I am mixed race, I "look" white myself, but I have an uncle for example that is "obviously black" and suffered actual anti-black racism (nothing serious, but for example police stop him in traffic whenever they see him going out with expensive car while wearing his Capoeira uniform).
When I see a statement like this (copy paste from article):
"Layoffs like this can have a more pronounced impact on marginalized communities, so we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs – while a business necessity today – were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens."
Makes me worry. What that phrase means? Apparent-white people (like me) got fired? Because they are white?
In the past I failed to get into the local government-owned university I wanted because I looked white. Had to get a loan and pay for private schooling.
What makes people think this sort of behaviour is good idea?
I believe this is driven with good intentions. Some people call this "reverse racism", and "it's not really a thing since white people are privileged".
I don't agree with this view and I think "reverse racism" is just as racist as normal racism. I strongly believe that future generations will laugh at us for coming up with such an obviously wrong way of attacking this issue.
I can’t speak to what their particular “Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens” is, but when I try to be equitable, the point of the exercise is to be aware of potential biases, and avoid them.
It’s not about preferring black employees or hating on white employees. It’s to recognize the dynamics that race might have in your organization that have nothing to do with job performance.
To tie into your anecdote: if a company hires drivers, maybe comparing a black driver and a white driver solely on the number of times they’ve been pulled over, is not an accurate representation of their driving performance. Being aware that someone could potentially need a better performance indicator is part of what this exercise might be.
There are so many folks from countries which did not have any colonialism which were not implicated in any sort of way in the oppression of folks of non-white skin color which are definitely affected by reverse-racism. Think all of Eastern-Europe for example. In essence this method of dealing with racism is actually antagonizing folks which did not have anything to do with the issue to begin with. It is kind of ridiculous. Why are they affected just because they have white skin? I am sure some non-whites are saying: "It's your turn to see how it is". Actually, it is not. The people implementing these sort of policies are even more ignorant than the original oppressors. They think their actions are just. Which is completely false. Who are they to pass judgement on who is responsible for past oppression.
I think it's a political statement to try to "look better" and gain some "sympathy" from the activist choir.
If this is HOW they are making firing decisions, then this is stupid. To remain viable they need to "cut the fat" regardless of who makes up the "fat". In other words beancounters should not be looking a the "race" & "gender" columns to make business/personnel decisions.
Yeah as someone who went through interview training recently at $BIGCO it felt very weird.
On one side you had the HR reps talking about how you can't discriminate on protected classes etc, but we had to approach hiring from an anti racist lense with a focus on getting certain groups.
I really don't know how both of these work together, I generally support the goals and esp support being aware of diff people and cultures, my family are all first gen immigrants lol.
When the rubber hits the road I don't see how these two mandates don't conflict.
Just as there is bias in hiring, there can be bias in firing. Effective leaders recognize this and put systems in place to minimize them. Being attentive to those dynamics is especially important in times of stressful decisionmaking, when it’s tempting to take cognitive shortcuts.
Claiming it means “only fire white people” is not accurate.
Not to invalidate OP's lived experiences, but they are Brazilian. Trying to extrapolate race and diversity issues in Brazil with those in the US is a bit of an apple to oranges comparison (and vice versa between the US and Brazil imo).
(Disclaimer - I have no opinions on either side in this issue).
It's not uncommon to test RIF-impacted employees for gender, age, race etc against the general population.
In fact, in certain states (like CA), you often list all the ages of the people in the department, and who is and isn't impacted IN THE RIF'ed employee's SEVERANCE PACKAGE. I believe this is employment law driven.
Totally opposite of my experience. I’m just describing mine for an alternative not to be combative or attempt to lessen yours.
I’m mixed and depending on many factors some think I’m white and others know I’m brown (certainly more brown than white folks). Typically, it’s only white people who believe I’m white (which is racist still even if they mean well). The weird thing is, truly racist hateful white people definitely know I’m not white. Like that’s how I really even found out I wasn’t like my white friends, as a child, literal fucking Nazis made that clear to me through violence.
So I’m on the other side of this coin seeing: “they didn’t lay off people because they weren’t white enough” not that people who were laid off had it happen because they are white.
Because you're extrapolating a ton from a somewhat ambiguous statement. All they are saying is that they are trying to make sure their decisions don't disproportionately negatively effect marginalized communities. This doesn't mean racist towards whites or that they will exclusively fire white people.
My read (as a white guy who is minority in religion) was: "great, this company has some defenses to make sure they are being fair to everyone, especially groups of people who don't typically get a fair shake". And that's fine by me. Not that they are firing white people. But that they are making sure they're not disproportionately firing black people or women or any other group that might be marginalized in the tech industry.
> What makes people think this sort of behaviour is good idea?
It's meant to counteract the fact that people who are obviously black suffer actual anti-black racism. You have noticed this. I could understand disagreement, I can't understand the confusion.
> In the past I failed to get into the local government-owned university I wanted because I looked white.
I don't believe this. It's not how you look, it's what you put on the forms. You may be accused of lying (I imagine) if you look white, but your parents will reveal that you're not. You don't think that, all other things being equal, in America, your uncle will have the same equality of opportunity as you without positive discrimination? He's not allowed to drive a nice car while wearing a capoeira outfit. Driving a car while wearing a capoeira outfit is a right so basic I never imagined that it would be seen as suspicious behavior.
When CEOs say they take full responsibility, I think they should take a material cut in equity and compensation. Otherwise it is just empty words for them to feel no consequences except a better balance sheet.
Or better yet, step down and let someone else run the show
This came up in the Patreon discussion yesterday. Twilio is giving decent severance packages (12 weeks plus week per year of service) and is accelerating vesting. Both of those impact the bottom line and should have a material impact on C-suite compensation.
(disclaimer: I am seriously interested to learn and understand here)
Reading the situation objectively between Twilio and Patreon yesterday, it seems there have been a number of companies who have over-hired and now need to make a correction.
Faced with this, the companies then decide to do things like extend exercise windows, accelerate vesting, provide outsized severance packages, i.e - try to soften the blow
The predominant feedback in this thread and the other thread yesterday is about "taking responsibility" and calling for the heads of the CEO's who ultimately made the decision. This is the part I don't understand.
Is the blow not softened enough, i.e additional compensation? Should the leadership team have had a crystal ball and not hired? Was there severe mismanagement of resources? Were the wrong people laid off?
Or, is the negative feedback centered literally around the phrase "taking responsibility"?
News like this is just a lightning rod in online forums for "haters" - people who have some axe to grind and show up with views that this information is less to have informed and more to have provided a soapbox for.
This anti-racist non-sense is some of the most actually racist policies I've seen put forth in decades. If this is the singular means by which they decided who to fire - they are being explicitly discriminatory and should be sued.
I don’t think it’s possible to knee jerk harder than you have here. Obviously race is not the singular factor and it’s disingenuous to actual discussion to make a claim like that.
I used to know jeffiel personally and let me tell you he is the sweetest person. He was incredibly humble when twilio became a darling in the sf-sv scene and (imo) he steered twilio to IPO effectively and quickly. Being a PoC, i'm disappointed people have felt so offended by the "anti-racist" comment in the statement, the person I know would mean that from a sincere perspective.
"Layoffs like this can have a more pronounced impact on marginalized communities, so we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs – while a business necessity today – were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens."
He may have broken some serious Federal EEOC laws here.
Why people always react with such contempt for businesses when they fire people? Employees leave their jobs all the time for selfish reasons, and nobody feels sorry for business owners who are often left with difficult problem maintaining the operations without that one person with a specific skill set. Why is it so different the other way around? Class solidarity, because there far more employees than business owners?
A lot of the people focusing on certain aspects of this layoff are unfortunately taking focus off of the increasing trend in layoffs. Patreon had a similar size reduction yesterday. There are others that are not as visible.
People talk about default-alive and default-dead companies, but everyone should be looking at their personal finances in the same way. Look at your savings, your debt, and what expenses are discretionary and make sure you have enough time to find a new job in a difficult labor market.
We have experienced an unprecedented period of growth and good employment conditions in many areas of tech, and it has been funded by venture capital while operating at a loss in aggregate. That is not how a default-alive industries run, and capital is going to be getting even more expensive soon. There are going to be more layoffs, more closures, more competition for jobs, and slower growth or contraction in compensation.
>"so we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs -- while a business necessity today -- were carried out through a Racist/Racially-Oppression lens."
Fixed that for you.. And oh boy would I not want to be one of this companies lawyers in the coming months and no doubt years! Yikes
I am completely ignorant when it comes to Twilio other than hearing the name, but what is the added value compared to what AWS (and I imagine GCP / Azure) provide in terms of SMS / robocalls functionalities?
They generally have higher quality than others in the telecom business in terms of uptime and delivery success. They also have a much more expansive toolset than AWS for expanding out from being a basic text message blaster to being a full on support center, a customer relation management platform, and a customer data platform. Also their web based programming interfaces for non-coders are better. Additionally, their developer APIs don’t have as much jank as AWS.
Price. They do some automatic bidding on the lowest upstream connection thing that keeps things low with that, it's also got a pretty robust system for building things like IVRs and all that important stuff for keeping too many calls from flooding your lines. It's got a nice enough API with support for multiple languages which comes with pretty decent documentation. I'm not surprised they're cutting a part of their workforce at all, they're a very profit oriented company, it's what their shareholders demand.
I didn't even know that AWS/GCP/Azure had VOIP to PSTN as part of their services, I don't think they're in the same business.
As a sysadmin I always feel maybe a bit callous when I read the:
> We have four priorities for reaching profitability and leading in customer engagement: Investing in our platform reliability and trust, increasing the profitability of messaging...
TLDR: "We're keeping all the sysadmins and firing all the developers who don't turn the crank on revenue".
My whole career is about pushing the DevOps kool-aide for reliability and cohesion and velocity and blah blah blah. What are devops skills really good for for developers? Job security.
[+] [-] speeder|3 years ago|reply
When I see a statement like this (copy paste from article):
"Layoffs like this can have a more pronounced impact on marginalized communities, so we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs – while a business necessity today – were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens."
Makes me worry. What that phrase means? Apparent-white people (like me) got fired? Because they are white?
In the past I failed to get into the local government-owned university I wanted because I looked white. Had to get a loan and pay for private schooling.
What makes people think this sort of behaviour is good idea?
[+] [-] haolez|3 years ago|reply
I don't agree with this view and I think "reverse racism" is just as racist as normal racism. I strongly believe that future generations will laugh at us for coming up with such an obviously wrong way of attacking this issue.
[+] [-] kube-system|3 years ago|reply
It’s not about preferring black employees or hating on white employees. It’s to recognize the dynamics that race might have in your organization that have nothing to do with job performance.
To tie into your anecdote: if a company hires drivers, maybe comparing a black driver and a white driver solely on the number of times they’ve been pulled over, is not an accurate representation of their driving performance. Being aware that someone could potentially need a better performance indicator is part of what this exercise might be.
[+] [-] bsperspectnoon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|3 years ago|reply
If this is HOW they are making firing decisions, then this is stupid. To remain viable they need to "cut the fat" regardless of who makes up the "fat". In other words beancounters should not be looking a the "race" & "gender" columns to make business/personnel decisions.
[+] [-] hemloc_io|3 years ago|reply
On one side you had the HR reps talking about how you can't discriminate on protected classes etc, but we had to approach hiring from an anti racist lense with a focus on getting certain groups.
I really don't know how both of these work together, I generally support the goals and esp support being aware of diff people and cultures, my family are all first gen immigrants lol.
When the rubber hits the road I don't see how these two mandates don't conflict.
[+] [-] gammarator|3 years ago|reply
Claiming it means “only fire white people” is not accurate.
[+] [-] alephnerd|3 years ago|reply
(Disclaimer - I have no opinions on either side in this issue).
[+] [-] adam_arthur|3 years ago|reply
Guess they figure no white/asian person is going to file a suit on racial grounds.
[+] [-] cavisne|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] klipklop|3 years ago|reply
https://listingcenter.nasdaq.com/assets/Board%20Diversity%20...
[+] [-] noahmbarr|3 years ago|reply
In fact, in certain states (like CA), you often list all the ages of the people in the department, and who is and isn't impacted IN THE RIF'ed employee's SEVERANCE PACKAGE. I believe this is employment law driven.
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|3 years ago|reply
The fact that it hasn't lost them a lawsuit yet, nothing more and nothing less.
[+] [-] rubyn00bie|3 years ago|reply
I’m mixed and depending on many factors some think I’m white and others know I’m brown (certainly more brown than white folks). Typically, it’s only white people who believe I’m white (which is racist still even if they mean well). The weird thing is, truly racist hateful white people definitely know I’m not white. Like that’s how I really even found out I wasn’t like my white friends, as a child, literal fucking Nazis made that clear to me through violence.
So I’m on the other side of this coin seeing: “they didn’t lay off people because they weren’t white enough” not that people who were laid off had it happen because they are white.
[+] [-] Ozzie_osman|3 years ago|reply
My read (as a white guy who is minority in religion) was: "great, this company has some defenses to make sure they are being fair to everyone, especially groups of people who don't typically get a fair shake". And that's fine by me. Not that they are firing white people. But that they are making sure they're not disproportionately firing black people or women or any other group that might be marginalized in the tech industry.
[+] [-] pessimizer|3 years ago|reply
It's meant to counteract the fact that people who are obviously black suffer actual anti-black racism. You have noticed this. I could understand disagreement, I can't understand the confusion.
> In the past I failed to get into the local government-owned university I wanted because I looked white.
I don't believe this. It's not how you look, it's what you put on the forms. You may be accused of lying (I imagine) if you look white, but your parents will reveal that you're not. You don't think that, all other things being equal, in America, your uncle will have the same equality of opportunity as you without positive discrimination? He's not allowed to drive a nice car while wearing a capoeira outfit. Driving a car while wearing a capoeira outfit is a right so basic I never imagined that it would be seen as suspicious behavior.
[+] [-] tibbon|3 years ago|reply
Or better yet, step down and let someone else run the show
[+] [-] coredog64|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickstinemates|3 years ago|reply
Reading the situation objectively between Twilio and Patreon yesterday, it seems there have been a number of companies who have over-hired and now need to make a correction.
Faced with this, the companies then decide to do things like extend exercise windows, accelerate vesting, provide outsized severance packages, i.e - try to soften the blow
The predominant feedback in this thread and the other thread yesterday is about "taking responsibility" and calling for the heads of the CEO's who ultimately made the decision. This is the part I don't understand.
Is the blow not softened enough, i.e additional compensation? Should the leadership team have had a crystal ball and not hired? Was there severe mismanagement of resources? Were the wrong people laid off?
Or, is the negative feedback centered literally around the phrase "taking responsibility"?
[+] [-] renewiltord|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nyxtom|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mvc|3 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
[+] [-] soared|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tpmx|3 years ago|reply
8,510 employees as of June 30, 2022
7,381 employees as of September 30, 2021
3,060 employees as of March 31, 2020 (!)
With an 11% reduction it looks like they're going back to a number similar to what they had a year ago.
(I'm assuming they haven't been growing that much during the past 2.5 months.)
[+] [-] laweijfmvo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arberx|3 years ago|reply
This is also the case for a lot of companies. It's going to be a bloodbath out there.
[+] [-] aprdm|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] COGlory|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daniel-cussen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dilyevsky|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abadger9|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qwertyuiop_|3 years ago|reply
He may have broken some serious Federal EEOC laws here.
[+] [-] pokeymcsnatch|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Andrew_nenakhov|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] impulser_|3 years ago|reply
You can't be burning insane amounts of cash while cash is becoming more tight. So the easiest thing to do is cut your workforce.
If you want to improve your chances of not being cut, work for a company that actually makes money.
[+] [-] throwaway5752|3 years ago|reply
People talk about default-alive and default-dead companies, but everyone should be looking at their personal finances in the same way. Look at your savings, your debt, and what expenses are discretionary and make sure you have enough time to find a new job in a difficult labor market.
We have experienced an unprecedented period of growth and good employment conditions in many areas of tech, and it has been funded by venture capital while operating at a loss in aggregate. That is not how a default-alive industries run, and capital is going to be getting even more expensive soon. There are going to be more layoffs, more closures, more competition for jobs, and slower growth or contraction in compensation.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] HereIGoAgain|3 years ago|reply
Fixed that for you.. And oh boy would I not want to be one of this companies lawyers in the coming months and no doubt years! Yikes
[+] [-] Imnimo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iLoveOncall|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zaheer|3 years ago|reply
https://investors.twilio.com/news/news-details/2016/Twilio-E...
[+] [-] callalex|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamal-kumar|3 years ago|reply
I didn't even know that AWS/GCP/Azure had VOIP to PSTN as part of their services, I don't think they're in the same business.
[+] [-] muttantt|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdkee|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] culanuchachamim|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xeromal|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blihp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erulabs|3 years ago|reply
> We have four priorities for reaching profitability and leading in customer engagement: Investing in our platform reliability and trust, increasing the profitability of messaging...
TLDR: "We're keeping all the sysadmins and firing all the developers who don't turn the crank on revenue".
My whole career is about pushing the DevOps kool-aide for reliability and cohesion and velocity and blah blah blah. What are devops skills really good for for developers? Job security.
[+] [-] dilyevsky|3 years ago|reply