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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%

#891

Post by Lalabadie »

mrbonner wrote: post #743

I didn’t know they have that many people (9000) to work for a single product. I’ve been a subscriber for more than 5 years and the app on the iPhone just gets worse everyday. Why? - daily updates is gone. This is where I can get a snapshot of all new releases from artists I love. I’m not sure if Release Calendar is the new one but I don’t bother to check. - I listen to classical and the song title naming is just subp…

> I didn’t know they have that many people (9000) to work for a single product.

Having had a wee insight into how it worked at Rdio (obligatory: I miss Rdio!), one big chunk of the answer is they need a literal army of lawyers.

A worldwide streaming music library is a hoard of licensing liabilities for every possible country, with deals that expire, renew and change hands daily on every possible mix of business days and holiday calendars.

As for the design and development headcount, I guess they dispatch teams and tasks as efficiently as Meta with their thousands of acqui-hired product people.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#892

Post by dlkf »

jklinger410 wrote: post #371
spaceywilly wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would caution against drawing grand conclusions from these recent layoff rounds. Companies overhired during the pandemic, and now they are trimming that fat. It’s not necessarily a sign of any big strategic mistakes beyond “we hired too many people”

> Companies overhired during the pandemic, and now they are trimming that fat Citation needed

I think this is actually pretty well-established, eg https://news.crunchbase.com/layoffs/analysis-big-tech-pandem...

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#893

Post by dandesim »

mrbonner wrote: post #743

I didn’t know they have that many people (9000) to work for a single product. I’ve been a subscriber for more than 5 years and the app on the iPhone just gets worse everyday. Why? - daily updates is gone. This is where I can get a snapshot of all new releases from artists I love. I’m not sure if Release Calendar is the new one but I don’t bother to check. - I listen to classical and the song title naming is just subp…

It's very much more than supporting 'one product'. Off the top of my head, regarding engineering, I can think of:

1. iOS App 2. Android App 3. Windows App 4. Microsoft App 5. Web App 6. Underlying API 7. Artist Portal/App 8. Advertising Portal/App 9. PlayStation App 10. Xbox App

There are probably entire engineering teams for each micro-service in the overall product (personalization, playlists, player, etc.).

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#894

Post by waffletower »

keehun wrote: post #745
mrbonner wrote: post #743

I didn’t know they have that many people (9000) to work for a single product. I’ve been a subscriber for more than 5 years and the app on the iPhone just gets worse everyday. Why? - daily updates is gone. This is where I can get a snapshot of all new releases from artists I love. I’m not sure if Release Calendar is the new one but I don’t bother to check. - I listen to classical and the song title naming is just subp…

If you primarily listen to classical music, Apple's new Classical Music app (part of its Music subscription) is *fantastic*.

I am quite steeped in the Apple ecosystem, but Apple's crude syncing behaviors and runaway AMPLibraryAgent bugs/invasiveness, has me quarantining Apple media software. Use of Spotify does not mangle my private music library.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#895

Post by bsnnkv »

maxehmookau wrote: post #497

I still cannot fathom any board allowing the CEO at the helm of a public that made cuts of 17% to remain in place. That's a huge pivot in organisational structure by any measure and shows clearly poor judgement.

17%? Hah, I just got hit by layoffs at my last employer that targeted 25% of the workforce. Guess what happened to the CEO...

That's right. Nothing.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#896

Post by poisonborz »

izacus wrote: post #403
poisonborz wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the only valid question here. Bloated workforce is somehow a must-have byproduct of growing cash flow, someone could surely say why. Is it prestige? Is it managers gaining more power by commanding more teams and this workforce then remains? Is it to please shareholders with feature bloat? Is it an actual (one-time?) need to scale up globally? I hate Xitter like the next guy, but if there is one thing Musk mad…

> I hate Xitter like the next guy, but if there is one thing Musk made right is to show you can axe most of the staff of an established platform and you can still have a running global scale operation (ignoring some early downtimes/hiccups and all other, khm, content-related issues). It seems currently they have around 600 full-time engineers. Xitter is massively tanking as a company with massive revenue losses since…

How is the revenue loss a cause for downsizing? I mean bigger revenue loss since Twitter always made losses. If you say lack of moderation (workforce) and thus leaving advertisers, I think that's a minority, and moderators were just a fraction of the people let go.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#897

Post by DiggyJohnson »

dijit wrote: post #356
ctvo wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single engineer is 400k in total costs, and they hired thousands for initiatives that didn’t pan out. Thinking cloud costs come anywhere close to being a factor here is nonsense and not supported by anything in the article. You extrapolated that costs meant cloud costs vs. them overhiring during the pandemic and investing in things like podcasts, which haven’t had the expected returns. You did this in an attempt to…

Five things wrong 1. I didn't edit my comment to remove anything like that, so I'm not sure what you're suggesting. 2. I didn't perceive injustice, I thought it was a bit brainless to not associate company costs with long term survivability. 3. An engineer being 400k TC is an anomaly, Spotify does not pay any of it's Swedish engineering force nearly that much, and since we don't know the demographics of the layoffs i…

The cost of an employee is significantly more than their TC. It's a function of many resources, including compensation, hardware, space (real estate), corporate services, software licenses, taxes, etc.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#898

Post by danielmarkbruce »

ep103 wrote: post #886
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business decisions are difficult. If the result of everyone that didn't pan out was "you are fired", no one would take any risk, decisions would take forever. It's so hard to fire people in France, that some large companies simply have a policy of "no france office".

And yet companies are founded every day in France, and their economy is doing just fine. If a business cannot afford to do business in a country, then that business should not be allowed to do business in that country.

Nope. The french economy been flatlining for 15 years:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD?location...

US GDP per person is now 50% higher than france:

https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/

It wasn't like that 15 years ago.

There doesn't need to be another rule. The existing rules are doing just fine keeping companies out.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#899

Post by querez »

gtirloni wrote: post #580
querez wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like I've woken up to the nature of the employer/employee relationship with all these layoffs. I was blind but now I see, we ARE human resources I think that's just a normal process of growing older. Also: yes, of course you are a resource to your employer. An annoying one (stell or laptops don't usually talk back and has demands). I also don't think there's anything wrong with companies behaving this way. B…

> By all intents, purposes and employment contracts, it was always meant to be a "work for payment" type deals, nothing more That's exactly the opposite of what 99% of the companies sell to candidates. You must have seen stuff like this is a great place work, join the family, etc. So maybe you mean the hidden intent was that but that's not the message being broadcasted.

Of course it is. That's why I'm pointing out that everyone learns the lesson eventually. If it were obvious from the outset it wouldn't require learning. If it was easy to discover, it would be learned immediately. But as it stands, it's a difficult thing to learn because it's not in the employer's interest: they definitely do want people who are are better aligned with the goals of the company outside of "work for payment". They want people that are passionate about the job and the company, because ceteris paribus those people will do a better job. And a way of getting there is trying to be a company worth working for. To have a good culture, great goals, or great colleagues. But taking a more cynical view, that's just a different form of payment, in the sense that 60k/year at a great place to work is probably worth more to you than 70k/year at a not-so-great job. But as soon as a company enters some hardship and needs to cut cost, it needs to take a sober and realistic look at its expenses. And personal costs tend to be a huge expense.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#900

Post by DiggyJohnson »

atbpaca wrote: post #858

I wish CEOs would resign when layoffs happen. It should be like some governments where the whole cabinet resigns. If layoffs are a necessity, then the CEO and the top management should show the example and take responsibility for taking the company into the wrong direction, leading to layoffs. That would be fair and more understable than a "thank you for your hard work and commitment".

Wouldn't this result in CEO's never doing a layoff or admitting the business needs one?
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