amount using LLMs and keeping the same workforce. Assuming the team aren't completely useless, being able to go faster would be significantly more valuable than any cost saving made here.

I dont know… i felt like the eng facing llm work at my company was distracting and not useful. I can only see Dropbox and others obsessing over LLMs as clinging to relevancy. At the end of the day we will just get a chat bot and a handful of niche projects AI investments paid off for
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