Dropbox is laying off 20% of its staff

[blitzar]

Is THE famous HN comment going to turn out to be right all along?!

[whoknew1122]

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.

[throwaway38442]

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).

[UmYeahNo]

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.

[WesleyLivesay]

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.

[daghamm]

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.

[ep103]

Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

[404mm]

The consequences are going to be stock value increase.

Edit: it’s already visible.

[Log_out_]

full of resp(ectless)pon(zi,a)bilities

[bachmeier]

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.

[ydlr]

> while revenue slid to the low single digits.

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

[rezistik]

Revenue growth slid to low single digits, meaning instead of adding 20% more accounts, they only had less than 5% new accounts or revenue

[ChrisArchitect]

More discussion on official post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41994640

[htrp]

> while revenue growth slid to the low single digits.

looks like they edited the article to mke more sense