Dropbox is laying off 20% of its staff

 (techcrunch.com)

27 points | by as-j13 小时前

9 comments

  • 13 小时前
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  • blitzar12 小时前
    Is THE famous HN comment going to turn out to be right all along?!
  • whoknew11229 小时前
    Can 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.

    • throwaway384428 小时前
      I'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).

  • 11 小时前
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  • UmYeahNo13 小时前
    What 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.

    • WesleyLivesay13 小时前
      The 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.
      • bravetraveler13 小时前
        We should all be assured they will learn their lesson and do much better at the helm of the next company
    • daghamm13 小时前
      Obviously 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.

    • ep10311 小时前
      Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
    • 404mm10 小时前
      The consequences are going to be stock value increase.

      Edit: it’s already visible.

      • sksxihve10 小时前
        Kinda, 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_8 小时前
      full of resp(ectless)pon(zi,a)bilities
    • bachmeier12 小时前
      I 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.

      • whoknew11229 小时前
        As someone who has worked for less than $40,000 a year, and someone who now makes more than the average pay of someone at DropBox--I'm not sure it's a useful conversation to say "Hey, someone else has it worse." Yes, it'd suck to be a laid-off staff member of a university making $40,000. It also sucks to be a laid-off cashier at a grocery store making $16,500.

        This talk of money also ignores the negative effects on mental health from being laid-off.

        But the most important point here is that a CEO making an obscene amount of money takes "full responsibility" and... still gets paid an obscene amount of money. Easy to take responsibility if you have 0 consequences.

        • bachmeier9 小时前
          > I'm not sure it's a useful conversation to say "Hey, someone else has it worse."

          That's wasn't the point of my comment. The point was the $125,000 severance package. You have someone making $40,000 a year getting laid off with little notice and no money to live on. That's bad. Then you have someone getting laid off but the company is giving them another $125,000. To the extent that that's bad, it's something that most folks could never dream of.

      • kevinventullo11 小时前
        That 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.
        • blitzar11 小时前
          The 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

        • bachmeier9 小时前
          I 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.

          • kevinventullo8 小时前
            White-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.
  • ydlr13 小时前
    > while revenue slid to the low single digits.

    That can't be true. Dropbox made less than $5 in the last three months?

    • rezistik9 小时前
      Revenue growth slid to low single digits, meaning instead of adding 20% more accounts, they only had less than 5% new accounts or revenue
      • ydlr6 小时前
        That 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.
  • ChrisArchitect10 小时前
    More discussion on official post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41994640
  • htrp13 小时前
    > while revenue growth slid to the low single digits.

    looks like they edited the article to mke more sense

  • 13 小时前
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