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Layoffs at Block

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Re: Layoffs at Block

#971

Post by MattGaiser »

_zagj wrote: post #294
MattGaiser wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they are right about quality, people on here vastly overstate the value of quality. From socks to dishwashers to airfares, slop is a valid product as long as it is cheap. Security from a business perspective has been proven not quite optional, but it is hardly catastrophic if it fails.

> Even if they are right about quality, people on here vastly overstate the value of quality I always found the quality argument strange; what software are these people using that makes them think quality is a high priority?

Eh, it can get a lot worse. The horrendous quality of government IT in much of Asia for example.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#972

Post by AlexeyBelov »

com2kid wrote: post #507
hirsin wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Twitter layoffs being used as proof of _anything_ is misguided no matter what you're trying to say. If success is losing half their revenue, reverting to revenue numbers from a decade ago, I gotta know what failure looks like. You might argue that the revenue losses aren't correlated to their headcount changes and probably make a good argument, but I mean... It's not a great one

Everyone predicted twitter would crash and burn within months of the layoffs. It didn't. Anyone who has worked at a large company knows that 1/2 the staff there is stuck keeping the lights on because it is easier to hire a warm body than fix tech debt. I've worked at companies that are literally 10x more effective than other competitors in the market purely due to good engineering practices. Even within large compani…

> Everyone predicted twitter would crash and burn within months

I was there, and no, it's not true. There were debates about it and no consensus.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#973

Post by AlexeyBelov »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #349
hellojesus wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I first entered the workforce at IBM and several months later they did layoffs (resource action). Every six months after that for my 6ish year tenure there were more resource actions. To this day I walk into the office each morning thinking today may be the day I get laid off. My wife doesn't think it's a healthy mentality, but I'm not sure I know another path of life. This is to say at least it's done in one fell sw…

It is a healthy mentality. After staying at my second job for too long - 9 years until 2008, I was uncompetitive in the job market and I didn’t have a network. I was 34 then. I said never again. I don’t get demoralized at all. I’ve had 10 jobs in 30 years. When a company decides or I decide that the deal of they give me money and I give them work doesn’t work for one of us - I move on. And I found a job quickly with…

Are you scarface_74?

Re: Layoffs at Block

#974

Post by AlexeyBelov »

borroka wrote: post #524
adithyassekhar wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that these other candidates work for cheaper? They might be scared of your credentials. It's disheartening that this field has come to a race to the bottom, accelerated by AI. It's not the juniors that are at risk, it's the seniors.

This could be a problem, but only if I had interviews or even just a phone call from a recruiter. But I'm not even getting to that stage. I just get rejection after rejection via email for every type of company and position I apply for. Dozens of rejections, and you get to a point where it becomes a waste of time to even apply. Also, many of the job postings are clearly fake; companies like Capital One, JP Morgan, or…

Something is obviously very wrong if you're not even getting to the first (zeroth?) stage. It could be something very obvious. Have you tried asking for professional help with your resume / CV?

Re: Layoffs at Block

#975

Post by AlexeyBelov »

make_it_sure wrote: post #884
mempko wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me for making some pretty sharp statements. Twitter is objectively a worse product now. Musk is a deeply uncreative person who doesn't seem to actually like people and attracts people to him that are the same way. This shows in his truly uninspired products. Tesla is way behind the Chinese now. xAI is a copy cat. SpaceX seems to be taking old Soviet ideas. Musk I go on?

your argument becomes equals to 0 once you involve your personal feelings

Why?

Re: Layoffs at Block

#976

Post by orphea »

leoqa wrote: post #445
daxfohl wrote: post #48

We'll see how much the AI aspect is true by whether they're thinning out teams equally, or just axing whole initiatives. My impression of Block was that it was mostly a one-trick pony (okay, two if you include CashApp) with a bunch of side initiatives that never seemed to pan out, so I'm expecting it to be more of the latter, with this being more of an admission that they're now in "maintenance mode". Either way, I t…

I’m in big tech and use AI extensively, namely to do the same amount of output but in 1-2 hours a day. Been spending a ton of time on my side projects though.

Yep. I don't understand "Look at me! With AI I can do 10x work now". Like congrats, your prize is 10x work and new baseline expectations.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#977

Post by orphea »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #937
wiseowise wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Almost like producing unicorns is not the single most important thing in the world.

Re: Layoffs at Block

#978

Post by orphea »

drstewart wrote: post #731
input_sh wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can, easily. Speaking for my country and assuming you are not on a fixed-term contract, you can only get fired for one of the three reasons: 1. Company's in financial trouble and forced to downsize. 2. The position becomes obsolete and there's no option to transition you into some other role. In this case, the company can't hire anyone with a similar-enough skillset to yours for at least a year (or maybe even longe…

>Speaking for my country I like how none of you ever reveal this mysterious country you're from, probably so you don't get called on the claims you're making. Anyway, in my country unemployment is 0% and everyone is rich and there are no problems. Why can't your country achieve the same?

People don't want to leak their personal information, duh. The country they are from is another bit of information that you can't take back from the internet once published. Why would you do that?

Re: Layoffs at Block

#979

Post by socksy »

singpolyma3 wrote: post #866
poszlem wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can believe that only if you don't care about getting a revolution in your country or extreme populist movements gaining traction. When large numbers of people feel economically disposable, the issue stops being about an individual firm’s right to hire and fire and starts becoming a systemic stability problem. But if you are okay with getting some heads chopped off with a guillotine from time to time, feel free t…

If firms laying off employs they have no use for causing a stability problem then you do indeed have a systemic stability problem which need much deeper fixes than any one firm can provide.

Are you arguing for or against capitalism here?

Re: Layoffs at Block

#980

Post by mattmaroon »

paxys wrote: post #518
mattmaroon wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not extra and their hardware is still far better than the competition. Square is still awesome in the small business PoS space. Their lead has not shrunk.

Toast has already caught up in market share, and dominates the restaurant industry. Square's numbers have been stagnant for many years. And more importantly, the entire premise when Square launched was that app-based "cloud" PoS systems would replace all traditional cash registers. Except now 15 years later that simply hasn't happened. Existing players in the space all caught up and shipped chip and NFC readers to th…

Square was never competitive in the restaurant space. Toast took market share there, but from other companies.

I run large public markets, the vendors are still almost entirely square just as they were ten years ago.

They have failed to make inroads into larger businesses like chains and stores, but that was never their customer to begin with.

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