It’s kind of weird to see people want to work at big corporations but then act surprised or salty about layoffs.
It’s nothing personal. You’re a line number even if you’re some leet coder. It’s a business, and it’s a strategy game of utilizing resources. You might have 400k TC but you’re not god you’re a resource.
If you think these things aren’t fair or suck, then you should try to move out of the leet coder path and get on the capital owner or business operator side.
Sorry but it’s kind of annoying to see people making 200k plus not get this.
"If you think these things aren’t fair or suck, then you should try to move out of the leet coder path and get on the capital owner or business operator side."
Some people like engineering and don't want to have to do an entirely different career. I would love to be treated as a human as an engineer (which is why I'm trying to leave the big companies but it's hard to find a company much better)
It's kind of weird to see big corporations want to attract talent but then act surprised or salty when people don't like being treated like a line item in a budget.
It's nothing personal. I'm sure your company is great and you truly believe in your mission beyond just providing value to shareholders but humans like stability and to be treated like people. You might be a Fortune 500 but you're not god just a job.
If you think these things aren't fair or suck, you should try treating people better or else deal with the organized labor that will make decisions for you.
Sorry, it's getting kind of annoying to see employers not getting this.
I used to have this attitude in my early 30s when I first made >500k. I thought I was indestructable, irreplacable and had an ego to match it. What a humbling experience it was to be laid off, in fact I think it was one of the best things to have happened to me. My relationship to work and business is much healthier now. I just smile at the silly games tech employers and their staff play.
> If you think these things aren’t fair or suck, then you should try to move out of the leet coder path and get on the capital owner or business operator side.
You could also try to improve society.
People don’t have to just take it, they can fight back. All power comes from the consent of the masses, none of these guys have the physical power to compel any of us to do anything at all, including let them live.
Look what is happening to Tesla in Scandinavia right now for an entirely different take on what people can do if they don’t think things are fair.
It's really funny to see hackers fall in line to work at big companies. In the 90s all the true hackers hated large established companies and would show them the finger and work for scrappy upstarts. And now all the kids are bending over backwards to work for these large corporations doing hours of leetcode. What a shame.
Additionally, HR (Human Resources) reports to the CFO in most companies.
All you have to do is look at the org chart to understand that HR is a function within finance, and everything within finance is about numbers, resources (including human resources).
HR and Finance people think about data and make decisions in spreadsheets. No emotion. They also realize they'll be rewarded (via stock market, or investors) by doing things that are best for their business (according to their spreadsheets..), even if it might create a temporary PR issue or temporary morale issue.
> If you think these things aren’t fair or suck, then you should try to move out of the leet coder path and get on the capital owner or business operator side.
Spotify is a for-profit enterprise and if laying people off is the right financial choice then he's doing his job well. He can sell his shares when he feels like it.
If you agree with the narrative of shareholder primacy and are looking at short term outcomes then sure, nothing is wrong here. But this means that we're ignoring the harm that was done to the people that lost their income and the disruptions that the rest of the org will experience.
Layoffs can be devastating to the people that were terminated; a job loss is one of the higher stress events one can experience. If you take into account the larger impact than "shareholder value" then dumping stock to capture value is an abdication of responsibility on the CEO for over -hiring, and has terrible optics of financial gain right when a number of employees took it on the chin.
Its the C-suite management that makes all the decisions and reaps all the rewards, but when they make mistakes, they don't fire themselves, they fire employees, many who had no control of the strategic mis-steps of their leadership.
* This is a classic highlight of company leadership focused on quarterly results. The stock has a good quarter, the CFO is now much richer.
* At a base level this is one person profiting off misfortune he caused other people. This isn't the pro-social type of behavior I would want to be encouraged.
* Companies primary focus is on satisfying Wall Street, while avoiding too much scrutiny from DC.
I thought that as a corporate officer he kind of can't sell his shares when he feels like it?
My layperson's understanding is that people like him have to decide in advance when they're going to sell shares and tell the SEC (by filing a 10b5-1 with a preset sales schedule and cooling-off period before sales start). I thought that the most control he would get is choosing to suspend the plan (i.e. keep shares instead of selling them on the pre-decided date).
Are there other ways he can sell his shares whenever he wants? Can he borrow using them as collateral whenever he likes, for example?
As a legal matter, no, he can't really sell his shares when he feels like it. (Disclaimer: IANAL and this is not advice.) The Spotify insider trading policy [1] prohibits transactions during "blackout periods," which start with the last month of the fiscal quarter (so December 1, in this case) and end after earnings are released.
These share sales were presumably executed pursuant to a 10b5-1 plan, so he did something like set up a target price ahead of time at which he would sell. It just so happened that the plan was triggered when the stock surged on news of layoffs. I don't think the optics are great there! But it's at least sort of a coincidence.
Our society is inches away from extreme violence at all times and the relative peace and legitimacy of that society depends on securing broad consensus and consent of the governed and a reasonable distribution of resources. He can be killed and eaten for his protein content when someone feels like it too.
On the one hand this is true. On the other hand, it's reasonable to expect extraordinary leadership from executives paid extraordinary amounts of money. Cashing in millions in stock options after layoffs is bad optics, and diminishes trust in company leadership, and employee loyalty. One might expect executives to put off cashing in shares for some time to avoid these optics, even if it cost them a small amount off the top.
Instead of speaking about his right to do this or not, I think this conversation should be about the rise in C-suite executive compensation and Jack Welch style business decisions.
For comparison, that's enough to have saved almost all of the jobs that were cut...
1500 lives were ruined so this guy could add some zeroes to his bank account.
(For all those commenting on 10b5 sales: note that the layoffs were timed to match the scheduled sales so that the executives could reap the windfall from the increased stock prices resulting from the layoffs. This has been a strategy for at least a decade now and is drawing increasing scrutiny because it's basically an endrun around insider trading rules.)
Just because he executed within a legal trading window doesn't mean he didn't make the decision to trade. It absolutely has everything with the stock going up right after the layoffs.
He traded on publicly available information, didn't he? Like, literally, what's the difference between him or you logging into a trading platform and issuing a sell on Tuesday morning?
No. As far as I know, blackout periods are usually before a major announcement, except in cases like a change in leadership. In any case, blackout periods are defined and enforced by companies, they are not rules made by the SEC: the purpose is to avoid the appearance of impropriety. This is not insider trading either, since insider trading involves making trades based on non-public information, and this all happened after the information was made public.
Too early to tell. If the company is in far worse condition than the public realizes, than maybe. But this could just be rebalancing due to the increase in price.
They've reached market saturation, are not profitable, continually fail to find ways to become profitable, and yet they have a nearly $40 billion market cap. Any concept of valuation is meaningless these days.
The takes in this thread are incredibly poor. They’re poorly informed, they are often contradictory, they are frequently some weird antiwork spillover or something? Bizarre.
Basically, if you are interested in actually understanding this, don’t look to the top comments here. Wow.
I think it's reasonable for people to be frustrated that laying people off (lost value/income/security for many) consistently translates into big payoffs (more money) for fewer others (CEOs, shareholders). It feels like a moral inversion.
Sure, lots of people saying it's totally legal and "capitalism gonna capital", which is fair.
Except imagine the absolute kicking morale will take as a result of this. I'm sure it was bad enough, internally, when 17% of staff were made redundant. (I'm sure their internal channels are pretty salty and uncomfortable right now.) I'm sure there was plenty of anger internally at the C-levels. PR school would tell them to keep quiet and wait for the storm to pass; _not_ look to be publicly, personally, profiting from it to the tune of many millions of dollars.
Poor morale leads to greater attrition of those your company needs to hold on to, especially at an inflection point such as this. It leads to it being harder to hire in the future (and more expensive.)
It's up to the CFO to decide if that's worth it. It may be in the short-term; but long-term it's a much tricker equation.
To pay their bills. Such is the system that small businesses cant survive, and people are forced to work in large enterprises funded by massive amounts of venture funds. Without competition said enterprises can do whatever to employees. Those elected to ensure balance are rewarded well for their ignorance.
A bit like in communism where people could only work in large enterprises while small business owners have been wiped out.
Instead we should have hundreds of Spotify alternatives each focused on varying genres. Competition would solve not just working conditions but also artist pay and end user pricing.
[+] [-] lgkk|2 years ago|reply
It’s nothing personal. You’re a line number even if you’re some leet coder. It’s a business, and it’s a strategy game of utilizing resources. You might have 400k TC but you’re not god you’re a resource.
If you think these things aren’t fair or suck, then you should try to move out of the leet coder path and get on the capital owner or business operator side.
Sorry but it’s kind of annoying to see people making 200k plus not get this.
[+] [-] tdb7893|2 years ago|reply
Some people like engineering and don't want to have to do an entirely different career. I would love to be treated as a human as an engineer (which is why I'm trying to leave the big companies but it's hard to find a company much better)
[+] [-] djinnandtonic|2 years ago|reply
It's nothing personal. I'm sure your company is great and you truly believe in your mission beyond just providing value to shareholders but humans like stability and to be treated like people. You might be a Fortune 500 but you're not god just a job.
If you think these things aren't fair or suck, you should try treating people better or else deal with the organized labor that will make decisions for you.
Sorry, it's getting kind of annoying to see employers not getting this.
[+] [-] forward1|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CPLX|2 years ago|reply
You could also try to improve society.
People don’t have to just take it, they can fight back. All power comes from the consent of the masses, none of these guys have the physical power to compel any of us to do anything at all, including let them live.
Look what is happening to Tesla in Scandinavia right now for an entirely different take on what people can do if they don’t think things are fair.
[+] [-] ilrwbwrkhv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cj|2 years ago|reply
All you have to do is look at the org chart to understand that HR is a function within finance, and everything within finance is about numbers, resources (including human resources).
HR and Finance people think about data and make decisions in spreadsheets. No emotion. They also realize they'll be rewarded (via stock market, or investors) by doing things that are best for their business (according to their spreadsheets..), even if it might create a temporary PR issue or temporary morale issue.
[+] [-] archagon|2 years ago|reply
Or… unionize. Y’know, hack the corporation.
[+] [-] Racing0461|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] coldbrewed|2 years ago|reply
Layoffs can be devastating to the people that were terminated; a job loss is one of the higher stress events one can experience. If you take into account the larger impact than "shareholder value" then dumping stock to capture value is an abdication of responsibility on the CEO for over -hiring, and has terrible optics of financial gain right when a number of employees took it on the chin.
[+] [-] game_the0ry|2 years ago|reply
Its the C-suite management that makes all the decisions and reaps all the rewards, but when they make mistakes, they don't fire themselves, they fire employees, many who had no control of the strategic mis-steps of their leadership.
Sometimes the C-suite needs to be fired.
[+] [-] hx8|2 years ago|reply
* At a base level this is one person profiting off misfortune he caused other people. This isn't the pro-social type of behavior I would want to be encouraged.
* Companies primary focus is on satisfying Wall Street, while avoiding too much scrutiny from DC.
[+] [-] rco8786|2 years ago|reply
He, in fact, cannot. As a C level executive he is going to trade on a 10b5-1 schedule.
[+] [-] empathy_m|2 years ago|reply
I thought that as a corporate officer he kind of can't sell his shares when he feels like it?
My layperson's understanding is that people like him have to decide in advance when they're going to sell shares and tell the SEC (by filing a 10b5-1 with a preset sales schedule and cooling-off period before sales start). I thought that the most control he would get is choosing to suspend the plan (i.e. keep shares instead of selling them on the pre-decided date).
Are there other ways he can sell his shares whenever he wants? Can he borrow using them as collateral whenever he likes, for example?
[+] [-] ta_billlegrand|2 years ago|reply
These share sales were presumably executed pursuant to a 10b5-1 plan, so he did something like set up a target price ahead of time at which he would sell. It just so happened that the plan was triggered when the stock surged on news of layoffs. I don't think the optics are great there! But it's at least sort of a coincidence.
[1] https://s29.q4cdn.com/175625835/files/doc_downloads/gov-docs...
[+] [-] CPLX|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oatmeal1|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] COGlory|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ekaros|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apwell23|2 years ago|reply
He got fired today.
[+] [-] rogerkirkness|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] i13e|2 years ago|reply
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/07/was-jack-welch...
https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/
[+] [-] gamblor956|2 years ago|reply
1500 lives were ruined so this guy could add some zeroes to his bank account.
(For all those commenting on 10b5 sales: note that the layoffs were timed to match the scheduled sales so that the executives could reap the windfall from the increased stock prices resulting from the layoffs. This has been a strategy for at least a decade now and is drawing increasing scrutiny because it's basically an endrun around insider trading rules.)
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[+] [-] halfblindsalt|2 years ago|reply
Basically, if you are interested in actually understanding this, don’t look to the top comments here. Wow.
[+] [-] ulfw|2 years ago|reply
What a shit show.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/7/23992712/spotify-cfo-paul...
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[+] [-] maxehmookau|2 years ago|reply
Except imagine the absolute kicking morale will take as a result of this. I'm sure it was bad enough, internally, when 17% of staff were made redundant. (I'm sure their internal channels are pretty salty and uncomfortable right now.) I'm sure there was plenty of anger internally at the C-levels. PR school would tell them to keep quiet and wait for the storm to pass; _not_ look to be publicly, personally, profiting from it to the tune of many millions of dollars.
Poor morale leads to greater attrition of those your company needs to hold on to, especially at an inflection point such as this. It leads to it being harder to hire in the future (and more expensive.)
It's up to the CFO to decide if that's worth it. It may be in the short-term; but long-term it's a much tricker equation.
[+] [-] trgn|2 years ago|reply
I've seen it swing both ways. Group psychology is weird.
[+] [-] ulfw|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumballindie|2 years ago|reply
A bit like in communism where people could only work in large enterprises while small business owners have been wiped out.
Instead we should have hundreds of Spotify alternatives each focused on varying genres. Competition would solve not just working conditions but also artist pay and end user pricing.