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Dropbox is laying off 20% of its staff
- blitzar 2y agoIs THE famous HN comment going to turn out to be right all along?!
- htrp 2y ago> while revenue growth slid to the low single digits. looks like they edited the article to mke more sense
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- UmYeahNo 2y agoWhat was said:“As CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision and the circumstances that led to it..." And what was unsaid: ...but I shall suffer no consequences, and I'll upend your life instead. So, I'm good, right? What even means "I take full responsibility" in this case, if there are seemingly no consequences.
- daghamm 2y agoObviously he is taking the responsibility and delegates it to 1/5 of his underlings. Given how efficiently this was executed, I think he deserves a raise.
- WesleyLivesay 2y agoThe CEO will be forced to spend an entire meeting in a remorseful mood, do you know how hard that is? He will need a raise due to the amount of trauma that will be experienced.
- bravetraveler 2y agoWe should all be assured they will learn their lesson and do much better at the helm of the next company
- WesleyLivesay 2y agoI am assured of this.
- bravetraveler 2y agoSo say we all
- bachmeier 2y agoI don't completely disagree with your take, but people in this world have it pretty good. Most of the employees being laid off were taking home good paychecks for years. They had good benefits and they paid into retirement. According to the article, the company is going to pay on average around $125,000 in severance per employee. Contrast this with the staff member at a university making $40,000 a year that gets laid off with little notice and no severance. Or the guy working in manufacturing that gets laid off because a major customer changed distributor so the company has to reorganize. Those are people having their lives upended.
- kevinventullo 2y agoThat some people losing their jobs have it better than others has nothing to do with the hypocrisy of a CEO claiming to take full responsibility while suffering zero consequences.
- blitzar 2y agoThe market love the announcement of 20% cut in staff so the share price is up 2.85%. The full responsibility personally benefited the CEO by ~$56,000,000
- bachmeier 2y agoI was responding to this > I'll upend your life instead $125,000 of severance for high-salary employees that have large retirement accounts isn't "upending" their lives. Complaints about a severance package like that belong in the same bin as billionaires complaining about paying taxes.
- kevinventullo 2y agoWhite-collar Dropbox employees have infinitely more in common with minimum wage hourly workers than any billionaire. Not just qualitatively in terms of freedom, but even quantitatively: the relatively extreme 10x difference of a $40k versus $400k salary is dwarfed by someone with a net worth 5000x the high end of that range.
- ep103 2y agoSome of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
- 404mm 2y agoThe consequences are going to be stock value increase. Edit: it’s already visible.
- sksxihve 2y agoKinda, it's up today but DBX has been pretty flat all year after a big drop in March. YTD it's down around 10% while SPY is up over 20%, layoffs seem like a desperation move along with their AI strategy.
- Log_out_ 2y agofull of resp(ectless)pon(zi,a)bilities
- ydlr 2y ago> while revenue slid to the low single digits. That can't be true. Dropbox made less than $5 in the last three months?
- rezistik 2y agoRevenue growth slid to low single digits, meaning instead of adding 20% more accounts, they only had less than 5% new accounts or revenue
- ydlr 2y agoThat makes sense, but it definitely wasn't what the artical said a few hours ago. It looks like it has been expanded quite a bit since I read it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
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- ChrisArchitect 2y agoMore discussion on official post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41994640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41994640
- whoknew1122 2y agoCan we stop euphemistic language like this: > In a letter to staff, Houston said that the reduction in headcount would impact 528 people. He fired 528 people. That's what he did. Also, he impacted a lot more than the 528 people he fired. Those who didn't get fired have to take on the work that was being done by their fired colleagues without an increase in pay.
- throwaway38442 2y agoI'm not a native English speaker, but I feel there is a difference. If someone is "fired" I would assume that it's the persons fault (bad performance).