Is there a reason why these big layoffs are done just before thanksgiving, Christmas etc?
To all the people saying end of year financials, most places I've worked at have had their Q4 not end in December (for revenue smoothing).
Apollo Layoffs
91–100 of 219 posts
Re: Apollo Layoffs
#92Why are software companies still grappling with the mythical man month? You'd think by now we'd have learned our lesson. More hands /= more productivity, at least on a linear scale
There's a post-dotcom-bubble VC delusion that says that "growth" is the most important thing for an investor. Companies that can show growth, like Uber, are used as an example of "success," and "unicorn" becomes a thing that companies strive for.
So, companies did anything to show growth, which means marketing and incentives to acquire users, to adjacent services, to hiring more staff. I'm sure leadership either knew that this is what needed to be done to get more funding, or they actually drank the cool aid.
Re: Apollo Layoffs
#93Layoffs are going to suck regardless, but this is one of the best severance packages I've seen in this wave: * 15 weeks base pay + 1 week per year of employment * 6 months COBRA + $300 mental health * no 1-yr cliff, options can be exercised thru next year * you can keep all your equipment
The "$300 mental health" seems odd - for any kind of counseling/therapy/etc sessions this is a drop in the bucket in terms of cost. It will easily cost 10x to work with a mental health professional (and insurance companies sadly pay a very small amount of it). So why add this to an otherwise reasonable package?
$300 is incredibly reasonable since it's more than $0.
Re: Apollo Layoffs
#94This company has been pretty dysfunctional since the Meteor days.
Re: Apollo Layoffs
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the same time, everyone in the startup game needs to know that this is a fairly likely outcome. It's just not as safe as being at an institution that can weather the storm. I tell potential hires explicitly that this can fail, and that there's a runway, and that it's uncertain. I've seen so many places try to sell people that it's just kicking ass all the way to the bank. So, when a CEO makes this kind of statemen…
"Institutions that can weather the storm" like Google? Like Facebook? Amazon? The entire industry has had layoffs, regardless of size. In fact, in my experience there's plenty of startups that are still growing and hiring the laid off talent from the big institutions. Apollo was not one of those companies, but it doesn't seem like it being a startup had any impact.
Yeah. I figured an obligate contrarian was gonna gotcha me. Sometimes big companies do layoffs.
I stand corrected.
But, then again, the CEO does say: "we are not yet profitable: we’ve taken full advantage of outside capital to speed our growth. That was good stewardship in a time when interest rates were low and venture capital was widely available on good terms. But economic conditions have changed and we believe that it’s no longer prudent to rely on outside capital to support us"
I just don't know what to make of it. It was a healthy company.
> it doesn't seem like it being a startup had any impact
A true mystery.
Re: Apollo Layoffs
#96Re: Apollo Layoffs
#97This is one of the more straightforward announcements with minimal sugarcoating. Letting employees keep the equipment is a nice touch, since honestly they're not worth much to the company anyway. Wish those impacted best of luck.
They could’ve eased off on the supergraph PR message just this once, but otherwise definitely one of the better ones I’ve read.
Re: Apollo Layoffs
#98Is there a reason why these big layoffs are done just before thanksgiving, Christmas etc?
And as I was reading these comments, a news item popped up for me...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-companies-do-layoffs-around...
Re: Apollo Layoffs
#99For reference, according to their current team page, 246 employees (at least 246 publicly listed ones)
That's a reasonable number given their usage in the industry, imho.
Re: Apollo Layoffs
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m fairly certain that even without them all working on the same thing, 2.5x more employees will never be 2.5x faster.
Did anyone claim a linear (let alone 1:1) gain? This was the relevant part of what you replied to: > It doesn't certainly doesn't mean anything as broad as "a company cannot do more things by increasing its employee count."
There is a sweet spot for how many people should be on a team. That number depends entirely on a nature of tasks. I would even go as far as to say - in a good environment up to that sweet spot, productivity gain is linear.
And yes, managers do expect close to linear productivity gain past that spot. Managers, that are a little smarter, start thinking about how spotify did squad (without actually knowing anything about it).