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Layoffs at Block

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Re: Layoffs at Block

#931

Post by red-iron-pine »

izacus wrote: post #888
pjmlp wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been through a couple of layoffs and merges, as I approach mid-century, the MBA powered managers are always to blame, because the stupid way to manage every year has to be x% exponential increase over the previous year, always forgetting that it is physically impossible when everyone goes for the same goal. And then when targets aren't met, it is the employees that get shown the door while management gets thei…

Remember that economists think that this process you're talking about is healthy, good and this is how companies should be run. Take massive loans, hire, then discard people when you don't need them. DOW is at 50.000.

what is sad is that it's not possible to tell if this is a genuine thought or sarcasm.

HN is weird like that.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#932

Post by alexhwoods »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #393
marcus_holmes wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've seen hackathons where attendees build a SaaS business in a weekend. More than just Startup Weekend validation and a shitty MVP. A pretty-much complete SaaS product. It's a step change. But this means the market for SaaS products is going to get hit hugely. If you can vibecode up a specific service for your specific requirement in a few days, why bother buying a SaaS product? And, of course, if you can build a m…

The value in SaaS was never the code, it was the focus on the problem space, the execution, and the ops-included side. AI makes code "free" as in "free puppy".

> AI makes code "free" as in "free puppy".

Exactly right

Re: Layoffs at Block

#933

Post by throwaway-11-1 »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #882
torben-friis wrote: post #120

>we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. In my country, this action would be literally illegal. Even in countries where it isn’t, it feels highly immoral. “I’m not in any kind of pressure to do this but I’m choosing to shed the people who created my wealth for greater…

Are you glad to have people spending their lives on jobs that don't contribute to society, just because the business is already profitable? Wouldn't it be better to have those people move into whatever job would contribute more to society? Have you considered that allowing people to remain in jobs that contribute less than they could in other jobs is the reason why your per-capita production lags the US? The goal of…

Great point, thanks god we’re eliminating the majority of the creative arts industry with dogshit ai slop so people with actual talent can be redeployed to DoorDash or whatever (I guess until driverless cars can take that over?)

Re: Layoffs at Block

#934

Post by adrr »

mjr00 wrote: post #904
_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that we’re now targeting $2M+ gross profit per person That seems really high. Do they have such moat that nobody can move into their space?

Payment processing is one of the most tightly regulated, and some might say corrupt, industries. Replicating the tech wouldn't be difficult. The social and regulatory part is effectively impossible for anyone who's not already in the inner circle.

Is it hard to break into? Theres tons of tech companies that are playing in that space. Stripe, Braintree, Toast, Adyen, etc.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#935

Post by daxfohl »

grey-area wrote: post #666
senko wrote: post #254

This is one of the best (if not the best) layoff letters I've seen online (no affiliation, don't know anyone working there, purely outsider perspective). * Severance packages upfront because realistically that's what everyone worries about first. * Reasoning second. I appreciate the one clean cut vs prolonged bleeding. * Owning the decision and respecting the people that got you there. Opting for an awkward allhands…

Apart from the bit where he lays 4000 people off, but himself is untouched. Oh and the bit where he claims AI efficiencies are the reason. If I had to do this to a company I’d built I’d fire myself too. It’s an admission of a massive failure of leadership.

Yeah it's a great layoff letter in the same way that the invasion of Iraq due to WMD was a great speech.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#936

Post by fhd2 »

alecbz wrote: post #881
inanutshellus wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that makes labour effectively cheaper. But it isn't cheaper yet, right? Your current salary was defined pre-AI. Now, though, maybe you're only worth a third of what you were but you can't live on a third, and your employer can't just start giving you less money, so... they lay you off then in a year or three when the tailspin starts to hit bottom, they hire Younger You for ~$X/3.

If AI makes people more productive then labor is cheaper than it was pre-AI, even at pre-AI salaries, because you're getting more done at the same cost.

Exactly, I find the math fairly simple:

1. Employee costs x;

2. Employee produces output worth y;

3. Your profit from this particular employee is z = y - x.

So far so good. Let's assume z > 0, though of course it's not an easy statement to make with many roles, that are more like investments. But let's assume they're good investments and you're confident z is positive.

Now, if the same employee produces 2y, but doesn't receive a raise, z just improved significantly, it more than doubled. So effectively, labour just became cheaper in relation to the value of its output.

If it was that simple, layoffs would hurt profitability significantly.

Now what if you can't translate improved productivity to additional value? Simple example would be an agency with a fixed contract volume. If increases in y can't be realised, e.g. by finding more business, then the only way for the company to realise the gains is to reduce x, i.e. layoffs. z goes up right away, no business development required.

I think it's a defensive stance companies are taking. The economy is not great, they're hitting the breaks on investments, increasing their runway, shrinking to force the organisation to become more efficient. Once they're ready to invest again, they can always hire again. But I read layoffs-because-AI as "we don't know what to invest in right now, so we'll buy some time to figure that out".

Re: Layoffs at Block

#937

Post by atleastoptimal »

wiseowise wrote: post #770
atleastoptimal wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is part of the reason why American tech companies are so successful though. Being unable to lay off workers causes stagnation at companies where fast-development is paramount.

> This is part of the reason why American tech companies are so successful though. Nothing to do with biggest economy in the world for sure.

That helps, but there's a reason why the collective economy of the EU has produced only like 1/10 the number of unicorns over the past 30 years despite their GDP being around 2/3 the US's

Re: Layoffs at Block

#938

Post by interestpiqued »

bakies wrote: post #890
interestpiqued wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experience is usually a subjective thing. But it seems pretty clear to me. I’m was huge advocate of free speech and a political moderate but X made me question my priors on content moderation. There was genuinely heinous shit on my feed and i had no good way to filter it.

There was? It's full of nazi shit now? What was it before?

I used was because I no longer have an account

Re: Layoffs at Block

#939

Post by yesfitz »

melozo wrote: post #901
_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that we’re now targeting $2M+ gross profit per person That seems really high. Do they have such moat that nobody can move into their space?

Ironically Square isn’t good at anything in particular. Square fails to have a good point of sale (Toast wins) and fails for online store fronts (Shopify wins). Square is in a position where they spread themselves thin and aren’t at the top of anything in particular.

With light CRM, Staffing, and Banking tools, it seems like Square's strategy is to be best-of-suite for small businesses rather than best-of-breed.

I've never seen Toast outside of bars/restaurants (although they are ubiquitous in that segment). Every other service or retail shop has been Square, especially farmers markets and craft fairs.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#940

Post by bigyabai »

daxfohl wrote: post #926

Temporal had a far greater impact on dev velocity than AI ever did. It's not even close. It saves not only coding, but design, planning, coordination, maintenance, etc that AI doesn't even touch. But that's not very buzzy, is it. From what I hear, that's kind of true across the industry. I wonder how things would be different if all these press releases pointed to Temporal as the cause rather than AI. It's kind of we…

This is the first time I've ever heard of Temporal.
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