I have been at startups where they just stop paying the office lease and salaries stop. These days i am just prepared for it. If you are in the backend side of things you can figure out most things with a few sql queries.
This actually makes laying off a recent hire sr employee more expensive. As they’d need to pay out all the equity and 16 weeks of expensive base salary.
I wish I could get that offer right now. I would take it straight away.
That reminds me though. I went through quite a few big layoffs at GE and one of the better ones was when they were offering people 26 weeks of pay plus one week for each year of service. Many of these people had 20+ years so they would have gotten nearly a year of pay to quit. Almost nobody took it.
The downside is that the worst performers get the best severance benefits - each round of layoffs reduces the benefits and gets rid of the less expendable folks.
The funny thing is, and it shows in this mail, Tobi built a true profitable Unicorn. And outside of Shopify, and even within eCommmerce, he has such a low profile as a person. Founders here in germany look to Musk, I suspect (and now for a fact) a lot of them don't even know who he (Edit: Tobi) is.
I like that mail, ckear, to the point, factual and self critical. Severence packages are good, really good. All in all, quite a change from other companies firing people over zoom.
It's always been interesting to me --- most people dont realize it's way better to be rich and unknown then be known to be rich. Tobi can't hide that he is rich at this point, but I bet he can go into most restaurants or bars outside of CA without being accosted.
"Most of the impacted roles are in recruiting, support, and sales, and across the company we’re also eliminating over-specialized and duplicate roles, as well as some groups that were convenient to have but too far removed from building products."
Important to keep in mind that engineering roles may not be as affected as other departments.
achow|3 years ago
Additional week for every year of tenure at Shopify.
No Equity cliff.
Medical benefits (for 16 weeks?).
Internet costs reimbursement (16 weeks?).
Get to keep home office furniture.
Kickstart allowance that can be used to buy new laptops.
Outplacement services.
Free Shopify account those who wants to start on their own.
trdtaylor1|3 years ago
tarellel|3 years ago
ransom1538|3 years ago
bushbaba|3 years ago
mberning|3 years ago
That reminds me though. I went through quite a few big layoffs at GE and one of the better ones was when they were offering people 26 weeks of pay plus one week for each year of service. Many of these people had 20+ years so they would have gotten nearly a year of pay to quit. Almost nobody took it.
commandlinefan|3 years ago
mancerayder|3 years ago
If you're year 1.5 into a 4 year vest, you get all 4? or 2?
hef19898|3 years ago
I like that mail, ckear, to the point, factual and self critical. Severence packages are good, really good. All in all, quite a change from other companies firing people over zoom.
kypro|3 years ago
Fyi for those who don't know Tobi is German, but moved to Canada where he started Shopify.
misiti3780|3 years ago
jonny_eh|3 years ago
ezekg|3 years ago
dayvid|3 years ago
Important to keep in mind that engineering roles may not be as affected as other departments.
neon_electro|3 years ago