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Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

newsroom.spotify.com

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Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#961

Post by apwell23 »

dijit wrote: post #282

Reminds me of: "Nobody ever got fired for buying cloud". Spotify was a stand-out, almost no large tech company bought into cloud like they did, and everyone said the same thing: "It's not our core competence, it would require more people". I get it, it's not sexy at all to deal in infrastructure, but I've seen their cloud bill and it's significantly higher than 1,600 peoples jobs, even with the discounts they got thr…

>I've seen their cloud bill

how did you see this. How do you know what all the discounts and backdoor deals that were applied to the bill. How do you know the final amount that was paid out.

i am skeptical that some rando is privy to this information.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#962

Post by pjmorris »

nopassrecover wrote: post #363
marcinzm wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually non-trivial to run an efficient cost center department that actually supports other departments properly. The incentive structures are just horribly difficult to align. Cloud's selling point is that you won't have to spend 6 months filling out forms to get a single out of date VM (yes, that happened to me).

Until you get the worst of both worlds and have to align an enterprise architecture approval committee, get cyber sign-off, put the request through your service desk, have it land with some sort of enterprise task prioritisation team, and finally land with your internal cloud team to action the request your team isn’t empowered to do, only to then have a simple service provisioning turn into a massively overcomplicat…

You forgot to include the meetings and paperwork involved in reporting on the SOC2 compliance.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#963

Post by alfnor »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #898
ep103 wrote: post #886

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

France's debt-to-GDP is lower though.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#964

Post by nunez »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #949
soderfoo wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally I agree with what your saying, but > I've seen their cloud bill and it's significantly higher than 1,600 peoples jobs An apples-to-apples comparison requires looking at all associated costs of switching to on prem (salaries, hardware, etc...). I've only been a part of this analysis at a company dealing with a cloud bill in the low tens of millions, nowhere near the scale of Spotify (and I'm still relatively…

Kubernetes is a pretty decent abstraction no? If all your apps and databases are containerized you can deploy in azure or aws just as well. And many cloud DBs support open source interfaces like Cassandra or JMS or Kafka etc.

It's a great abstraction that is _still_ a huge leap to make for companies who aren't bought in yet.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#965

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #388
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #354

"..Spotify had taken advantage of cheap borrowing during 2020 and 2021, when central bankers cut interest rates sharply in response to coronavirus pandemic lockdowns" > “Embracing this leaner structure will also allow us to invest our profits more strategically back into the business,” > invest our profits more strategically back into the business why didn't they do this in 2020 when they got zero interest loans and…

I don't understand the question? They were able to use money more freely as it was more abundant, so they were able to take more risks. Now that money is more expensive, they need to be more careful about it.

> "They were able to use money more freely as it was more abundant, so they were able to take more risks. Now that money is more expensive, they need to be more careful about it."

> able to take more risks

so who pays for consequences of the "risks"?

my whole point was to illustrate the idea of privatizing profit and socializing losses.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#966

Post by danielmarkbruce »

alfnor wrote: post #963
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #898

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

France's debt-to-GDP is lower though.

Maybe they should try spending a little more. Whatever they are doing now isn't working.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#967

Post by mx_03 »

araes wrote: post #935
tracerbulletx wrote: post #901

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every damned time this happens someone asks how it's possible they have so many employees when it's just an app... Spotify owns multiple large podcast studios, has sales people, negotiators, music industry people, lawyers, facility staff, lawyers, marketing, content curators. It is the business engine through which the vast majority of the world consumes music these days. You can quibble about if they have too many e…

Spotify's issues and costs are royalty payments. Of the €567 million increase in cost of revenue for the Nine months ended September 30, 2023, higher royalty costs were €534 million of that total. (~94%) [1] This delta is vs 7,159 total cost of revenue on 9,576 of revenue (€millions).[1, pg4] From looking at the rest of the report, most other cost of revenue contributors are minor (5 here, 10 there). In the total cat…

If Spotify is struggling to pay royalties they can make their own music

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#968

Post by Anamon »

raccoonDivider wrote: post #889
crorella wrote: post #836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

another nice option is Qobuz, the sound quality is good for the newer releases.

The UI was one step below Spotify or Apple the last time I tried it though.

It's noticeable that they're working with a much much smaller team than their competitors, and they occasionally roll out new bugs. On the other hand, they seem really dedicated and listen to the users. I've switched to Qobuz about five years ago and while I've had the occasional issue, I don't plan to move away from it. I usually get a personal reply to my bug reports (usually from the same guy -> small team! :D) and that tends to make me much more willing to support a company.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#969

Post by byyll »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #313
byyll wrote: post #248

Can someone explain to me why a company that is about streaming mp3s needs 9500 employees? That just sounds extremely inefficient to me. They don't even have native desktop apps.

The magic word is "growth". For context, I find this artist's explanation of the situation helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDfNRWsMRsU

Interesting video, thank you.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#970

Post by DiggyJohnson »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #912
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #900

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Almost every suggestion to help employees doesn't consider the second order effects.

Well said, that's probably a better way of framing my concern.
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