[HN Gopher] LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide
___________________________________________________________________
LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide
Author : DarkContinent
Score : 280 points
Date : 2020-07-21 12:26 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| pixelbreaker wrote:
| I'm sure they can find a job on LinkedIn.
| 0xFFC wrote:
| Yeap. One of those fake job ads will respond to them applying.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| If their marketing had a bit of creativity, they would get the
| people laid off into new jobs. Potential customers might
| notice.
| jiofih wrote:
| Wow, this means linkedIn has ~16k employees? What on earth are
| all those people working on?
| MagnumPIG wrote:
| Ads.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Microsoft is doing its usual fiscal year-end layoffs, but fewer
| than usual - https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-is-doing-
| its-usual-f...
| LaundroMat wrote:
| 960 is 6% of the global LinkedIn workforce. I am baffled by how
| many people work for LinkedIn.
| sshagent wrote:
| They need that many to keep up with the sheer volume of emails
| they are sending out each day /s
| justsid wrote:
| LinkedIn keeps suggesting me my mother who passed away 4
| years ago. Every week, without fail, I get an email telling
| me that I should totally connect with her. It's highly
| annoying and no matter what I do to my email preferences, I
| keep getting the same damn email.
| downvoteme1 wrote:
| A lot of them are sales people. LinkedIn as a people business
| needs a lot of sales reps and account managers to be in contact
| with Recruiters and other people involved with selling .
|
| 16K people spanning the whole globe is not bad .
| dustinmoris wrote:
| It is not just big, it is mega big. WhatsApp had world
| dominance and their product had to deliver instant messages,
| including photos, videos and other features over crappy
| internet connections and they managed to build, manage and
| sustain an amazing consumer product with a handful of people,
| so 16k for an online job board is laughable and embarrassing.
| It's just a website after all.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| You can't really automate enterprise sales.
|
| Whatsapp would have needed at least 200 salespeople uf they
| hadn't been bought by FB.
| actuator wrote:
| That seems like a lot but a lot of interesting stuff in
| engineering has come out of LinkedIn, I think a lot of other
| roles like sales might be there.
| ponker wrote:
| Almost all enterprise software companies have more people in
| sales than engineering. Microsoft is one big exception but
| LinkedIn must have more sales than eng.
| wastedhours wrote:
| And they prefer you to be managed by a salesperson over
| letting you be self-serve as they tie you into a guaranteed
| spend with them.
|
| I spent years trying to untangle us from their managed
| services, but couldn't as they batched all discounts
| company wide. I've never worked anywhere where departments
| shared budgets (even in a 3 person startup, my marketing
| "budget" was kept separate to other elements, alas the CEO
| had other issues...), but they basically enforced us to.
|
| That meant I had to pay for pretty much all the LinkedIn
| usage company wide out of my budget (to receive the
| discounts on different products as they only applied to one
| invoice - huge savings on purchasing separately from
| different budget lines, but still large sums of cash), but
| internal systems meant other departments couldn't
| contribute their share back to us.
|
| And once you're in the door, you're then given about 3
| different contacts (your sales contact, a follow up sales
| contact, and then some kind of "content success" person
| whose only job I could tell was sharing the occasional case
| study).
|
| God I hate LinkedIn sales.
| saas_sam wrote:
| Literally everything your company pays for is out of
| individual departmental budgets? You can't do internal
| chargebacks, shared services, or move budget around if
| needed? I've never worked anywhere w/ the kinda crystal
| ball required to make rigid dept budgets work year-round,
| personally.
| wastedhours wrote:
| The barriers for shifting cash around were really high,
| and only allowed at half ends where it had to be returned
| centrally and then reallocated based on business case.
|
| Less than a certain amount and you literally couldn't
| move it out of a department (spend it or lose it) - you
| could shift it _inside_ the department easily enough, but
| we as marketing and them as HR couldn 't do it.
|
| > the kinda crystal ball required to make rigid dept
| budgets work year-round
|
| Apart from some mild quarterly reforecasting, you mean
| you've never had the joy of trying to flight out an
| entire year's marketing spend at the start of the year
| before? And then have to justify every "variance" ;)
| saas_sam wrote:
| I haven't had that joy, thankfully. But I do routinely
| have the joy of working with execs to reallocate spend
| for my products/services. The era of carefully planning
| out purchases 12 mos in advance is long past. Unplanned,
| 6-figure software expenditures are the norm now -- and
| companies that can make that happen without too much
| bureaucracy are reaping the rewards.
| ponker wrote:
| Sounds like LinkedIn only found a way to exploit your
| pathologically broken budgeting system.
| wastedhours wrote:
| True, though I've spoken to a number of brands who had
| the same experience as well. Also the same experience of
| the quality of traffic being terrible for the cost as
| well.
| ponker wrote:
| Most of it is sales.
| durnygbur wrote:
| selling... what? or LinkedIn has become corporate IG and
| people receive money for all this "this is how I succeeded"
| and "I overcame my weaknesses" unsolicited content.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Spam tool for low quality "recruiters" is my experience.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Selling the premium subscriptions for recruiters I assume.
| But I agree that the platform is becoming a typical social-
| media cesspool which is a shame because it could be really
| great if they toned down the "social media" aspect of it
| and focused more on recruitment, better job ads (most of it
| is garbage) and essentially be a corporate rolodex (right
| now it's a pain to use because all of the noise, and the UI
| is terrible and slow).
| rococode wrote:
| Their enterprise recruiting tool costs $9000/year.
| durnygbur wrote:
| Such a poor outcome for this price. Once was involved in
| recruiting and the recruitment platform had some
| integration and subscribtion with LI. So many hopeless
| zero-effort applications from India... and some weird
| from China (or at least from profiles claiming to be from
| there).
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I'm baffled by that number given how bad the product is.
|
| It has a lot of potential, but is completely ruined by the
| social media aspect and their attempt at making it yet another
| cesspool like Twitter or Instagram, all the way down to the
| algorithmic feed, likes and reactions.
|
| They should step away from the nonsense and make the tool
| (because yes it should be seen as a tool and not a lifestyle)
| _easier_ to use, not harder. Stop getting in my way trying to
| make me use the algorithmic feed (it forgets your choice after
| a few hours) or nagging me to add a profile picture (I 've said
| no for 2 years, why are you still trying?) or certain profile
| details I might not want to share, or "following sources"
| (whatever that means, I guess it's about following bullshit
| hashtags so you can have even more crap in your feed). The UI
| is absolutely terrible and slow for no good reason and makes it
| painful to use.
|
| The worst is that you might think "okay well the free version
| for the plebs is nasty because it tries to drum up engagement,
| but the premium version should be better, right?" WRONG! The
| premium version is just as bad but instead of wasting just your
| time it wastes your time _and_ your money.
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| Which product?
|
| LinkedIn has managed to release a new app for basically every
| function while also bundling all that functionality into
| their primary app...
|
| It's truly a disaster over there...
| Nextgrid wrote:
| LinkedIn itself. I have not used any of their other
| products so can't comment on them, though I wouldn't be
| surprised if they are just as terrible.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The feed is really quite awful. All social media is somewhat
| performative by nature, but LinkedIn's feed takes it to
| another level. It's not just performing for peers, but also
| performing for current and potential future employers.
|
| Never have so many words been written that mean so little.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I find the performative aspect to makes LinkedIn the most
| charming out of social media "cesspools", actually. The
| often vapid content and the professional personal branding
| exercises and optimism narratives are at least positive
| compared to the culture wars being fought on Facebook and
| Twitter.
|
| Quora is just as much of a cesspool, except more
| frustrating because casual users are actually expecting to
| get something out of it, as opposed to people posting
| productivity listicles on LI.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| From my experience you can opt-out of the bullshit with no
| ill effects, at least in the software industry. My activity
| is completely empty, no posts, no likes, etc and that
| doesn't seem to hurt me. I mostly use the tool as a rolodex
| to keep in touch with professional connections and be
| reachable by recruiters.
|
| The problem of course is that the platform doesn't seem to
| understand that and desperately tries to encourage me to
| participate which seems pathetic at this point. They have 2
| years worth of analytics that essentially show them a big
| middle finger, why keep trying?
| kjeetgill wrote:
| Posts like this baffle me.
|
| This tool seems to function perfectly well as a rolodex
| and as a recruiter contact for you (its primary function
| for myself and most others) but somehow it's problematic
| for to have other functions for other users.
|
| > The problem of course is that the platform doesn't seem
| to understand that and desperately tries to encourage me
| to participate which seems pathetic at this point. They
| have 2 years worth of analytics that essentially show
| them a big middle finger, why keep trying?
|
| What a strange personification of a vast social network.
| Who is it that you think is up awake late at night,
| desperate and pathetic? What middle finger? Recruiters
| can reach you, LinkedIn got paid for that.
|
| They have metrics for conversions when they push for
| engagement. It works well enough. Nobody's out there
| 'trying' expending extra energy to engage you
| specifically. It would take more work to exclude you.
|
| Disclaimer: Former LinkedIn employee baffled at how
| personal you seem to think all this is.
| brandonr49 wrote:
| I think it's an understandable position as an individual.
| Many people are frustrated that all these applications
| are somewhat forced on them by social and professional
| engagements in the first place. Even if they haven't been
| forced on you it has become tedious to have no option to
| say "STOP NAGGING ME I WILL NEVER PARTICIPATE".
|
| Add to this that even basic OS functions on mobile
| devices are constantly trying to get you to subscribe to
| various services and I think it's reached a boiling point
| for a vocal segment of people who just want to be able to
| go about their UI in peace. Unfortunately some data
| analyst at every big company has decided it's ok to have
| a popup every time the user visits to remind them to
| engage, and sign them up for 25 different email lists
| they have to unsub from individually, and have
| notifications pop up on their phone for no reason other
| than to get them to open the app, just because it results
| in 2% more users signing up for some service and it
| hasn't yet cause the other 98% to rage quit.
|
| Disclaimer: this kind of behavior has been driving me
| insane for several years but there's almost no mechanism
| to avoid these issues on the whole. Also this isn't
| targeted at you in particular but just to illustrate what
| I think is a growing resentment amongst a set of users.
| gjs278 wrote:
| if someone closes a box once, you don't ever need to show
| it to them again, ever
| [deleted]
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| > I'm baffled by that number given how bad the product is.
|
| That's because the "product" isn't the social network. The
| "product" is insight and access to much of the professional
| workforce. Sales and HR use it extensively.
|
| The social network aspect is likely to keep people semi-
| engaged with the platform and voluntarily disclosing things
| that Sales and HR can use as signals.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Salespeople using the platform to try to sell me their
| products is what makes linkedin awful to me. It's one thing
| to buy ads, but it's awful to spam people's inboxes with
| messages.
| opportune wrote:
| LinkedIn the product is an expensive tool for recruiters, and
| the pool of people on LinkedIn they can pull from. The feed
| is just fluff. In that regard, before the pandemic, LinkedIn
| was a big success.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I can see that being the cause.
| GreenWatermelon wrote:
| Is it alright not to have a profile picture on LinledIn? I've
| searched around and only found advice telling me to put one.
| drchopchop wrote:
| I think at this point, for most people, LinkedIn just serves
| as a repository for formatted resumes. Connections add a bit
| of value, as you can see where co-workers end up in the
| future.
|
| The real problem is that for anyone with decent-sounding
| title, the amount of inbound spam is incredibly high. Endless
| outsourced development companies, recruiters, and random
| people wanting to connect for no discernible reason. Add to
| that a bunch of low-quality blogging, and I can't see how
| anyone can really enjoy spending time on the service.
| Leherenn wrote:
| Does anyone have insight on those random connections?
|
| I'm at the bottom of the pile in terms of job title, and I
| think my profile is open to everyone, so I struggle to
| understand why a wood worker from half way across the globe
| would like to connect with me.
|
| And it's not like they even try to talk to you or anything,
| so it feels like I'm missing something.
| blocked_again wrote:
| Doesn't LinkedIn(Microsoft) has a shit ton of money in reserves?
| Is cutting down these jobs in the midst of a pandemic really
| essential for the company's survival? Especially when the
| economies has started recovering in many parts of the world.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| If these laid-off employees have an average fully-loaded cost
| of $400,000 (which probably isn't too far off), then linkedin
| will save about $460,000,000 annually by not keeping them on
| the payroll.
|
| That is not small change, even for a company the size of
| Microsoft.
|
| They may have been contributing more than that to the bottom
| line prior to the recession--hard to know--but the recession
| changes quite a bit of the calculus around long-term bets.
| blocked_again wrote:
| > If these laid-off employees have an average fully-loaded
| cost of $400,000 (which probably isn't too far off),
|
| I highly doubt that. Most of the folks who were let go are
| from HR/Sales. Plus a portion of the folks are located in
| India and all.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Fine. Even if they average $200,000, you are still looking
| at a quarter billion dollars a year. That will still show
| up in your quarterly results.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > Even if they average $200,000
|
| You're still way high. It might help to step outside the
| software engineering bubble once in a while and learn
| what folks outside your field are paid.
|
| LinkedIn probably has >1,000 employees who make around
| US$50,000 a year or less.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Speaking of assuming too much: You have no idea who I am,
| or my employment history.
|
| The top-line going even lower still doesn't materially
| change the calculus. Those people cost money to pay, and
| multiply it by almost 1,000 people and it makes a real
| difference.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| Curious about your math. $400k x 960 employees = $384 M.
| replyifuagree wrote:
| One thing I've noticed is that labor law has evolved to where
| layoffs are the risk free way to cut staff who aren't
| performing. At my company we would almost never PIP people
| because we were strongly encouraged to wait for a layoff round.
| I think the calculus revolved around lawsuits that pips could
| generate due to their personal nature, vs layoffs being non-
| personal.
| duxup wrote:
| I don't think you stay in business long paying folks that ...
| you don't want / need working for you anymore.
| blocked_again wrote:
| Yeah. But the economies are going to recover right? I don't
| think a few more months of pay slips for 1000 people is going
| to make any dent in MS bank account. But it sure makes a dent
| in the life of people who were let go in the middle of a
| pandemic.
|
| If they were not needed in the first place, then the
| management who hired them in the first place should be also
| fired for incompetence and letting them all go in middle of a
| pandemic.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| > But the economies are going to recover right?
|
| A lot of people are hoping it will. A lot of people are
| even expecting it will. But you'd still be stupid to bet on
| it. The conservative move is to wait and see.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > If they were not needed in the first place, then the
| management who hired them in the first place should be also
| fired for incompetence and letting them all go in middle of
| a pandemic.
|
| It is unreasonable to expect management to have a crystal
| ball into the future.
|
| The role of serving as a safety net can only be
| accomplished by society as a whole, not individual
| business. Businesses should be able to purchase labor and
| not purchase labor as they see fit, just like they purchase
| other supplies for the operation of the business. The role
| of providing basic income should fall to the government.
| duxup wrote:
| >I don't think a few more months of pay slips
|
| I suspect they think it is more than that.
|
| Also depending on their situation, they might already be
| getting a few months of pay anyhow.
| blackflame7000 wrote:
| It's a business not a charity
| blocked_again wrote:
| Please link this comment in your careers page, under company
| culture, if you ever start a company.
| leafboi wrote:
| I would say basically almost every company has this policy
| and that culture is a just a lie. If he puts it on his
| company page, at least he's being honest.
|
| That being said there is one company I am aware of that is
| proven to not to be like this and that is gravity payments.
| saas_sam wrote:
| Businesses earn money by providing goods & services better
| than alternatives. Charities earn money by begging. I'd
| rather work for a business.
| blocked_again wrote:
| You do know that a lot of these people were working just
| as hard as you are and were let go off for no fault of
| their own in the middle of a pandemic?
| saas_sam wrote:
| Yes, and the employees that remain should thank them for
| their hard work and help them find new jobs. If LinkedIn
| could easily employ an extra 1,000 people without risking
| the 10,000 that remain, they would've hired an extra
| 1,000 a year ago. Doesn't work that way.
| [deleted]
| twblalock wrote:
| Why bother? Competent professionals already know it's true,
| even at companies that pretend otherwise.
| dehrmann wrote:
| The Netflix culture deck arguably says that in nicer words.
|
| https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664/24-Were
| _...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| claydavisss wrote:
| Not sure how Msft operates internally, but often, divisions are
| responsible for their own P & L...so XBox making a ton of money
| may not help LinkedIn
| 6c696e7578 wrote:
| On top of everything else, I think this goes to show how
| expensive Azure infrastructure really is.
| ceo_tim_crook wrote:
| Yes, that must be it
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| How is this related to this news? Yes, I know both are owned by
| MSFT, but I'll need more info.
| 6c696e7578 wrote:
| Linkedin wasn't on Azure until MS bought them. Now the TCO
| has gone up. GitHub has also shown signs of the Azure
| infrastructure.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| Considering they last posted about moving to Azure in 2019,
| I doubt they've moved everything to azure in <12 months.
| 6c696e7578 wrote:
| You're right. I think downtime is holding them back.
| 12xo wrote:
| What the heck do close to 10k people do at LinkedIn? Serious
| question. Why does this site/company require 10k people?
| vasco wrote:
| Look at an up to date org chart of a tech company of 1.3k
| people and what they do:
| https://about.gitlab.com/company/team/org-chart/
|
| If you now think that all business divisions have more work to
| perform due to scale, and that for development, you want to
| have more parallel streams of work, this should give you an
| approximate idea of what an order of magnitude larger company
| uses 10k people for.
| jsnell wrote:
| Thanks, that's great! Having a concrete example really drives
| home the point.
| sireat wrote:
| Looking at that chart I was puzzled at some of the roles.
|
| Why would there be a person who is only doing pricing? - ie
| Pricing Manager.
|
| Yet if you read the job description:
| https://about.gitlab.com/job-families/product/pricing-
| manage...
|
| you can start to understand how crucial pricing could be to a
| large organization that they could dedicate a person(and a
| whole team underneath!) solely to pricing goods and services.
|
| EDIT: At the same time you wonder if pretty much all jobs
| follow Parkinson's role: job filling up to fill up the time.
|
| You have a whole team of talented front end guys at Youtube
| (or Gmail or Dropbox or ..) and front-end will change and
| features will be added or dropped because well something
| needs to be done.
|
| So wouldn't this same principle apply to other jobs? Pricing
| Manager would keep fiddling with prices if there is nothing
| else to do. Obviously there would be justifications to higher
| ups.
| spicymaki wrote:
| This might sound naive, but I would like to advocate for more
| employment than less. Optimizing jobs from 10k to 500 as some
| people in the thread are advocating seems horrific to me.
|
| The ideal is that you would have 500 people that are efficient
| enough to perform 20x the work, and optimize the work
| efficiency, and automate some things.
|
| What I have seen personally is that employers just overload
| staff. They reach a crisis point and have to hire more people.
| That just hurts employees and there families.
|
| I do not want to make baseless assumptions on who was laid off.
| People could be laid off for something as trivial as a site
| consolidation and the person could not relocate, or an
| acquisition where multiple people had the similar roles. Using
| laid off status as a scarlet letter is a worrisome trend and
| only serves to harm all of us in the long term.
|
| I personally do not want to live in a zero sum economy.
| decafninja wrote:
| I've interviewed for roles at several top tech companies and
| what surprised me was that there were entire teams dedicated to
| working on what seemed like a tiny feature or functionality. In
| some cases, two entire teams - one for frontend, one for
| backend.
|
| Granted, I understand there is a HUGE mind boggling level of
| scale involved.
|
| But still, after going on such interviews, and talking with
| friends who work at FAANG, etc. it sounds like my boring
| mediocre job as a bank SWE is more involved and exciting than
| some of these FAANG jobs.
|
| But I'd still jump through flaming hoops to jump ship to a
| FAANG or similar tech company.
| pavas wrote:
| The features may have limited scope but if they have an
| entire team dedicated to them they usually deal with large
| enough scale that it's worth it.
|
| When you're dealing with distributed systems at large scale
| you can no longer have services be down for longer periods of
| time because it's a lot of money you're losing.
|
| The business decision for employing an engineer or
| engineering team should be made at the margin -- that is, if
| the marginal revenue increase is higher than the cost of
| employing that team you should definitely employ them.
|
| At large scale, a sub 1% increase in revenue or decrease in
| revenue lost can be multiple $M, so it would be worth having
| a team that only increases productivity across the company by
| an average of <1%.
| twblalock wrote:
| FAANG companies can't move fast and break things like
| startups. If their services go down, it might be mentioned on
| the evening news, and it would certainly cost a lot of money.
| FAANGs have huge existing revenues to protect, large customer
| bases to keep happy, and laws to obey in all of the countries
| where they operate.
|
| A "simple" feature change is not so simple for companies with
| those concerns.
| gowld wrote:
| "move fast and break things" is literally Facebook's motto,
| the F in FAANG. It's why you know the motto.
| twblalock wrote:
| They used that motto when they were a startup and changed
| it a while ago.
|
| > On May 2, 2014, Zuckerberg announced that the company
| would be changing its internal motto from "Move fast and
| break things" to "Move fast with stable infrastructure"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook,_Inc.#History
| ptmcc wrote:
| A lot of FAANG and FAANG-adjacent dev jobs are not any more
| glamorous than other dev jobs. A lot of the day to day looks
| the same, just keeping the lights on. Sometimes a really
| interesting technical problem does come up, but a lot of the
| complexity of the job is working within a huge complicated
| environment, both technically and organizationally.
|
| I will say, completely anecdotally, that the average bar for
| competency and work ethic is higher. Day to day stuff just
| gets done faster and more thoroughly with more
| accountability. But that's just personal experience, YMMV.
|
| I worked on cooler and more diverse stuff at various start
| ups and contract gigs, but I get paid literally double (or
| more) in big tech sooooo yeah riding it out for a bit. I
| don't see doing this for 20 more years, though.
| decafninja wrote:
| Yeah, I imagine day to day work isn't profoundly different
| wherever you go, but rather it's intangibles like culture
| and work environment and working mentality that make the
| difference.
|
| Most of my coworkers are simply there to collect a
| paycheck. Not that there's anything strictly wrong with
| that, but there is distinctly a lack of interest in doing
| anything beyond the bare minimum to satisfy technical
| requirements. Grass is greener on the other side, but my
| interactions with employees of tech companies has given me
| the impression that they're just a lot more enthusiastic
| about their work than many equivalent SWEs at companies
| where tech is a cost center.
| [deleted]
| symlinkk wrote:
| A lot of small features are needlessly complicated at a FAANG
| because they reinvent the wheel.
| decafninja wrote:
| I don't think that's limited to FAANG. My company
| needlessly reinvents the wheel, but I get the impression
| the reinvented wheel is more competently reinvented at
| FAANG than at my bank.
| [deleted]
| tootie wrote:
| I think it's also that the economics are just different. If
| you're evaluating a CICD tool at a small company, you're
| going to find something affordable and bend your process to
| how it works. A mid-size company might invest a bit into
| customizing Jenkins hoping that it will pay off in the long
| run. A giant company might spend millions building a fully
| custom system from the ground up because gaining 1% more
| efficiency in developer effort or even build times makes it
| worth it. And more than that, they may be willing to invest
| in experiments knowing that some will fail because the
| chance of success is still worth it.
| symlinkk wrote:
| From what I have seen, the internal tooling is usually
| worse than what is publicly available. Often times it is
| only used because it was built before there was anything
| publically available, and now all of their tooling and
| workflow depend on it and they can't easily change. Plus
| no one wants to rock the boat and suggest throwing out a
| tool that likely employs a bunch of people.
| oblio wrote:
| And the return of investment for the change is low plus
| it's an extremely hard sell for management ("we'll work 2
| years to get roughly where we are now and maybe get 3
| minor features plus the promise of lower maintenance in
| the future").
| peter303 wrote:
| I a medium size vertical software company I worked at no more
| than 20% were software engineers when it reached the mature
| stage. Some were software support people like program managers,
| testers, technical writers, Training. Some were company support
| like executive, HR, sales, IT. And then were services side of
| People who used the software embedded within customer companies
| because the customers wanted to outsource that role.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| The question to ask is how many VPs and Directors they have.
|
| Once you have that answer, you'll know why there are so many
| employees.
| symlinkk wrote:
| Nothing, it's bloat. People will twist themselves into a
| pretzel performing mental gymnastics to tell you otherwise, but
| it's bloat, plain and simple.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Besides the usual, LinkedIn is running an e-learning operation
| for business these days (LinkedIn Learning), and generally
| trying to be another vehicle through which Microsoft expands
| its offerings -- moving away from simply being the "recruiting"
| social network and instead moving to be the social network for
| every phase of your life as an employee.
| mandeepj wrote:
| They actually have 16,000 people. Unfortunately, it'd send you
| even more intense shock waves.
| jldugger wrote:
| To expand on https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/, 10k people aren't
| required per se, they're there to make more money than they
| cost. Specifically: - sales & billing for
| linkedin premium, lynda, and other paid products -
| billing fraud detection, to cut the cost of chargebacks -
| security, to prevent that one leak from happening again, to
| keep PCI compliance, etc. - spam filtering, tuned to
| balance keeping paying customers (recruiters) happy with
| keeping suppliers (candidates with a resume) happy -
| Writing new features, to keep engagement and signups up -
| fixing things that keep breaking, like the email contact
| scraper - testing code for new features to make sure
| they, IDK, don't break the signup page - a/b testing the
| hell out of any and every thing - collecting and storing
| the massive analytics datasets they generate daily -
| analyzing daily datasets to determine which a/bs to promote
| - coming up with new features - testing anything at all
| - deploying corporate networking in all the offices buildings
| and such - optimizing infra costs - deploying
| actual physical datacenters because the cost is cheaper than
| paying the profit margins of AWS - moving back to cloud
| (azure) because after you were acquired, the markup dropped and
| the calculus on on-prem vs cloud flipped - managing all
| the projects associated with above - recruiting staff to
| handle all the above - managing all the staff associated
| with above - acquistions (lynda, fliptop, glint,
| drawbridge)
| notyourwork wrote:
| > they're there to make more money than they cost.
|
| This is the key most people ignore. If each employee
| generates revenue greater than their cost of employment, why
| not keep them around?
|
| The goal isn't keeping the lights on, its making money.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| It's not just about profitability though.
|
| I'm a bit rusty with my corporate finance, but internal
| rate of return (IRR) and weighted average cost of capital
| (WACC) can dictate that even if an employee is making more
| than what they cost, the money could still be better
| allocated elsewhere.
| jldugger wrote:
| Sure, it's a simplification, but the point kind of stands
| -- if you have a net positive outcome after adjust for
| cost of capital, you should seek that capital out to make
| it happen. Or maybe decrease a dividend or buyback
| program.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Does "allocated elsewhere" imply not at the company or
| performing another task? Those are quite different.
| eigenvalue wrote:
| The metric that tends to matter in this is ROIC, but
| since software/internet companies tend to be pretty
| "capital light", they generally already have a very high
| ROIC. Unless the company can deploy that money in new
| growth projects that they aren't already going after, or
| in accretive acquisitions (hard to do when tech
| valuations are so high), it probably makes sense to do
| what they are doing.
| supernova87a wrote:
| To pull in a side topic on this very idea -- it's crazy
| that Congress chooses to defund and target the IRS, their
| own tool for revenue generation. Can you imagine how much
| money each IRS employee can bring in? I know there's
| stealth doctrinal reasons for engaging in the shenanigans,
| but at a practical level, cmon, we're shooting ourselves in
| the foot.
| gowld wrote:
| Congresspeople aren't paid a commission on tax revenue.
| The have no particular incentive to raise funds via text
| enforcement vs raising rates vs raising debt.
| markkanof wrote:
| But it's not like the IRS is having sales people cold
| call Americans and convince them to send more money. Even
| if you take the most charitable interpretation of what
| taxes are (ie. you think they are legitimate and
| necessary at their current level), it still makes most
| sense to automate as much of the IRS process as possible.
| Otherwise those IRS employees are eating up tax resources
| that could be applied to other things.
| supernova87a wrote:
| You may not know there is a huge job the IRS needs people
| to do: audits and reviews, which are not automated. And
| take cases to court.
|
| Every IRS employee who is available to review tax filings
| can probably bring in multiple (probably dozens of)
| millions of $ of incorrectly or improperly filed taxes.
| Tell me that's not worth paying a person's annual salary
| for?
| kube-system wrote:
| Yes, I feel like developers tend to evaluate tech
| businesses from the perspective of the tech that they
| generate, since that is the goal of a developer. It's
| sometimes hard to remember that making tech is simply the
| means to an end.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Takes a bit of perspective shift to realize tech is a
| means to end and not the end itself.
| jiofih wrote:
| That shift usually happens around year 1-2 for every
| software developer.
| mavelikara wrote:
| IME, you are over estimating how quickly this happens.
|
| For me, I was well past my 10th year into the profession
| when this realization struck. And now, as a hiring
| manager, I frequently interview senior developers who are
| not able to explain the business goals of their software.
| I consider it an important part of my job to coach
| engineers in my org to understand the business context of
| their work - a benefit I got only well into my career.
| jaywalk wrote:
| > deploying actual physical datacenters because the cost is
| cheaper than paying the profit margins of AWS
|
| I feel like their parent company has a pretty good handle on
| that, and going to AWS wouldn't really be an option.
| jldugger wrote:
| Right, but literally the next bullet point covers that
| event.
| codegladiator wrote:
| Now multiple that by X (=20 ?) regions.
| jedberg wrote:
| Last year LinkedIn made $6.8B in revenue. If they hire someone
| who can make a process .01% more efficient, they would save
| $680,000. If they pay that person even $400,000/yr plus
| benefits, they are coming out ahead.
|
| If you find someone who can make things .002% more efficient
| and pay them $100,000 a year, you've still come out ahead.
|
| At that revenue, it doesn't take much to get an ROI on a new
| employee.
| jsnell wrote:
| Making "a" process .01% more efficient is not sufficient in
| your example. You need (the weighted average of) everything
| to become that much more effective.
|
| Somebody improving e.g. the build speed by that amount will
| not be paying back their salary in improved productivity of
| other developers. While a person who increases the click
| through rate on ads by 0.02% probably does.
| jedberg wrote:
| The point is that at that level of revenue, even the
| smallest contribution pays itself back.
| CrackpotGonzo wrote:
| Sales.
| 12xo wrote:
| Its mostly self-service and partner driven (programmatic). As
| an ex VP of Ad Sales, I just dont see the need... My guess is
| that they have several thousand offshore devs and a lot of
| fat from acquisitions.
| blizkreeg wrote:
| you don't think $7B of revenue in 2019 merits 10k people? Do
| you think you can run that size of a business with 500?
| cpach wrote:
| 500 might be a bit low. But maybe 5000?
| Dragory wrote:
| They didn't say anything about whether it merits 10k people,
| they were curious what all those 10k people are doing. I'm
| curious about that as well - clearly LinkedIn is doing much
| more than I was aware of.
| 12xo wrote:
| Yes you can. Look at Craigslist or POF.com for examples. But
| I also forgot that LI owns Lynda.com, so there are a lot of
| redundancies over there.
| yibg wrote:
| Neither craigslist nor POF generates 7 billion in revenue.
| Latest number I can find for craigslist is around 700m in
| 2016, let's assume it's 1b now. And let's assume they have
| 1 employee. You don't think hiring an additional 10k
| employees to get an extra 6b in revenue is worth it?
| 12xo wrote:
| CL has approx 50 employees, operate around the globe and
| are on track to do in excess of 1b in revenue this
| year... So I disagree with your assessment.
|
| There are many businesses that operate in the 10figure
| range that dont require 10's of thousands of employees.
|
| To me LI is more indicative of bloat. Especially since
| they are owned by MSFT.
| yibg wrote:
| Yes but can they scale to 7B with 50 employees? And
| specifically can they run a business like LinkedIn with
| 50 (or 500 or whatever small number) employees.
|
| I would argue the answer is no. If CL has a way to scale
| to that kind of revenue you'd think they would be doing
| it. One possible answer is the business they run just
| doesn't scale like that regardless of how many employees
| they have so it's better to keep things lean.
|
| I'm all for running a lean business, and there are
| certainly plenty of examples. CL, Stack overflow, POF
| etc, and they have impressive revenue to employee ratios.
| But they don't necessarily scale linearly, and they don't
| have to. CL has 20m revenue per employee, that's
| impressive. But they likely won't be able to carry that
| ratio up to 10b in revenue. They also don't need to. The
| additional employee just need to bring more revenue than
| they cost.
|
| If someone knows how to run a multi billion dollar global
| business with 50 people (and more specifically if they
| know how to do it with linkedin), there will be plenty of
| people lining up to talk with them and giving them money
| to do it.
| sct202 wrote:
| I know that one of my friends got a swag box (card, candle, and
| a metal water bottle) from LinkedIn when he got hired at a
| company that used LinkedIn's recruiting services. I'd imagine
| there's a lot of other random things they do at low scale to
| excite their customers.
| barrenko wrote:
| Every big company just wants to die, don't believe anything
| else.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Delivering the part of LinkedIn which provides value to end
| users is relatively trivial. A small number of engineers
| (20-30) could do that. The problem is ironically how much
| profit they make.
|
| Look at ad-blocking for example. You as the user won't see how
| this affects LinkIn, but they likely devote dozens (hundreds?)
| of employees to fighting ad-blockers and optimizing the site so
| people don't notice how their anti-ad-blocker solution
| completely destroys performance. But as a company that kind of
| investment in staff is profitable because the cost of those
| engineers is vastly lower than the cost of losing 1% of their
| advertising revenue.
|
| Likewise, ad fraud, and a dozen other issues which might impact
| LinkedIn's revenue flows. When you hire your 4000th developer,
| they aren't providing as much value to the company as engineer
| #50, but they are providing enough value to cover the cost of
| employing them (at least net, it's likely 50% of them at that
| point are dead weight but hard to identify).
|
| Multiply this kind of decision making over 500 other decisions
| and engineering "Bloat" makes a lot more sense.
|
| And that's before you start adding in things like sales, HR,
| marketing, etc. Remember, each additional person doesn't need
| to provide as much value as the first 50, they just need to
| provide $100-500k worth of value.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| This article is so damn useful: https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/
|
| > I can't think of a single large software company that doesn't
| regularly draw internet comments of the form "What do all the
| employees do? I could build their product myself." Benjamin
| Pollack and Jeff Atwood called out people who do that with
| Stack Overflow. But Stack Overflow is relatively obviously
| lean, so the general response is something like "oh, sure maybe
| Stack Overflow is lean, but FooCorp must really be bloated".
| And since most people have relatively little visibility into
| FooCorp, for any given value of FooCorp, that sounds like a
| plausible statement. After all, what product could possible
| require hundreds, or even thousands of engineers?
|
| > ...
|
| > Businesses that actually care about turning a profit will
| spend a lot of time (hence, a lot of engineers) working on
| optimizing systems, even if an MVP for the system could have
| been built in a weekend. There's also a wide body of research
| that's found that decreasing latency has a signifiacnt effect
| on revenue over a pretty wide range of latencies for some
| businesses. Increasing performance also has the benefit of
| reducing costs. Businesses should keep adding engineers to work
| on optimization until the cost of adding an engineer equals the
| revenue gain plus the cost savings at the margin. This is often
| many more engineers than people realize.
|
| > And that's just performance. Features also matter: when I
| talk to engineers working on basically any product at any
| company, they'll often find that there are seemingly trivial
| individual features that can add integer percentage points to
| revenue. Just as with performance, people underestimate how
| many engineers you can add to a product before engineers stop
| paying for themselves.
|
| > Additionally, features are often much more complex than
| outsiders realize. If we look at search, how do we make sure
| that different forms of dates and phone numbers give the same
| results? How about internationalization? Each language has
| unique quirks that have to be accounted for. In french, "l'foo"
| should often match "un foo" and vice versa, but American search
| engines from the 90s didn't actually handle that correctly. How
| about tokenizing Chinese queries, where words don't have spaces
| between them, and sentences don't have unique tokenizations?
| How about Japanese, where queries can easily contain four
| different alphabets? How about handling Arabic, which is mostly
| read right-to-left, except for the bits that are read left-to-
| right? And that's not even the most complicated part of
| handling Arabic! It's fine to ignore this stuff for a weekend-
| project MVP, but ignoring it in a real business means ignoring
| the majority of the market! Some of these are handled ok by
| open source projects, but many of the problems involve open
| research problems.
|
| > There's also security! If you don't "bloat" your company by
| hiring security people, you'll end up like hotmail or yahoo,
| where your product is better known for how often it's hacked
| than for any of its other features.
|
| > Everything we've looked at so far is a technical problem.
| Compared to organizational problems, technical problems are
| straightforward. Distributed systems are considered hard
| because real systems might drop something like 0.1% of
| messages, corrupt an even smaller percentage of messages, and
| see latencies in the microsecond to millisecond range. When I
| talk to higher-ups and compare what they think they're saying
| to what my coworkers think they're saying, I find that the rate
| of lost messages is well over 50%, every message gets
| corrupted, and latency can be months or years1. When people
| imagine how long it should take to build something, they're
| often imagining a team that works perfectly and spends 100% of
| its time coding. But that's impossible to scale up. The
| question isn't whether or not there will inefficiencies, but
| how much inefficiency. A company that could eliminate
| organizational inefficiency would be a larger innovation than
| any tech startup, ever. But when doing the math on how many
| employees a company "should" have, people usually assume that
| the company is an efficient organization.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| what languages does LinkedIn support - I get mine in English
| but I suppose it must be heavily internationalized as well.
| whymauri wrote:
| Thank you. I'm so tired of reading the same "I could build
| this unicorn over the weekend with a few AWS credits and a
| healthy stream of whiskey."
|
| On every damn layoff thread.
| ryneandal wrote:
| Except the original comment wasn't that. At all. It was a
| genuine question because a lot of us aren't familiar with
| these tech giants and how they're structured.
| varjag wrote:
| The fact that a significant portion gets swiftly laid off
| with seemingly no consequence suggests these complexity
| concerns are overstated.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Don't know what consequences you specifically mean here,
| but some projects won't get done, some sales won't be
| made, some research won't pan out. Some institutional
| knowledge will be lost so the next rev won't go as
| quickly.
|
| There will be many consequences, just perhaps not obvious
| for those on the outside looking in.
| kube-system wrote:
| > seemingly no consequence
|
| This is the same fallacious statement in reverse. You
| couldn't build LinkedIn in a weekend because they do a
| lot of things you don't see. Also, when they fire a bunch
| of people, it will affect a lot of things you also don't
| see.
|
| Could someone compare today's and yesterday's Wayback
| Machine results for your company's website and
| demonstrate the value everyone at your company generated
| today?
| varjag wrote:
| The GP post was a wall of text basically explaining how
| you can't run a large website without tens thousands of
| staff. Surely it would fall apart if you suddenly cull
| 10% one fine Friday?
| kube-system wrote:
| I've worked at lots of companies where the product isn't
| optimized, it didn't handle Chinese or Arabic queries, or
| there were organizational issues. These things don't make
| a company fall apart suddenly, although they could be
| impediments for growth.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| That is, in fact, not what it said.
|
| It didn't say that you absolutely _needed_ tens of
| thousands of staff, but that tens of thousands of staff
| often made sense to hire.
| 12xo wrote:
| There was a time you could... Now? no way, at least not
| without some Flappy Golf type of viral hit.
| 12xo wrote:
| To me LI is a tower of Jenga. Years of growth, mutliple
| acquisitions, M&A and almost no downward market pressure put
| them into this position of bloat. But your points are good,
| very very good. It take a lot of people to run a large org.
| But that's not always the best way...
| mason55 wrote:
| This question comes up on every post about a big tech company.
| LinkedIn in a global company operating commercially in probably
| almost every country. The "social network for work" part is
| easy but when you start talking about things like job listings
| across the world and then the sales and account management and
| local office management and compliance and the internal tools
| and billing and everything else, it's quite easy to get to 10k.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if they have 1000 people in the US just
| dedicated to sales & account management for the job listings.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| It's the perennial HN question that ignores how much global
| companies need in-market sales, marketing, and support teams
| to grow.
| badestrand wrote:
| I think many people here (me included) just don't know what
| LinkedIn is doing. Apart from "having a website", that is.
| 12xo wrote:
| I am not surprise, just amazed that a site which is mostly
| self service and runs on UGC needs anywhere near this many
| people to operate. But then again, most of the people are
| probably hold-overs from acquisitions. As an ex VP of Ad
| Sales, I dont see how they'd need this many people in sales.
| Its almost all automated self-serve and partner driven. Even
| with a large US based team to manage the big spends, you're
| still not needing a large staff... But then again, these
| types of orgs tend to be filled with a lot of mediocre talent
| and suffer from BigDumbCompany syndrome...
| brandnewlow wrote:
| I think we've seen that UGC is and always has been a bit of
| a myth. Social media companies have always quietly employed
| armies of people to moderate user posts, persuade famous
| people and Companies to post, to actually do the posting
| and "media strategy" for those VIPs and companies, and then
| of course to sell the ads and pro services that come with
| it all.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bitbuilder wrote:
| >This question comes up on every post about a big tech
| company.
|
| And in turn, there are always replies that justify these head
| counts in ways that I _still_ have a hard time buying into.
|
| All I have to go off is on my own experience, but I worked at
| a large retailer/wholesaler that had: - 1500
| retail store locations. - Probably a half dozen
| warehouses. - A couple high volume ecommerce sites
| (not at LinkedIn scale, but scale was a concern).
|
| To support those operations, they employed people for:
| - Staffing the retail stores and warehouses. - Call
| centers for customer support. - Sales for the wholesale
| division. - Advertising/marketing for the retail
| division, all run internally. - Logistics/shipping.
| - Real estate. - Merchandising. - Inventory
| management. - Product design. - Sourcing product
| manufacture. - All of the boilerplate corporate crap
| (HR, recruiting, accounting, etc.)
|
| Almost all of the above had software to support it that was
| written and maintained in-house, including a custom built
| ecommerce stack.
|
| All of the above took roughly the same headcount LinkedIn now
| has. The technology team writing and running all that custom
| software was maybe 200-300 people.
|
| So even after I hear all the reasons LinkedIn has to be so
| huge (sales, support, scale, etc), I'm still left scratching
| my head.
| mistersquid wrote:
| > All of the above took roughly the same headcount LinkedIn
| now has. The technology team writing and running all that
| custom software was maybe 200-300 people.
|
| > So even after I hear all the reasons LinkedIn has to be
| so huge (sales, support, scale, etc), I'm still left
| scratching my head.
|
| The reason for your head-scratching is unclear. Your
| previous company had about the same headcount as LinkedIn.
|
| LinkedIn, being an international company even before
| Microsoft's acquisition, probably has a similar level of
| necessary personnel, including internal and external
| software development teams.
|
| I don't see the reason for your confusion from what you've
| written. Perhaps explicitly stating a point of difference
| between your previous company and LinkedIn would clarify?
| bitbuilder wrote:
| My apologies, you are correct. I took some things for
| granted in terms of why I made the comparison, and on
| further reflection it probably isn't a fair comparison.
|
| For example, I took it for granted that when I said there
| were 1500 retail locations that readers would realize
| that meant probably close to 10,000 out of the 13,000
| were just dedicated to running those retail locations
| (that's going by back of the envelope math, as well as
| hazy memories of actual numbers).
|
| Add to that probably another 1000 for the warehouses and
| associated logistics, and you're looking at a pool of
| maybe 2000 actual knowledge workers split among all of
| the functions listed above (sales, marketing, support,
| legal, real estate, merchandising, development, IT, etc,
| etc).
|
| I also made perhaps an invalid assumption that the
| software being written to manage and optimize the: 1)
| design of a product 2) sending it off to China for
| manufacture 3) shipping it back to the states 4) storing
| it in a warehouse 5) letting it be found, ordered and
| paid for online by anyone in the world 6) and finally
| shipped to the end consumer.... is all somehow more
| complicated than the development being done by LinkedIn,
| and being done by only a couple hundred dev and
| infrastructure people.
|
| In my mind, that felt like evidence LinkedIn might be
| bloated. But as others have pointed out, I'm sure there
| are dev challenges I'm taking for granted. And of course
| you need a healthy headcount to deal with the legal,
| support and sales operations of a company with the
| international footprint of LinkedIn.
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is one of those things you can't tell anyone1. You
| just learn it by trying differently and failing.
|
| 1 http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-
| people-an...
| nameoda wrote:
| This can be summarized as, "I can tell you what it is,
| but I cannot understand it for you".
|
| In such cases I've invariably found that the failure is
| on part of the person who is telling the thing - they are
| simply failing to communicate effectively.
|
| They are not emphasizing the important points, they are
| not working backwards from the result that they want to
| achieve and merely listing steps to get to the result,
| they don't empathize with the audience so they cannot
| customize their narrative in a way that resonates with
| the audience.
|
| This is exactly why in your 16 or more years of education
| with dozens of teachers, you can only name a handful that
| actually were good teachers.
| grecy wrote:
| Across how many countries & continents was that company
| operating?
|
| How many currencies, and differing legal requirements did
| they have to deal with?
| toephu2 wrote:
| 10k? LinkedIn has 16k employees..
| curiousllama wrote:
| Companies commonly use layoffs as an easy way to get rid of
| under-performing staff, realize cost savings from previous
| investments (e.g., automation) ahead of schedule, or efficiently
| reorganize divisions whose execs fall out of favor. Not going to
| say this is good, but a <10% layoff is not unreasonable for a
| healthy company, especially when some business units may be
| stagnating.
|
| However callous it is, roles on the margin get cut when prospects
| for growth dim.
| retzkek wrote:
| > a <10% layoff is not unreasonable for a healthy company
|
| So, almost literally decimate in the classical sense?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)
| war1025 wrote:
| Apparently "decimate" is having a moment on HackerNews
| lately. It came up over the weekend as well [1], with the
| same disagreement between people on what it actually means.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23878605
| realtalk_sp wrote:
| There shouldn't be a debate at all since both sides are
| technically correct. Here's the definition from Google:
|
| > dec*i*mate /'des@,mat/ verb 1. kill, destroy, or remove a
| large percentage or part of. "the project would decimate
| the fragile wetland wilderness" 2. HISTORICAL kill one in
| every ten of (a group of soldiers or others) as a
| punishment for the whole group.
|
| There are many words and phrases that have changed in
| meaning over time through popular (mis)use.
| jacques_chester wrote:
| I believe the shift in meaning came about because
| decimation was an incredibly brutal punishment -- it was
| the most severe sanction that a general could impose.
|
| What is often overlooked is not just that it was "one in
| ten" executed, but that they were executed by being
| clubbed to death by the other nine men who were not
| chosen to die.
|
| So "decimation" spread from the literal procedure to
| "worst outcome imaginable". Much as "literal" no longer
| means literal.
| thephyber wrote:
| > Much as "literal" no longer means literal.
|
| To be clear, "literally" still means the original
| definition, but now there is an additional colloquial
| definition which can be used as the opposite of the
| original meaning[1].
|
| [1] https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/literally
| creaghpatr wrote:
| I've heard the term Diezmo to describe the second
| definition, there's a fiction book about that.
| nwatson wrote:
| Diezmo (Spanish) and Dizmo (Portuguese) also mean
| "tithe", an obligatory offering of a tenth of income to
| churches or religious or charitable organizations.
| (Growing up in South America in a religious family, I
| heard both these words a lot.)
| varjag wrote:
| My knowledge of corporate culture might be outdated, but I
| believe the former LinkedIn employees get to live.
| MattyMc wrote:
| I think this varies company-to-company haha ;)
| guenthert wrote:
| They are terminated though.
| maxk42 wrote:
| Decimate in the classical sense would be to reduce by 90%,
| not 10%.
| gruez wrote:
| >Decimation (Latin: decimatio; decem = "ten") was a form of
| Roman military discipline in which every tenth man in a
| group was executed by members of his cohort. [...] The word
| decimation is derived from Latin meaning "removal of a
| tenth".[
| rdiddly wrote:
| Reducing a military force by 90% might not exactly improve
| its effectiveness...
| mulander wrote:
| > Every tenth man in a group was executed by members of his
| cohort
|
| That is a 10% reduction. Killing nine out of ten would be a
| 90% reduction but 'in the classical sense' it would also
| mean that the lucky guy would have to kill the 9 remaining
| people.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Why did you put _' in the traditional sense'_ in quotes,
| as if you were quoting the parent poster, who clearly
| wrote "in the _classical_ sense "?
| mulander wrote:
| My mistake, I wrote it from memory instead of copying or
| looking at the parent post. Edited and fixed.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Reduce _by_ 10% or reduce _to_ 90% of it 's previous value
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Having dealt with LinkedIn, I honestly think there's another
| 10-15% of people who wouldn't probably have their jobs if LI
| had better systems in place.
| [deleted]
| wolco wrote:
| The issue not being talked about is the removal of the
| recruiter from remote roles. Those recruiters paid linkedin
| thousands a year for premium access.
|
| Plus the lower jobs posting overall.
| kevstev wrote:
| What do you mean? The only remote job I have had used a
| typical recruiter from the company side. I am sure he had a
| premium subscription. I didn't use a recruiter from my side
| as I knew someone that worked there.
| wolco wrote:
| Third party recruiters specifically.
|
| I've seen so many jobs that send leetcode tests instead as
| the initial filter and use job boards to find candidates.
| vcanales wrote:
| > removal of the recruiter from remote roles
|
| What does this mean? What issue is this?
| wolco wrote:
| Many remote roles are direct apply/hire from job boards
| with leetcode tests that act as a filter. Recruiters are
| being used less.
| sushshshsh wrote:
| As a counterpoint to your post, I was recently hired by a
| 3000 person company who paid an external recruiter to
| post a job on LinkedIn and do the initial screening of
| me, which was extremely light.
|
| 8 rounds of interviewing with the company virtually
| later, I was hired. The interviews involved a mix of live
| coding, system design, and general questions about
| commonly used programming languages and frameworks.
|
| I personally feel like the recruitment firm was
| beneficial to the process in getting my foot in the door
| and accelerating everything. I've seen many people have
| much worse experiences, but mostly from companies that
| aren't serious about hiring.
| hedora wrote:
| I've worked with good recruiters. They do a ton of work
| at the beginning of the hiring funnel.
|
| If you got an onsite interview, you probably didn't even
| notice the first few filters that the recruiter applied
| to you. Those early filters eliminate at least 90% of
| applicants.
| user5994461 wrote:
| Testing platforms charge the company tens of dollars per
| test, so it makes a lot of sense to have a person double
| check that the resume is relevant rather than sending
| tests automatically.
| sushshshsh wrote:
| I suppose I see where you are coming from but a testing
| platform was never involved in my journey, just google
| docs.
| mathattack wrote:
| In this case, they make a disproportionate amount of their
| revenue on jobs postings and selling recruiters the right to
| spam us. With less jobs their revenue goes away. They don't
| need as many salespeople and internal recruiters.
|
| Microsoft has historically been pretty ruthless about annual
| culls. It used to be in the GE mode of cutting the bottom 5-10%
| each year. More recently it's more quiet.
|
| I don't begrudge companies this. They need to move resources
| where they're most needed.
| monadic2 wrote:
| I imagine at some point a reputation like this affects hiring
| ability.
| michelb wrote:
| Seems to not be a problem for Facebook
| curiousllama wrote:
| On the contrary - they pay a premium for tech talent
| raxxorrax wrote:
| On a sellers market for sure. And who wants to perform top
| throughout their whole career? Really doesn't sound that
| interesting to be honest.
| Zafira wrote:
| > It used to be in the GE mode of cutting the bottom 5-10%
| each year.
|
| Hasn't it been demonstrated that GE under Jack Welch was
| basically a massive fraud?
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| You might be right, but source?
| ultraluminous wrote:
| Not OP but - https://qz.com/1811291/jack-welch-was-the-
| best-and-worst-thi...
|
| _GE's breathtaking growth under Welch was fueled in
| large part by its transformation into a financial
| services superpower. By 2000, nearly half of the
| company's revenue--$96 billion--came from GE Capital_
|
| _GE's exposure to finance proved to be an enormous
| vulnerability after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11,
| 2001, and particularly during the financial crisis of
| 2008. While Welch's successor, Jeff Immelt, tried to
| diminish GE's reliance on finance, his efforts came too
| late._
| mdorazio wrote:
| Here's a good review (sorry for the paywall) [1].
|
| Basically, Jack Welch was in the right place at the right
| time, probably (almost definitely) played semi-legal
| accounting games to beat analyst estimates (a practice
| which later led to accounting fraud charges [2]), and
| pretty much mortgaged the company's future in exchange
| for short-term boosts by selling off many of its business
| units and focusing on GE Capital, which basically got
| annihilated a few years after Jack left. So he was also a
| master of leaving other people holding the bag. Also, the
| man was apparently (according to many people who worked
| with him) a massive asshole with a huge ego problem and
| would epitomize every negative stereotype of white male
| executives if he were still alive today [3].
|
| [1] https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/leaders/jack-
| welch-infl...
|
| [2] https://www.cfo.com/accounting-tax/2009/08/ge-
| settles-accoun...
|
| [3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-jack-welch-wont-be-
| missed/
| Zafira wrote:
| While GE's successes under Welch are suspect at best in
| my opinion, I was more referring to the legacy of "stack
| ranking" under Welch's tenure.
|
| I've read "At Any Cost: Jack Welch, General Electric, and
| the Pursuit of Profit" and I consider him a con man.
| Stack ranking was just a nice veener to justify layoffs
| whose primary motivation were to inflate the valuation of
| GE and increase its perceived profitability.
|
| To be fair, Welch gave what the investors wanted, but he
| corrupted everything in pursuit of that. If the primary
| proof of stack ranking's "wisdom" was that GE's stock
| went up then that is a sad indictment of the state of
| business culture in the West.
| williamstein wrote:
| GE under his successor Jeff Immelt was definitely a mess.
| Under Jack Welch the situation was much more subtle. Source
| -- a book "Lessons from the Titans: What Companies in the
| New Economy Can Learn from the Great Industrial Giants to
| Drive Sustainable Success" that was published a few days
| ago. I coincidentally read the chapters on GE yesterday,
| which was written by somebody with extensive personal
| experience with the CEO's of GE.
| https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Titans-Companies-
| Industrial-S...
| missedthecue wrote:
| if youre referring to that hit piece that came out last
| year about long term care insurance, no. That was a bunch
| of crap. The guy who published it burned his reputation as
| the Madoff whistleblower to make some quick money.
| eldavido wrote:
| I feel like there are basically three ways to lose your job
| in tech.
|
| In one, the company cuts an entire business unit, or a
| company shuts down, or something else cataclysmic happens.
| This is where you have dozens/hundreds of people let go.
| Outside of small startups, this seems pretty rare. I think
| selling/divesting a failing business unit is more common than
| outright shutdown in tech.
|
| In the second, the employee does something really egregious
| and gets straight-up terminated for cause (fired).
| Absenteeism, theft of company property, sexual harassment,
| something so bad it's borderline illegal and potentially a
| legal risk for the employer if they don't do something about
| it.
|
| The third, which is what we're seeing here, is a general
| reduction in bloat done under the guise of "the economy". In
| my experience, great people don't tend to get let go in
| situations like this--it's political cover to remove the
| bottom 10%. Companies, at least in tech, don't make a routine
| practice of doing this without "a reason".
|
| Being in the bottom 10% can happen for a lot of reasons.
| Maybe you just lost interest in the work. Perhaps you don't
| get along with your manager, or something's going on in your
| personal life, or the role was never a good fit in the first
| place. I used to think some people were just "bad", and some
| indeed are, but it also seems like peoples' performance
| really does change over their careers. Provided there's good
| unemployment insurance, probably best for both parties to
| part ways. Not only does it give the employee a kick in the
| pants, but it also improves the morale of the rest of the
| team, because it doesn't feel like someone isn't "pulling
| their weight".
| dehrmann wrote:
| > a <10% layoff is not unreasonable for a healthy company
|
| From what I've read, this was standard practice at Microsoft
| for over a decade.
|
| I think this makes sense during a downturn, but probably wears
| on morale if it happens every year.
| dvirsky wrote:
| I've heard from people who worked there at the time that as
| part of the stack ranking system, it contributed to a culture
| of mediocrity and stagnation. The high performers did not
| want to excel in fear of retaliation from teammates that this
| was putting at risk, and no one wanted to be at the bottom.
| So the result was that everyone tried to be mediocre, do
| exactly as told, not more and not less. I would never want to
| work in such a culture.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Our company (not Microsoft, but a bit larger) used this
| model for over 15 years; it worked better than the
| replacement model, where people only get fired when they
| are really bad, so really weak people accumulate and re-
| baseline the competency in the company. On top of that, the
| new model based on diversity removed almost completely
| competency from promotions, so it is very easy to stay at
| the top of the peer group due to lack of competitors.
| [deleted]
| symlinkk wrote:
| Yeah doesn't Amazon lay off 10% of devs every year as part of
| their stack ranking?
| three_seagrass wrote:
| That was Microsoft for the longest time and it destroyed
| their work culture.
| atlgator wrote:
| But it funded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Silver
| lining.
| mrnobody_67 wrote:
| But it gave us Clippy!!
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| No, never heard of this systematic approach while I was there
| (AWS, 2008-2014), although the turnaround effect might have
| been somewhat close to that number just coincidentally.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| What's the "turnaround effect"?
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| I assume they meant "turnover". Amazon is notorious for
| burning through employees quickly.
|
| And if employees quit voluntarily, the company doesn't
| need to pay severance, may reclaim hiring bonus or RSU's,
| and it helps them politically/reputationally in aggregate
| (by being able to claim low lay-off numbers). Of course
| then you might wind up with those other than your worst
| performers leaving, so it's not great in the long term.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Almost. 10% are put into a "Dev List" which starts with some
| coaching on how they should improve. It then likely leads to
| a "Pivot" where the employee is given the option to take a 3
| month pay severance, or go on a Performance Improvement Plan
| (PIP) (likely biased against the employee, as manager and
| manager's manager have already put a lot of work into getting
| here and have made up their mind). Failing the PIP, they are
| likely going to be terminated soon and only get 1 month
| severance. So, they start with 10% but they target about 6-8%
| actually getting terminated.
| yetanta wrote:
| Many of the places where I worked if they PIP'd you start
| looking. They already made up their minds. If they get a
| 'get rid of X% of people' you will be in that list.
| aka1234 wrote:
| Never heard of this in my organization. Have heard whispers
| of it in some corners, but not from anyone currently employed
| by Amazon.
| [deleted]
| habosa wrote:
| I find it a little disappointing how when any large company
| reduces staffing it always makes the news.
|
| I'm not at all saying these people at LinkedIn deserve this, I
| bet they're smart people and I hope they find new employment very
| soon.
|
| But speaking generally ... many of us have worked at or worked
| with big bloated companies. We all know that many of them could
| be improved by slimming down. But we report on it like its a sign
| of the downfall.
| prawn wrote:
| I always think "Those 960 people had jobs there for a while -
| that's a positive". I've worked for myself the last 20 years so
| I'm occasionally jealous of anyone who's had even a year of
| stable, predictable income.
| quacked wrote:
| How does your self-employed career compare to a parallel
| salaried career in your industry across 20 years? (In terms
| of year-averaged income, hours worked, etc.)
| prawn wrote:
| I imagine I've worked a lot, lot more for a lot, lot less,
| on average. And all while having greater tax/admin
| obligations. Which is why I don't have any particular
| sympathy for the undulations in the job market of a
| salaried employee - at any point, they can freelance like I
| have to fill the gaps. 960 people fired means 960 people
| were employed for a given period, but it's often viewed as
| a horrible and heartless gesture by the company. I've had
| flat periods just as others have been looking for a job.
| Been part of the gig economy for 20 years so I'm quite
| bemused when stories focus on it with Uber and their ilk
| like it's a 2020 thing.
|
| I've had periods being the sole operator at my company
| where I've had to work through family holidays and endured
| extreme stress. My earnings are absolutely famine and
| feast; had times without paying myself for months and
| months.
|
| However (and it's a massive however), the freedom has been
| priceless and I suspect I could never work for someone else
| in a typical job. I had a typical job once when I was about
| 20 and not since (I'm 43 now); I don't expect I will have a
| CV or an employer again in my life. I quit uni/college and
| have no degree. I don't think I'm very good at what I do.
|
| I've had years earning less than $15k. But I've also had a
| year where I went around the world through 20+ countries,
| and many other years where I travelled 3+ months out of the
| year. Last year I gutted a bus overseas, renovated it
| (shubbo.com), and travelled with wife and three kids twice
| across a continent over three months - it was the greatest
| experience of my life and I don't think I could've done it
| as an employee.
|
| I currently have a mixture of income streams including one
| where I photograph/film while travelling (serio.com.au); it
| barely feels like work. I wouldn't change it for a thing.
| ilamont wrote:
| > Which is why I don't have any particular sympathy for
| the undulations in the job market of a salaried employee
| - at any point, they can freelance like I have to fill
| the gaps.
|
| Congratulations on your successful gig career that gives
| you great freedom and the means to support yourself.
| However, not everyone can freelance. They may have skills
| which have zero demand right now, they are unable to work
| remotely, or they have mortgages or health/family
| situations which prevent them relocating or doing gig
| work.
|
| There's a lot of sentiment on this thread that these
| people losing their jobs at LinkedIn are deadweight but
| in my experience the people let go in the midst of a
| great economic crisis include superstars who have the
| floor vanish beneath them, through no fault of their own.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Seconding this question. It'd be fascinating to hear a
| detailed perspective from someone who has spent 20 years
| working for themselves, without also reaching traditional
| "success" (i.e. getting rich).
|
| It's starting to feel like getting rich is overrated when
| it requires so much of your life to make it happen. Hearing
| from someone who ended up with similar freedoms (working
| for yourself is no small one!) would be cool.
| prawn wrote:
| It's a complex thing over that sort of timescale. You can
| get a feel for what I do at my site -
| http://isaacforman.com.au/ - I've had a basic web
| business since 1998 that chews up a lot of time for
| often-meagre returns, then various side projects beside
| that along the way. I've often wondered if I would've
| been better off just having a job all this time, and I
| worry about guiding my kids from my experience.
|
| I am not rich compared to my peers but I wouldn't ever
| trade my life for any of their lives. I couldn't handle
| having to ask for leave. I get by with less and travel
| more (which is something very, very important to me). A
| lot of the best things in life like being outdoors,
| hanging out with friends and family, are effectively
| free.
|
| That said, if I were having to buy into the housing
| market now rather than 15+ years ago, the mortgage stress
| might be completely different, and doing it without a
| regular pay cheque could be a serious challenge.
| oneoff1777711 wrote:
| 5 years experience web development/full stack/mobile
| here. 29 years old. I've never had a salaried job in my
| life. I'm able to pull down $150/hr for a couple months a
| year (8 hour days), $125/hr for another 6 months full
| time, then take a couple months off and I'm making a
| decent salary when it all shakes out. That's fully remote
| and working for friends or friends of friends,
| occasionally taking a contract with a mega FAANG corp for
| a while, but usually working the contract with a buddy.
|
| If you're savvy, good at networking and self motivated,
| you can make money which is comparable to most full time
| jobs. Just gotta be careful about the taxes and make sure
| you save for the lean times.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Any tax tips? That's an interesting observation.
|
| (Thank you!)
| prawn wrote:
| Personally I have an offset account against my mortgage
| and stockpile funds there. Then live well within my means
| so I can handle tax when it arrives. Someone who doesn't
| naturally live within their means could estimate in
| advance and push money to a separate account to isolate
| it.
| kgraves wrote:
| Hmm, title looks wrong lets fix it:
|
| _' Microsoft to extinguish 960 jobs worldwide'._
|
| There, fixed it for you.
| jlokier wrote:
| I'm surprised. LinkedIn has to be one of the major sites whose
| traffic has gone up in recent months, with so many people looking
| for work and stuck in front of a computer.
| patrickaljord wrote:
| LinkedIn makes most of its money out of companies posting job
| ads, not on people applying for them. And companies paying for
| ads are going down.
| ilamont wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear about people losing their jobs. It sucks,
| especially now when there is so much uncertainty.
|
| LinkedIn makes a lot of money through recruitment ads - five
| years ago it was at least $300/month for professional positions
| in hot markets. If companies stop posting ads or switch to
| cheaper alternatives (some companies still use Craigslist) the
| impact will be significant for LinkedIn and its employees.
| vandleyindust wrote:
| Looks like all cuts are across HR/Sales.
| bdcravens wrote:
| > "Our Talent Solutions business continues to be impacted as
| fewer companies, including ours, need to hire at the same
| volume they did previously."
| saos wrote:
| Kinda makes senses. They'll scale back up again
| mark-r wrote:
| So maybe this means I'll be getting less spam from LinkedIn?
| Unfortunately it will probably mean the opposite.
| supernova87a wrote:
| A lot of the very big companies are quite reluctant to start
| layoffs if they think the situation can be survived for a few
| months. They don't want to be seen as evil firing-their-
| contractors, people-as-expendable, etc. They are an easy target
| as "big corp".
|
| But if they can see this is going to go on more than the end of
| 2020, they will start having to confront the need to layoff
| people seriously. Interestingly, the more certainty they have
| about how bad it is, the sooner the layoffs.
| bbarn wrote:
| The downward spiral for all industries that are primarily US
| based because of the overreaction to COVID has not even begun to
| be felt.
|
| But you know, keep posting about how this side won't wear masks
| and people are jerks all day instead of facing the fact that
| haircuts aren't the goal - a stable economy is essential, not
| secondary, to a country's survival.
| pm90 wrote:
| A stable economy requires its healthcare systems to not
| overflow. It needs to be able to provide its citizens with
| healthcare. The US response has been the opposite of
| overreaction and the economy will pay the price.
| briansteffens wrote:
| As is tradition, we managed to get all the downsides of both
| shutting down and not shutting down, with none of the benefits
| of either.
| abraae wrote:
| > "Our Talent Solutions business continues to be impacted as
| fewer companies, including ours, need to hire at the same volume
| they did previously."
|
| We're in a recruitment-related field (online background checking)
| and we can clearly see that recruitment activity has dropped way
| off, even in sectors that are largely unaffected by the pandemic.
|
| My theory is that people are clinging on to their jobs tightly as
| unemployment rises, so discretionary turnover is way down.
| harshulpandav wrote:
| _LinkedIn would be investing in other parts of the business which
| would result in some job creation and the firm would "work with
| employees impacted by today's announcement to explore these
| opportunities"_
|
| Good to know that they will first consider rehiring/interviewing
| the laid off employees and they are public about it.
|
| Curious question: does the employee get to keep the severance
| package if rehired after being laid off?
| vvladymyrov wrote:
| Usually there is a wording in a papers that need to be signed
| in order to get severance - if rehired, severance won't be paid
| (plus reject the right to litigate). This is easy to implement
| as severance might be paid in be-weekly cadence (like salary).
| AlphaSite wrote:
| Usually the way it works for our company, they give you a 2/3
| month grace period where you stay on the books and get a chance
| to interview externally or internally and you only get the
| severance (in addition to the 2/3 months no work period) if you
| move out of the company.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| I don't know how linked in is handling it, but in a typical
| layoff situation (I'm unfortunately familiar with several
| personally, and many more corporately) if you are rehired after
| your official termination date, you get to keep whatever the
| termination package was. The company considers you a new
| employee.
|
| It needs to be this way for certain legal reasons.
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