[HN Gopher] Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff ___________________________________________________________________ Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff Author : jcalabro Score : 352 points Date : 2022-09-13 16:36 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (blog.patreon.com) (TXT) w3m dump (blog.patreon.com) | seibelj wrote: | I've heard rumors that Meta and Google have massive layoffs | coming as well. Good luck out there | subsubzero wrote: | I've heard the same, Meta for sure, and a few folks at Goog | have told me as well they are coming. For google this will be | the first time they have ever done layoffs in the company | history(2009 had 200 folks leave so not really layoffs so to | speak) so that tells you the scale of this tech downturn. | seibelj wrote: | You can't have your stock down 60% YoY (META) without | consequence. There is a whole lot of fat at both of these | companies (and really all large firms that never had any bad | quarters) and a reckoning has to happen | kevstev wrote: | You absolutely can. Stock price is really meaningless as | far as the day to day life of a company is concerned- if | your cash flows haven't changed, and the market has just | decided to shit on you for a bit for irrational reasons | there are no consequences other than maybe looking into | whether a buyback makes sense. | | Equity markets are often irrational and wrong. IE Covid- | essentially every stock was down significantly in March of | 2020, not realizing that some businesses will actually | benefit from the pandemic. | | That said, your statement about fat at these companies is | true, and its probably been long past time that they clean | out some dead wood. | oldgradstudent wrote: | > Stock price is really meaningless as far as the day to | day life of a company is concerned | | Not when significant part of your employee compensation | is equity-based. | colinmhayes wrote: | Mark is completely unaccountable to investors. He can do | whatever he wants as long as he has good faith reason to | believe it will benefit shareholders. | q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: | That's genuinely anxiety-inducing to hear. I have several | friends who have signed offers with Google, with start dates | set within the next few weeks/months. | | Really hoping they don't start pulling offers. I can't put my | finger on why, but somehow that seems like it'd be even more | cruel than layoffs. | vorpalhex wrote: | Pulling offers is always considered a _very_ bad look. I | would be extremely surprised if Google did such a thing | given the optics, but it wouldn't be the first time Google | has surprised me with it's stupidity. | loosescrews wrote: | I have heard that the 2009 layoffs were limited to | recruiting. If these layoffs occur, they may be the company's | first engineering layoffs. | | I find it surprising that they are considering layoffs. There | have been a number of articles about Sundar's concerns over | productivity [1,2,3], but layoffs have a tendency to reduce | moral and productivity. | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32515458 [2] | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32322131 [3] | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32816105 | nostrademons wrote: | 2009 layoffs were technically just a bunch of radio DJs | that were hired into a product around revolutionizing radio | and then had nowhere else to go in the company when their | project was canceled. The recruiters let go were | contractors, and Google just terminated their contracts. | Invictus0 wrote: | It's a fine message and generous severance, but people need to | wake up to the reality that companies don't really care about | them when making plans for the future. Was it really so hard to | predict a minor ~15% downturn after a period of lavish, | extraordinary exuberance? Conservative, controlled, measured | headcount growth is just not a consideration, as we've seen time | and time again. | rblatz wrote: | The broader economy was basically saying here is free money, | grow the business at all costs, worry about growth then later | we'll worry about profit. Now due to inflation the Fed has | ended the free money era, and business plans have to change. | Expect a lot more of these posts over the next few months. | codegeek wrote: | A blog post was done other than Instagram: | | https://blog.patreon.com/a-note-from-jack | | "but as the world began recovering from the pandemic and enduring | a broader economic slowdown, that plan is no longer the right | path forward for Patreon" | | So basically, they overhired to meet demands during Pandemic and | now as less people are using the platform (??), there is no need | for the 17% of people. Interesting. | Groxx wrote: | > _In the US, teammates leaving Patreon will be given three | months severance plus an additional two weeks for each half | year of tenure beyond the first year._ | | Pretty decent IMO. | | > _You'll also receive COBRA health care coverage through the | end of the year._ | | Odd that that doesn't match the pay period, but oh well. | mandevil wrote: | I suspect its because of the way that COBRA works: COBRA | would start for them on October 1st (their active employee | insurance would cover them until Sep 30), so they are getting | three months. I have never seen a health insurance that | supported two week increments, so you couldn't do the 'two | weeks for tenure' thing. You could, in theory offer an extra | month per year beyond the first, but that's a lot of extra | work and expense to go into, offering it, for something that | I suspect will have very little pick-up. My guess is most | everyone who is laid off today will have a job which will | offer insurance by Jan 1st. | ghaff wrote: | In spite of what some developers seem to think job hunting | can be a many month process, especially over the holidays | and in an environment where many companies are being very | cautious about hiring. So no I don't expect most will have | jobs by January. | rovingEngine wrote: | This is close to three months, and many health plans renew at | the beginning of each year, which accounts for the slight | difference. | codegeek wrote: | One thing that is not clear is if they will actually Pay for | COBRA or just provide COBRA coverage. Employers can provide | the coverage for COBRA but are usually not obligated to pay | for it. Also, cost of COBRA out of pocket can go upto 102% of | the total premiums (yes the 2% can be admin fee added by the | employer if they choose to do so) | staticautomatic wrote: | Ideally, that's how it would be described in the internal | meeting version. | uneekname wrote: | Let's change the HN post to link to this, it is much more | informative. | unity1001 wrote: | > So basically, they overhired to meet demands during Pandemic | | Everybody did, even anticipating that the move to online | economy would slow down after the pandemic. | | But nobody predicted the Ukraine war, sanctions, and the | economic effect those sanctions made back in the West. | dang wrote: | Ok, we've changed the URL to that from | https://www.instagram.com/p/CidAMM7pQ7u/. Thanks! | BryanBeshore wrote: | Full post from Jack Conte's Instagram post: | | "Hi everyone - I have some sad news to share: today, Patreon is | doing a layoff of about 80 employees, about 17% of our team. This | was ultimately my decision, so I wanted you all to hear directly | from me about the reasoning. | | Before I do, I want to say two things: first, today will be | painful for many people, and I am deeply sorry to the incredible | teammates who will be leaving Patreon - they are good, kind, | creator-first, exceptionally talented, and smart people. | | And second, I remember how nerve-racking it was when I was a full | time creator - before starting Patreon - to watch companies that | I depended on go through moments like this. So for those of you | who rely on Patreon for your business and communities: I want to | assure you that the company is making this move precisely for | that reason - so we can continue to be a rock for your business. | | As the world has recovered from COVID lockdowns and entered a | broader economic slowdown, it has become clear that the original | plan we built doe he year, to support outsized growth through the | pandemic, is no longer the right plan for the company. | | I take full responsibility for choosing that original path | forward, and for the resulting changes today, which will be so | difficult for our team. | | It's important to me that we continue to deliver for our creators | and patrons with new features and products like native video, new | content creation and organization tools, a wold-class mobile | experience, and new ways for creators to grow their membership | and strengthen their communities. To ensure that we make progress | on that roadmap, we are increasing our investment in product, | engineering, and design, which means decreasing our spend on | other ares of the company. | | Ad difficult as this is fo our team, I know this is the right | thing to do for Patreon, because it ensures that the company | maintains a position of strength, even through an economic | downturn, while continuing to deliver for our creators. | | If you want to read more about this decision, I just published | the internal note I sent to our team this morning, and it's | linked in my bio. I'm going to stop posting here for a while to | be 100% present internally for our teammates at the company. But | I promise to come back in a bit - I will see you all soon. | | - Jack" | Rekksu wrote: | > To ensure that we make progress on that roadmap, we are | increasing our investment in product, engineering, and design, | which means decreasing our spend on other ares of the company. | | Underrated dynamic in the startup layoffs this year. Many | software companies grew headcount rapidly in areas outside of | prod / eng in 2021 and are now scaling back those roles while | preserving the talent that was extremely difficult to hire. | nonethewiser wrote: | Their career page really bears this out. Lots of open | engineering positions. | COGlory wrote: | >I take full responsibility for choosing that original path | forward, and for the resulting changes today, which will be so | difficult for our team. | | What does "take full responsibility" mean? Is he laying himself | off instead of the employees? Is he paying the employees he's | laying off out of his pocket? Is he resigning so this doesn't | happen again? | | I'm confused how you can just say "I take full responsibility" | without actually taking any responsibility. It seems like the | laid off employees are taking responsibility. | donedealomg wrote: | honkdaddy wrote: | Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the expression, but usually | when English speakers say they "take full responsibility" for | a tragedy or unfortunate occurrence, they mean from a moral | and blame-based standpoint, it's rarely related to the | finances of those affected. | | The laid off employees are the ones ultimately worse off by | the outcome, that goes without saying, what you're missing is | that this is different from being morally or strategically | responsible for why the situation played out this way. That's | the ownership the CEO is trying to take. | LightG wrote: | Back in the day it meant falling on your sword and letting | someone better/new take over. | dan-robertson wrote: | It means 'there are layoffs because of poor management | decisions and it isn't your fault if you're being laid off | and it isn't your fault if you feel you pushed the company | towards these management decisions that ultimately led to | your colleagues being laid off'. | magwa101 wrote: | Aachen wrote: | Recently signed up for patreon but couldn't figure out a payment | method. The only option available, paypal, would succeed and I'd | be redirected back to the merchant (patreon) but then neither | show up in my patreon account nor on the paypal side - and I'd | rather avoid giving paypal a cut so this was already a last | resort. Open source liberapay was a no brainer (for K9 and | F-Droid iirc) but very few creators have a liberapay. Surely | there's more going on than this, but the news doesn't surprise me | with this amount of friction and very handful of payment methods | available. It'll work for the 90% or they'd not be in business at | all, but still. | capableweb wrote: | Maybe that depends on your location? I can use card | (debit/credit) and also PayPal. You don't see "add card" in the | payment methods page? | rexreed wrote: | I can tell you that many people I know are abandoning Patreon for | their support of Russian patreons. This statement didn't help: | https://www.businessinsider.com/why-patreon-continued-to-sup... | | And their response is not so great: | https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/4553920132877-.... | | I'm sure the layoffs are not entirely related, but having this | stance didn't help. | kzrdude wrote: | Their statement makes sense to me | bilsbie wrote: | It's weird these companies grow this big. How many software | engineers do you need to monthly bill a list of people and | transfer it to a different list? | | That's like a single person saas. | noirbot wrote: | If I had a nickle for every time someone on HN claims that a | sizable company could be replaced by 1-5 devs, I'd have enough | money to start a competitor to most of them that did it better | with more devs/staff, as evidenced by the general lack of 1 | person saas companies out there that solve more than a very | niche problem. | jrockway wrote: | What large company is beating the 5 person competitor in | their industry? | noirbot wrote: | Most of them? Can you give an example of a 5 person | competitor competing with a large company? | | And of those, how many of them can only do that because | they're outsourcing most of their needs to some other | company people regularly complain is bloated? | hedora wrote: | Craigslist has 50 employees, which is closer to 5 than | 500. | compiler-guy wrote: | Craigslist is wildly profitable, but can't touch ebay or | amazon. | UncleMeat wrote: | And its lunch is slowly being eaten by facebook | marketplace. | lmm wrote: | AIUI OnlyFans actually did successfully compete pretty | directly with Patreon for a while as a 3 dev company. (I | assume they may have grown a little since then) | seydor wrote: | The layoffs prove them right though no? Plenty of companies | seem to have had layoffs without loss of profits | noirbot wrote: | Only once they lay off another 400+ people. If anything, | the fact that Jack had anyone but himself to lay off isn't | proving OP right. | | Being over-staffed is different from "one person can run | this as a saas business" | gamblor956 wrote: | He's not wrong. Patreon's technical platform isn't cutting | edge or unique and could be replicated fairly quickly by a | small team in a month or two. Most of what makes Patreon what | it is comes from the _other_ parts of the company, i.e., the | marketers, account managers, etc., that bring in the actual | revenue. | | Of course, that's also the reason why a tiny company can't | just replace Patreon: it's not the tech that matters. It's | the marketing and other people stuff that you just can't | handle with a small team. | | It's not a good sign that Patreon is doubling down on | engineering and eliminating the positions that actually bring | in revenue. That's a sign of a poorly managed company not | understanding its value proposition. Keeping extra engineers | on staff to create yet another cryptocurrency isn't going to | save Patreon, but the absence of the two dozen plus marketers | and account managers they just fired will be acutely felt as | they go into the holiday season. | noirbot wrote: | Is that true? I feel like every past discussion about | Patreon, as well as from the folks I know who use it as | artists, they're not really getting much in terms of | marketing or assistance/management. I certainly have a hard | time believing that they're making most of their money from | their "services" outside of just relaying money. | | Their discovery is pretty awful too. My understanding is | that they're mostly viable because there's no easier way to | solicit money as a podcast/youtube channel right now. | tester756 wrote: | Discord had small engineering team and they outperformed | | Teams, Google's VoIPs, Skype, Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, Zoom | noirbot wrote: | Have they outperformed Zoom and Teams? That feels like a | stretch, even if I prefer Discord to either of them | | Plus, they had a _small_ team, but I met most of them back | in the Hammer and Chisel days and they were already a 20 | person team at that point at least. | | I'm not at all trying to say you can't have a good product | with a small company. It's the incessant "I could do this | myself in a month. I won't actually do it, but I totally | could" responses. Almost every company you've heard of | isn't getting by on single-digit employees, let alone one | very smart person. | tester756 wrote: | >Have they outperformed Zoom and Teams? That feels like a | stretch, even if I prefer Discord to either of them | | Better product | squeaky-clean wrote: | They've been pretty adamant about not chasing after | business/enterprise sales and I bet this is a big reason | why. | | Enterprise pays the big bucks but also has way higher | demands from support, higher expectations about downtime, | and all the third party integration requests. It has to | integrate with Jira, it has to integrate with Google | Calendar, it has to integrate with this niche service that | changes their API every month and doesn't care your | contract with Dairy Queen relies on this integration | working. | gruez wrote: | Okay but it doesn't seem like patreon needs to, or is | even chasing after enterprise sales? At least in the b2c | space it doesn't seem like you need a huge engineering | team. | [deleted] | Ekaros wrote: | 1 is bit low with number of customers that is both creators and | users. But I would see the right number reasonably be under | 100. With some geographical distribution. | squeaky-clean wrote: | > to monthly bill a list of people and transfer it to a | different list | | Sounds like a fantastic service to use for fraud or money | laundering. It would be a shame if you had to dedicate a ton of | employees towards preventing that. ;) | TulliusCicero wrote: | It's amazing how consistently HN people underestimate the | workload involved in basically any software product, and how | often this blog post is relevant: 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." | | Products are nearly always more complicated internally than it | appears to the user. Indeed, often the very ease of use that | you see as an end user is _because_ of higher complexity on the | inside. | flavmartins wrote: | People who say this have never worked in an enterprise, | global software company. Or if they did, they may not be | working on key projects. | | Just SCALE ALONE is enough to expand a group of engineers a | significant amount. A personal project is fine to run 1 AWS | or Digital Ocean instance to run the application, database. | But global distribution that has to support tens of | thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even million+ users | concurrently globally? It's a big orchestration of | applications and services that requires much larger teams. | | Add in payment services and managing those integrations. | Then, given that you're a global company and have to operate | in multiple countries you have all sorts of regulatory | compliance requirements. Who oversees that? Who manages all | of these requirements? Not a single dev or a small team. | tester756 wrote: | >People who say this have never worked in an enterprise, | global software company. | | On the other hand | | How much friction there's between decision makers and | people writing code in those companies? | | How much time is wasted on meetings, teaching new people | every month, etc, etc? | | Sorry, but I really can see scenerios where 5 skilled | engineers with domain knowledge can outperform 25-50 that | need meetings to agree on everything | abigail95 wrote: | How many people worked at WhatsApp/Instagram before acq? | lgleason wrote: | I have no love lost for that company, so while I feel bad for the | workers, I would love to see the company as a whole go under and | a better alternative emerge. | clcaev wrote: | I hope their Precor acquisition remains unscathed, perhaps they | spin it off so it can continue to build excellent elipticals. | PeterisP wrote: | I wonder if it's somehow related to some allegations floating | around today (e.g. | https://twitter.com/TizzyEnt/status/1569439160561442817 ) of | Patreon dealing with part of the revenue coming from effectively | selling risque pictures of minors. | sprkwd wrote: | Doing this on Instagram seems... off. Can't put my finger in it. | throwawaymaths wrote: | This is legitimate feeling, maybe because not all your | employees might have Instagram. We can't assume it wasn't also | done on internal channels, though? | gobirds321 wrote: | I think it was first posted on their blog here: | https://blog.patreon.com/a-note-from-jack | mike_d wrote: | Are we supposed to know who Jack is? | | Sounds like someone is in serious need of an ego check. | egypturnash wrote: | Patreon's creator and CEO. | zimpenfish wrote: | > Are we supposed to know who Jack is? | | I should imagine the people that blog post is relevant to | know who he is, yes. | Shebanator wrote: | AFAICT, he told the team separately, and is just using IG to | announce publicly. I don't see how that is any worse than the | usual dry press release. | [deleted] | chickenpotpie wrote: | Agreed. This and the recent controversy around the HyperSocial | CEO posting an emotional layoff post on LinkedIn makes me | wonder if the new trend in layoffs is to try to make us relate | more with the CEO than the laid off employees and take some | heat off them. | indy wrote: | Wait a little longer and they'll be announced on TikTok | unity1001 wrote: | Ask the person who posted the Instagram post at HN instead of | the Patreon's official blog's post. | ilrwbwrkhv wrote: | Because companies like Patreon come and go. They know it, we | know it. So they grasp at straws for a fleeting moment of | popularity. | [deleted] | TaylorGood wrote: | On twitter a couple days ago it was said they're laying off their | whole data security team. | | https://twitter.com/wbm312/status/1567974063578185728?s=21&t... | darth_avocado wrote: | What does "taking full responsibility" even mean? Like people | lose their livelihood and you can get away with "I take full | responsibility". | | Taking full responsibility mean taking a pay cut or stepping down | or basically taking consequences for yourself first before others | have to. | julienb_sea wrote: | He's taking responsibility for over-hiring relative to the | needs of his business, and taking corrective action for the | long term health and viability of the business. This is the | right thing to do. Yes, it sucks for the people who lose their | jobs, but unfortunately some risk is always involved in an | employment arrangement. It would be far more unfortunate if | Patreon overspent to the point that their business had to | close, as that would affect their entire userbase and entire | employee base. | NoFactualActual wrote: | > He's taking responsibility...and taking corrective action | for the long term health and viability of the business. | | Maybe this is just a language thing, but in my world "taking | responsibility" involves some action to personally shoulder | the pain of the layoffs beyond saying "my bad". I'd expect | it'd at least begin with resignation in this case. Just like | you can't just announce "I declare bankruptcy" to shrug off | debts. | ajkjk wrote: | The post includes tons of details about complicated things | Patreon is doing to help out the people affected. Do those | count for nothing to you? It feels like you are insisting | not on "support" or "generosity" but on "sacrifice". | db579 wrote: | Those are things the company is doing to take | responsibility, not him personally which is what his | statement should imply. | weego wrote: | When you're +$400mil into venture capital raises 'the | company' doing something like that can be an awful lot of | time, effort and potentially political capital for a CEO | to get through. | | I'm astounded that so many supposed seasoned leaders were | out there making crazy projections around maintaining | covid levels of growth and I also don't think 'my bad' is | enough in that context, but benefits above what's | required are rarely handed over without someone | committing to fighting for it. | bcrescimanno wrote: | I'd share your surprise; but, I sometimes question if | they believed it themselves. I've spent the last 15 years | in public companies and if there's one thing "The Street" | demands, it's growth upon growth. The context of a | pandemic being a once-in-a-lifetime event is meaningless. | Your business experienced record growth and we expect you | to continue that trajectory of increased growth no matter | what--so get to investing for it! | ajkjk wrote: | I tend to think that non-profit-maximizing actions of a | company are almost entirely due to top-down leadership, | so I would give him credit for those actions. | cbozeman wrote: | Here's how the Federal Government defines: | | _Responsibility | | Being responsible means being dependable, keeping | promises and honoring our commitments. It is accepting | the consequences for what we say and do. It also means | developing our potential. | | People who are responsible don't make excuses for their | actions or blame others when things go wrong. They think | things through and use good judgment before they take | action. They behave in ways that encourage others to | trust them. | | People who are responsible take charge of their lives. | They make plans and set goals for nurturing their talents | and skills. They are resilient in finding ways to | overcome adversity. They make decisions, taking into | account obligations to family and community._ | | This guy literally made excuses for his actions: "broader | economic slowdown" | | "To ensure that we make progress on that roadmap, we are | increasing our investment in product, engineering, and | design, which means decreasing our spend on other | ares[sic] of the company." | | So it's not even a money issue. They have the money, they | just want to spend it on servers and _other_ people. | | And finally, just so we're clear, I don't take umbrage | with his decision and his plan for his employees. Hell, | it's admirable, frankly. I take umbrage with his words. | He's not taking responsibility. Responsibility means he'd | cut his pay as much as necessary to keep these people | because _he_ misjudged the market and where it 's headed | post-COVID-19 lockdowns (since there is no such thing as | 'post-COVID-19' - it's here forever now). | | This is pretty classic example of wanting to have the | best of all possible worlds. | | "I want to be lauded for my graciousness. I want to be | lauded for taking responsibility. I want to be lauded by | my investors for a plan that grows the company." | | That's why this is a load of horseshit. He's trying to | please everyone. I have no doubt he probably agonized | over this decision - I really do not; but he made it, and | that means there are certain consequences with which he | must live, one of those is that it should be clear to his | employees that they will always take a backseat when the | economic times get tough. | bgro wrote: | You're textbook correct, I think, but in general I never | really understand the CEO who makes a statement about trying | to do everything they could to prevent this from happening | but there was no possible other situation than laying off X | amount of people who were significantly contributing to the | company. | | Not that this was said in this particular case so directly. | This is just a general thought. | | How is funding so tight that cutting the 1% of money going to | these people is going to make all the difference? It's not | even a total 1% gain, there will be some lost productivity | making it somewhat difficult to measure. | | If you truly tried everything, couldn't the CEO or other | executives take a tiny cut? Not that I expect them to, I'm | just saying if they truly did everything within their power | to prevent it, like is often said. | | I mean, sometimes I give a significant amount of my salary, | like 10% as donations / tips / handouts and expect nothing | back. These aren't even people I did something bad to, like | forgot to pick up when I said I would, or felt guilty for | spilling food on their carpet. | | Surely in situation where I messed up and caused a problem | for someone, I would do whatever it takes to make it right. I | wouldn't just say "Well, that's what you get in this system | of inviting friends over. I'm not technically required to do | anything. I guess there's nothing I can do (including picking | up the mess I caused or paying to have it cleaned)" | | I've seen similar large donations from people who truly | struggle to pay for rent and food even be similarly generous. | Sometimes people will live on limited food or delay getting | an apartment if it means helping out an acquaintance. | | If you make millions of dollars, you don't need to worry | about these basics. You'd think it'd be easier to take a | personal hit which probably will have actually 0 impact on | your life (literally no change-- keep on golfing, vacations, | etc), rather than supposedly living with the guilt, as is | frequently said, of people struggling to survive because you | wanted to save 1% of your company's money for a few months | (before realizing you need to hire and retrain people from | scratch.) | ricardobeat wrote: | They're listed as having 885 employees. If the average cost | is $100k per head, 88M/year looks like a pretty high burn | rate (they've had ~400M in funding). Saving 10% in one | swoop is huge. | | > it'd be easier to take a personal hit | | Jack Conte, the CEO, was not previously wealthy (that we | know of). At this stage he might be getting paid very well, | maybe even in the mid six figures, but definitely not | spending $8M/year on golfing to make that a viable | alternative to layoffs. | bombcar wrote: | It's a far sight better than some of the "the employees we let | go were worse than worthless, likely the spawn of Satan | himself" memos you see. | rdl wrote: | The main significance here is "please hire the people we're | letting go as if they were normal Patreon employees you'd want | to poach; they weren't let go for performance or other | individual reasons". | cmeacham98 wrote: | This is what a layoff means no? My understanding was "Fired = | Your Fault" and "Laid Off = Your Employer's Fault". | | Is it possible to be "laid off" for performance reasons? | phpisthebest wrote: | some companies have a policy to layoff the bottom x% of | "lowest performers" so yes it is possible to be laid off | for performance reasons. | | For example "The bottom 10% of salesmen by sales volume" | TheCondor wrote: | Yeah, absolutely. | | A company finds itself in a situation where it needs to | reduce headcount for reasons. Do you a) just role the dice | and randomly pick who goes? or b) Have managers rank their | performers and use it to get rid of the lower performers or | protect their most valuable people? In a case like this is | means some variation of "you're too expensive for what you | do for us." | unity1001 wrote: | They seem to have contracted a placement company to do that. | nosianu wrote: | Yes, and the parent's point is that companies that end up | looking at those people's resumes are going to know that | they were not let go because of poor performance. What the | parent said. | unity1001 wrote: | Nobody looks like they are going to lose their livelihood over | this: | | https://blog.patreon.com/a-note-from-jack | | 3 months' of pay + longer depending on tenure at the company. | Healthcare until the end of the year. Mental care up to 6 | months. They contracted a placement company to place the laid | off staff to other companies in the sector. A lot of those | people will already get hooked up by a company within a week or | so, even without the placement company being able to take | action. | | This looks as decent as layoffs go. | backspace_ wrote: | Why was an Instagram post shared instead of the blog post on | patreon? | unity1001 wrote: | That's the choice of the person who posted the Instagram | post at HN instead of the actual blog post that was posted | before the Instagram post, obviously. | awb wrote: | > Nobody looks like they are going to lose their livelihood | over this | | We don't know everyone's unique situation, even if they did | go beyond what most companies do. | nomel wrote: | No. That's not the social contract for employment. It's | dangerous to think it is. There's a mutual need from both | parties. When that need changes, both parties are free to | respond. Forcing a company to keep someone would be just as | bad as forcing someone to stay. | | What we also don't know is the companies financial | situation. Keeping people on when they can't be afforded | can be a way to make a company _completely_ collapse. I was | in two startups that would have collapsed completely, | without layoffs, around the time of the last recession. | This is why the "keep x months of salary" are rules you | strictly follow. | etchalon wrote: | There's a difference between "someone will lose their | livelihood because of this" and "that's entirely the | employers fault." | | Recognizing the impact of an action does not mean you're | entirely responsible for it. | mrtranscendence wrote: | What are you responding to, exactly? That comment was | claiming that we can't know for sure that "nobody" would | lose their livelihood over this. And it's true, we can't | know. | jwagenet wrote: | I think they are responding to the assertion that the | employer is obligated to keep the employee just because | the employee _might_ have absolutely nowhere else to go. | Especially in the competitive tech space neither you nor | your employer are obligated to maintain your employment | relationship. | | This is besides Patreon giving their former employees a | license to goof off on their dime for 3 months. I can't | imagine anyone at Patreon being so hard up that 3 months | pay and insurance to look for new work is enough to break | the camels back. | unity1001 wrote: | > We don't know everyone's unique situation | | Those who are hired to Patreon and similar companies arent | people who would end up unemployed if they are laid off. | Those people already have to turn down recruiters who try | to poach them every week. | MisterBastahrd wrote: | Mid-November through December is a hiring no-man's land due | to the accumulation of end-of-year vacations and family | trips. Most of these employees have about a month and a half | before the shutdown begins and they are stuck scrambling to | try to find work in the new year. | renewiltord wrote: | It's not going to be this hard. They will land on their | feet in weeks, maybe days. Anyone recruiting is hard | plugged into layoffs.fyi and while big company recruiting | takes months, we (and my other friends in startups) can | turn around the whole thing in 3 days if we have to. | r00fus wrote: | This viewpoint seems very domain/market dependent. Retail | usually explodes during winter months, for example. | phpisthebest wrote: | Yes replace your likely 6-figure dev job with a $15/hr | job stocking the shelves at walmart... | kube-system wrote: | Walmart has 943 software engineering positions open right | now. | | They're making more than $15/hr: | https://www.levels.fyi/companies/walmart-global- | tech/salarie... | phpisthebest wrote: | While true the parent comment was talking about Seasonal | jobs that retail adds at the end of the year, these are | not programming jobs that are added but cashiers, | stockers, etc. | r00fus wrote: | I wasn't. My point stands - people, including myself, | have no trouble getting software related jobs in any | season. Other markets/industries it may vary. | unity1001 wrote: | Recruiters would fill that gap readily enough. | MisterBastahrd wrote: | My comment comes directly from my experience in the past | as a recruiter. We saw a 60%+ downturn in the hiring | market From Nov 15 - Dec 31 regardless of how the hiring | market was performing in general, and then they would | spring back to life after Jan 1 when everyone was back in | the office. It takes more than a hiring manager to hire | employees. | | The slowdown comes from all the moving parts who need to | be in place in order to facilitate the transition of an | employee to an org. | | Think of your average tech hire who needs to (a) go | through orientation just like everyone else, and (b) is | going to take a week or two just to get his work | environment and credentialing set up so he can work with | the servers. I'll put my experience on that side of the | desk working with dozens of clients against any anecdotal | one-offs who got hired late in the year. | lowercased wrote: | A lot of business _in general_ tends to slow down during | the last few weeks of the year. It 's sector-dependent, | somewhat, but just things like getting approvals from or | meetings with people who are 'out' for the holidays | impacts even well-intentioned orgs from moving at | 'regular' speed when it comes to making hires or signing | business deals or what not. It's not a 'negative' | viewpoint so much as 'realistic'. | taylodl wrote: | You speak the truth. Any recruiter with any experience at | all will tell you hiring _plunges_ late in the 4th | quarter. It 's been that way forever. There does tend to | be an uptick in interviewing starting late in the 3rd | quarter and early on in the 4th (i.e. _now_ ) so they can | get the people they need in place for the start of the | new year and next year's budget. Hopefully these folks | will be able to take advantage of that and if they can't | start immediately at least be ready to go at the end of | the holidays, and if they've been paid through the end of | the year then they can at least enjoy the holidays. | Shindi wrote: | This is pure negativity and not true. Hiring might slow | down because of seasonality overall, but I was hired the | last two times end of year. It's a great time to get new | employees ramped up when things are slower. | | A polite reminder that some companies are growing really | fast and are even struggling with hiring. | mathgeek wrote: | Just wanted to throw in my $0.02 here as well. I've been | hired in November/December twice in my career without | issue. | jnwatson wrote: | Likewise. I didn't even know it was a slow period. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | I got hired in November, for a job I held for almost 27 | years. | mrtranscendence wrote: | Same here. My current position was a November hire, as | was my first position. | time_to_smile wrote: | I would think the impending collapse of the tech sector | might be a bigger concern, but I think there's still | plenty of time for people getting laid off right now. | m00x wrote: | January/February is the most active recruiting time though, | 3 months pay is more than enough to make it there without | any issues. | | Most people in tech also don't live paycheck to paycheck. | As an adult, your responsibility is to have an emergency | fund. No career is safe. | stu2b50 wrote: | It means that the employees are being let go because he did a | bad job, not that they were low performing or that other | employee performances caused patreon to perform better. | | It doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things but it's | just that he is claiming culpability for all of the ills | patreon is experiencing. | [deleted] | saos wrote: | He said the same thing last year lol | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV-3GgU6rlo | | It seems to be what most CEO are saying lately. | cbozeman wrote: | It's like people didn't read the statement at all. He clearly | says they're going to invest more into engineering and some | other shit... so it's not about money. They're going to spend | _more_ fucking money. This sounds like a bunch of people got | their jobs automated away through algorithms or intelligent | systems or just whatever innovation you wanna chalk it up to, | and they redundant to the company, so they gotta go. | | This is why I will never be a CEO. I'd just come right out | and say, "17% of you are expendable and I had your jobs | replaced by scripts and a few machines. I'm going to use that | money to buy more machines, hire more brilliant engineers, | and see what percentage of the company I can replace by next | year." | rchaud wrote: | Forget about CEO, could you even be a competent manager if | that's how you think? | cbozeman wrote: | I hate to be the one to break this to you, but this is | how an _extraordinarily_ large amount of high-level | individuals think - they just won 't admit it. | | If you're able to automate a large portion of your | workforce, why wouldn't you? You'll be rewarded for it in | every aspect. You'll be praised by the Board of Directors | for cutting costs and improving productivity (since | algorithms and robots don't have to sleep, never get | tired, never call in sick, never get drunk and shit in | their husband's bed, etc.). You'll be praised by Wall | Street as a "visionary, technologically-minded thinker / | leader". | | There's zero downside _for you_. | | There's enormous downside _for parts of society_. | | The difference is, I'm willing to admit that when I do | this, it's directly to my benefit. | dlandis wrote: | Agreed. That part was not well written. It seems like a | vacuous, self-important phrase unless it is immediately tied to | something else like, "I take full responsibility and as such I | will be <taking the following meaningful actions or stepping | down, etc>. | Thaxll wrote: | If every CEO would be sanctionned for every situations no one | would want to be CEO. | jstx1 wrote: | > What does "taking full responsibility" even mean? | | It means "I'm not blaming anyone else for this". Which might | not mean much but it's probably better than the alternatives. | cush wrote: | You might be overthinking... Jack over-hired. That's it. | Doesn't really warrant a CEO stepping down. He's simply | empathetic and wants to let people know that the employees are | good to hire, and Patreon is still doing well as a business. | dougmwne wrote: | That would be meaningless virtue signaling. Standard corporate | speak. | gausswho wrote: | The rest of the letter reads well to me. He should have | avoided that phrase given how pilloried it's been recently, | with reason. But that doesn't take away from the generous | actions he's fought for for the departed. | davezatch wrote: | What would non-"meaningless virtue signaling" look like to | you? This seems quite decent as far as these things go. | cbozeman wrote: | That's because you didn't come up in a time when people who | fucked up like this would step down from their position for | their clear and obviously failed leadership. You're not | used to seeing what "full responsibility" actually is. | | Full responsibility is a samurai killing himself painfully | while his best friend cuts off his head to end his | suffering. That's full responsibility. | | This is, "I fucked up guys, here's 3-6 months pay and some | benes... my bad. And yeah I know I fucked up last year too, | but I took full responsibility then as well, so it's all | good..." | dougmwne wrote: | Yes, that is a good image. I don't think litteral seppuku | is called for (though it is a helpful reminder of what | shame has looked like in the past), just that people are | getting a bit tired of executives saying "I take full | responsibility for this failure," while getting handed a | giant bonus, a pat on the back from the board and | shareholders and another biz mag feature. | MerelyMortal wrote: | "I am responsible for overhiring/mismanaging, I'm sorry." | rchaud wrote: | Putting your money where your mouth is. Resignation and | public, in-person apology like they do in Japan. | | Better yet, refuse to take a bonus, not that the board | should award one. If the board awards one anyway, | contribute 100% of it to helping laid off employees. | dougmwne wrote: | Well, seeing as how saying that means nothing, adds | nothing, and says nothing, then not saying it at all would | be more meaningful. | | The non-corporate speak translation would be "I tried my | best to make this company bigger and more valuable, but it | didn't work. Some of you will now need to be sacrificed, | but not me!" | ipaddr wrote: | He quits / pay cut. Something where his actions affect him | lowercased wrote: | We don't know that he hasn't taken a pay cut. Posting | about it might just come across as self-serving, but then | not posting about it makes it seem like he's not doing | it. Lose-lose, it seems. | | And... I suspect whatever he's doing is also affecting | him emotionally/mentally, and... to some extent career- | wise. Taking these sorts of public steps may make it | harder to be entrusted to CEO someplace else in future. | Given patreon specifically, I doubt he's planning to | leave and go CEO someplace else, but overall, there's no | easy outs in scenarios like this. He'll be getting | second-guessed and pilloried regardless of what steps he | takes. | remram wrote: | Removing that meaningless sentence, or replacing it with an | apology. | bolyarche wrote: | nscalf wrote: | Taking full responsibility used to look like getting fired for | poor planning. Now taking full responsibility means "I say in | public that this is my fault" versus trying to push the blame | off. | dilyevsky wrote: | Corpspeak for "your call is very important to us, all our | operators are currently busy..." | skilled wrote: | Interesting... As comments have pointed out already, this might | have to do with the fact that companies kept on hiring more | people to deal with the influx of customers during the pandemic. | | I don't question it, but I most definitely question how many of | these companies blindly hired these people without spending a | second thinking about consequences of their actions. Shopify was | recently in the news for the same reason[0]. | | [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32237574 | csmpltn wrote: | > "... I'm more confident than ever that the world needs a better | economic system for creative people, and Patreon will keep | building that system for creators over the decades ahead. | However, the pandemic introduced volatility to the broader trend, | starting with a rapid acceleration during COVID lockdowns. In | response, we built an operating plan to support this outsized | growth, but as the world began recovering from the pandemic and | enduring a broader economic slowdown, that plan is no longer the | right path forward for Patreon. I take full responsibility for | choosing that original path forward, and for the changes today, | which will be very difficult for our team." | | It's the same pattern at so many other companies now. Over-hiring | during COVID (thinking what exactly? that people would forever | stay locked up at home with nothing else to do with their | money?), before waking up to the reality that things have gone | back to normal and that there was never really a plan whatsoever | for those hired. Asses were put in seats though, so there's that. | Groxx wrote: | I wonder how much of it may just be "keeping up with | competitors". You can lose a lot of ground in a year or two, | and recovering that ground may be more costly than the | additional hiring-and-firing cost. | short_sells_poo wrote: | I agree with you in principle, but we now have the benefit of | foresight. | | Imagine Patreon's position during early covid: they had a | firehose of money pointed at them. I'm sure they knew it will | end, but not "when". They had to react to it, if for no other | reason than to prevent a competitor from getting ahead. | ArchOversight wrote: | This is somewhat meta, but linking to an instagram post is | terrible, I get immediately redirected to a login page and can't | even see the content on Instagram. I do not have an instagram | account, nor do I want to create one just to see this. | | Was there no better place to link to? | vitiral wrote: | https://blog.patreon.com/a-note-from-jack | princevegeta89 wrote: | Love it when companies and executives come with subtle titles | like "A Note from XXXX", "A sad announcement", "Looking ahead | into the future" etc. when they're nothing but just plain | layoff notices. | RoadieRoller wrote: | https://blog.patreon.com/a-note-from-jack | micromacrofoot wrote: | Not only that, it's an image of text. It's incredible that this | is _still_ how we 're sharing information online in 2022. | ShamelessC wrote: | This happens more and more when I visit Twitter now, too. | _Really_ annoying and I have zero intention of creating an | account on either of those sites. | phpisthebest wrote: | if you are using firefox on the desktop you can prevent all | cookies for the site than that goes away. Free the browse | with no popup for login | deathanatos wrote: | With Twitter, I find you can click the log in button, and | then there is an X to dismiss the modal with, which then lets | you read the page. (And this is absolutely annoying, terrible | UX, and I wish to God people would stop putting things on | Twitter.) | d23 wrote: | The existence of these backdoors is a bad excuse these | teams use to justify user-hostile UX. I had no idea this | was possible, so for me this might as well have not | existed. I simply skipped reading twitter threads when I | was on a device I wasn't logged in on. | pentagrama wrote: | If you use Ublock Origin, you can enable the "annoyances" | filter and the Twitter login overlay is removed. | yamazakiwi wrote: | Sometimes I click a twitter link on a devices I don't want to | login to (work machine). I ended up creating a second account | for this exact reason, so annoying. | Akronymus wrote: | Reddit also, if it is deemed sensitive. | [deleted] | remram wrote: | Patreon could have eaten OnlyFans' cake so easily, instead they | seem to be struggling like everyone thought they would when they | banned NSFW content in 2017. | | I don't understand why they thought that move would benefit them. | I don't understand how Jack Conte is still CEO after such a | stupid change or how he can say with a straight face that he's | "taking responsibility". | battery_glasses wrote: | I think its reasonable that a lot of creators don't want to | distribute their work along side porn. | | Does Only Fans have any non-porn content? I really don't know | because in my head Only Fans is a place for porn. | throwaway675309 wrote: | Patreon has a shit ton of NSFW stuff so I'm not sure if this | decision was overturned or if it's just limited to actual | live actor pornography. | egypturnash wrote: | https://www.patreon.com/policy/guidelines is the official | rules. | | A summary: | | * mark horny stuff as 18+ | | * all horny posts must be patron-only | | * drawings are okay but no photos/video of actual people | going at it | | * no bestiality, rape, kids, incest, necrophilia, or | dubcon/noncon | | As a creator of horny art I do not look forwards to the day | when Visa/Mastercard/Apple/Google/etc leans on Patreon and | says "hey we banned _all_ horny content, you can either ban | it too or you can quit working with us ". | dc-programmer wrote: | Maybe I'm biased due to the content I subscribe to, but | Patreon seems to be going for a more sophisticated | aesthetic. This comes through even in the name. The word | Patreon conjures images of the Medici's and "elevated" art | forms. I think if they started to cater to the NSFW side of | things it would result in brand confusion for producers and | consumers. | brown9-2 wrote: | Patreon probably feared pressure from the Apple App Store. | egypturnash wrote: | There is a time-honored path that this choice to ban NSFW stuff | is part of. | | 1. Make a way for people to get paid over the Internet for | making stuff. | | 2. Be okay with horny stuff, possibly as an explicit choice in | the beginning, possibly as a pivot when people who make horny | stuff start shifting a lot of money through the pipeline you're | providing. | | 3. Get big enough for Visa/Mastercard/Apple/Google to notice | that you sure are pushing a lot of horny money through their | payment systems. Which have a lot of clauses that basically | boil down to "no horny". | | 4. You have a choice here: figure out how to work completely | outside of whichever payment system's owner is saying "no | horny", or ban horny. I've never seen anyone take the former | option. | | 5. Make a wishy-washy blog post about how you are banning horny | stuff that completely fails to come out and say "this really | sucks and we hate to do it but we can either drop our horny | creators and keep existing as a company, or we can pretty much | pack up the entire affair; here are some ways you can go put | pressure on Visa/MC/Google/Apple/your lawmakers/etc to maybe | change this state of affairs for the next people to follow this | path, seriously this is 100% happening because V/MC/G/A finally | noticed we have been blatantly skirting these rules". | | This has happened many times before, and it will continue to | happen many times in the future until someone chooses "fuck all | existing payment processors, we're finding a new way to get | money from customers to creators" and makes it _work_. | koyote wrote: | I'm no entrepreneur but wouldn't a good way to solve this be to | have two separate brands under the same platform? | | Patreon and Patreon Red or something, where one is adult | content only and the other is not. | adam_arthur wrote: | Structural inflation is primarily driven by blue collar wages. | Going to be a lot of white collar casualties on the way back to | 2%, given that rising discount rates hits them first | Havoc wrote: | Well, that seems pretty OK for a layoff mail. | | Bit confused by reducing staff spend while increasing spending on | engineering & product. Surely for a software company those are | roughly the same thing? | q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: | This bit from the employee announcement about how they're | handling equity vesting [1] is worth highlighting as a pretty | classy move, all things considered: | | > We're waiving the one-year equity vesting cliff for all | departing employees so that everyone has an opportunity to be a | shareholder, regardless of your tenure. [...] All departing | teammates will qualify for an extended option exercise period of | 5 years, and we have extended it to 7 years in regions where we | are legally able. | | It must be jarring to be on the receiving end of a layoff. In the | grand scheme of things, a laid-off employee surely has bigger | things to worry about... but I still think what they did here | with the equity, _especially_ the option exercise period, is a | nice touch. Not many companies do this sort of thing, but they | should. | | [1]: https://blog.patreon.com/a-note-from-jack | [deleted] | mabbo wrote: | Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but since the equity is all | _options_ , doesn't that imply that they're making it easier | for people to _give them money_? | | Yes, sure, they have to dilute the company a bit by creating | more stocks for the people buying it, but if your company is in | enough trouble that you're laying off 1 in 6 employees, it | seems financially wise to effectively be doing many small | rounds of fundraising this way. It extends your runway some | small amount. | ftufek wrote: | Only if you exercise the options, you won't exercise the | options if it's not profitable to you. | mabbo wrote: | Ah, that's a good point. It's sort of the opposite: now the | option holder can wait longer to decide if this is a | worthwhile investment, vs "You have 30 days to exercise | this or you get nothing". | ginger2016 wrote: | I am not a user or an employee of Patreon, still I appreciate | Patreon being generous about equity vesting. | yieldcrv wrote: | The progressive thing is 10-year option exercise, and the | more progressive thing has been 1-month cliff which some of | big tech does now | | This is "mid", as my friends have started to say | ugh123 wrote: | Indeed classy. The 1-year cliff waiver should standard | operating procedure during layoffs. | rconti wrote: | I think how much compensation they end up with from their ex- | employer is likely top-of-mind, actually! | unity1001 wrote: | They say there's 3 months of pay, healthcare, mental care until | the end of the year too. And they contracted a placement | company to hook people up with new jobs. | fckgw wrote: | Some of this is because of the WARN Act in California [0], | which requires 60-day notice before any mass layoff. | Employers can also fulfill the requirements of this mandate | by letting employees go now but having their actual | termination date 60+ days in advance. I've been survived a | few layoffs that work this way. | | Good for Patreon to go beyond the 60-day mandated period | though | | [0] | https://edd.ca.gov/en/Jobs_and_Training/Layoff_Services_WARN | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | > I've been survived a few layoffs that work this way. | | How many times have you been laid off?! | mleo wrote: | During the dot com downturn the consulting company I was | at went through 2 or 3 rounds of layoffs. Then in the | 2008 fallout, there was another round. If one is lucky | enough to survive them, they could be witness to many but | not be a recipient of any. | snapetom wrote: | Unless you're in government/health. You're going to lucky | not to be laid off multiple times in your career and if | you're not laid off at all in your career, consider | yourself extremely lucky. | jrockway wrote: | There are probably a large number of HN readers that have | weathered the dotcom bust, the 2008 financial crisis, and | the 2022 financial crisis. If you were born 1980-ish and | you haven't been laid off 3 times, congrats! | thelittleone wrote: | Being laid off twice was a rewarding experience both | financially and for my career. It forced me to step out | of my comfort zone. Now, being outside my comfort zone is | my comfort zone. | | In the first layoff I knew the company was planning a | round in the next 18 months and I'd been there 6 years. I | waited around for the payout. Layoff law in Australia is | more favorable to the employee, the payout was 10 months. | I took a week off before starting the next job on a | substantial salary increase. | | The most important is not to take it personally as a | failure. That can mess with self confidence and interview | performance and general well being. At my HR interview | they had the team there and some "transition coach" they | seemed worried about us. I was actually thrilled as I | planned to leave anyway. | JohnFen wrote: | > If you were born 1980-ish and you haven't been laid off | 3 times, congrats! | | This depends on where you worked. Most of the developers | I know were around for the dotcom bust, but only 2 have | experienced a layoff. But none were working for dotcom | companies. | sdenton4 wrote: | Ah, the safety of grad school... | smm11 wrote: | Yeah, 5 or 6 times. Happy to be, right now, a one-person | IT department at a "small" company. My way is the way. | madamelic wrote: | Or just work in startups. | | It's pretty easy to get laid off a lot if you work in | startups. You join and know there is a ticking clock in | the background. If you don't, you probably should. | | Every startup thinks they are the 1 out of 10 (because | why wouldn't they, you have to.) | nraynaud wrote: | I agree, I have never actually been fired from a | collapsing company, but as an intern I have been in the | meeting room when a company was folded, and I have also | seen a few companies collapse after I left. I'm a realy | early guy, I tend to leave when the timesheet comes, so | there is probably some runway left when I leave. | [deleted] | gabereiser wrote: | This, I've been laid off about 6 times, only once because | of my own accord (and I freely admit my fault there). | I've left a company 2x that count. I started my career in | 1999. What a year to start... | dahfizz wrote: | In 23 years you have worked at 18 companies? Has this | hurt you during interviews? | gabereiser wrote: | Very much so. I've had to explain that some of them were | just contracts, some of them cease to exist anymore, and | some went through layoffs. The reality is it's more like | 13 companies but yeah. | Maursault wrote: | Don't sweat it. Most human resource departments take | their methods from Kafka's The Trial. The more you look | the better you get at it, the easier the brutal process | of some employers' hiring processes become. Fire and | forget. The more applications you complete, the better | your chances of getting hired, and once hired, the longer | you work, the further disappointment retreats in your | rearview. | gabereiser wrote: | Yup! Exactly. It's a numbers game. I'll never work at a | FAANG probably because of it but that's ok. I've carved | out a pretty cool career AND I do side projects and games | so it's fine. | Tsukiortu wrote: | I started in 2020 :) officially. I technically did side | things throughout HS, but officially looked for jobs in | 2020. Was pretty miserable. | purpleblue wrote: | I was born in the 60s and haven't been laid off yet, | including during the dotcom bust, all while working for | 12+ companies in my career. The bust was the worst, | though, our company went through 7+ layoffs and we were | decimated, and no one did any real work after a while. | Fingers crossed that I can keep this trend until | retirement! | fckgw wrote: | None, that's how I survived them ;) | | I worked in an industry that's highly cyclical and had | major consolidation over the last decade (HDD/SSD | storage). We bought several companies and they would do | layoffs roughly every 18 months or so. | Test0129 wrote: | I joke with my friends in other industries about how | often I have been laid off. For me, it's been uh...5 | times? Maybe 6. I am probably forgetting them. None of | them were very small but like usual characteristically | overextended. One company I survived 4 full rounds of | layoffs before getting axed. Another one I survived 3. | | It's the nature of playing around in the high stakes | startup world. As I've gotten older I've found more | stable companies. But it was quite funny coming home once | every few years to tell my girlfriend I was laid off | again and then picking up another job a week later. | phpisthebest wrote: | WARN Act is federal law not CA Law. I highlight this | because there is a belief that only CA has employment | protections laws, and while CA does have more of these; | other parts of the US also have employment protection laws | often times not really that much different than CA | quux wrote: | I think WARN is 60 days at the federal level and some | states like CA and NY extend it to 90 days. | phpisthebest wrote: | Both CA and Federal is 60 days, the main difference is CA | requires employers with over 75 employee's federal is | 100, and CA includes Part Time employees in the count | Federal is Full Time workers only | toomuchtodo wrote: | Decency demonstrated, and hopefully recognized at large | regardless of the criticisms of the business strategy and | execution. | unity1001 wrote: | I agree. Tech companies should never really break off with | former employees. Any former employee is a future potential | employee that you can re-recruit when the time comes. Also, | talent is difficult to find. Which makes people the center. | Whatever you build, you will build it with people. So you | need people. Be them new employees, be them former | employees. | cafed00d wrote: | > Any former employee is a future potential employee that | you can re-recruit when the time comes | | Not only that, all former employees are de-facto | "background check references" / "evagenlists" / | "detractors" of your company. Forever! (well, not exactly | forever... but close enough) | | I can't recall a single year over the last 10 years where | younger engineers, cousins, nephews or friends have asked | me about the 2 companies I worked at before. | | And boy, have I been candid. | | Talked a very good friend of mine from joining Amazon for | an offer he got making nearly 3 times much I did. All | because of "decency" (or lack thereof) of a company. | treis wrote: | >friends have asked me | | Is this supposed to be haven't? | cafed00d wrote: | Whoops! Yes, you're right. Thanks! Wish I could edit it | now. | smm11 wrote: | Seems Amazon needs to be careful about this, too. | | https://retailwire.com/discussion/there-might-soon-be-no- | one... | water-your-self wrote: | Would love to hear your take on Amazon. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | Even more importantly, they are evangelists for other | future employees. | | I actually went out of my way to make it easy for my | employees to quit. If they didn't want to stay, then I | sincerely wished them well. | | The company limited what I could do, but I did my best, | and it seemed to work out. | jzb wrote: | I had some unkind feelings about Patreon when it was | announced / made public that they laid off _their entire | security team._ I still think that was a poor move and any | company responsible for handling payments ought to have an | in-house security team. | | That said - I've held off on any criticisms around their | strategy/execution for the moment (aside from that) since | it's unclear what happened. I'm wondering if Patreon is | getting hit with lots of people backing off support of | artists after a big jump due to the pandemic. | | Given inflation and a lot of feelings of uncertainty around | the economy, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that their | revenue went _way_ down in a hurry this year. | | I back four artists on Patreon, down from five a year ago. | In all 4 cases I'm either too busy to get full "value" out | of sponsoring (e.g., I don't have time to read the updates | or listen to all the demos), or there's not really any | benefit other than funneling money to support the artist in | hopes they'll continue working as an artist. | | Each month I look at the bill from Patreon and wonder "do I | really need to keep spending this money?" So far I've | elected to - but I haven't been hit super hard by inflation | or a layoff like many folks... | unity1001 wrote: | They didn't lay off their entire security team. What one | person among the laid off ones thought to be 'security | team' may not overlap with what their company had been | doing since a long time. In startups, its not uncommon to | have engineers who have been handling various | responsibilities, including security (especially early | employees). | iancmceachern wrote: | Agreed, its not ideal but there are things a company can do | to put their money where there mouth is in this situation. | This seems to be the new playback for doing it right. I | appreciate that. | staunch wrote: | This is exactly how to handle a layoff: do it 3-6 months | earlier than required and give the laid off employees that | money as severance. Waving the equity cliff too is very | generous and good of them. | | Everyone should note the companies that do brutal layoffs | with little/no severance. It's a major red flag because it | shows incompetence and/or a lack of ethics. | preston4tw wrote: | I always thought it was awesome that a company to support | creators was creator lead. I came across Jack Conte in 2010 | before Patreon existed. He was a music creator on YouTube that | made what he was calling Video Songs, songs with each | instrument part video'd and mixed together, and selling his | music collection through e-junkie at the time. He was one of | the first creators I ever financially supported. Some of the | videos are still up on YT: https://youtu.be/D2PwVkQBp5o | | Despite not knowing Jack personally pretty much everything I've | seen from him over the years has reinforced my generally high | opinion of him. In this case as well. As lay-offs go Patreon | seems to be trying very hard to do right by their employees. | avg_dev wrote: | I am sure this says more about me than anything but if a | company lays me off there is zero chance of me exercising | options in that company. | | Edit: I read the link and it appears to apply to RSUs as well. | What I said about options is true but RSUs, different story. | I'd sell those for sure. | PopAlongKid wrote: | Patreon is not publicy traded, so your ability to sell any | RSUs is very limited. | aeyes wrote: | Why not? Options are usually "in the money" so if you don't | exercise them you are throwing away money which you already | earned. | PopAlongKid wrote: | > what they did here with the equity, especially the option | exercise period, is a nice touch. | | But it's not all that great. Patreon is not publicly traded, so | it seems likely that exercising any options will require cash | up front, plus it will immediately trigger taxable compensation | (income tax plus FICA). And how will the FMV be determined, if | there is no public market trading? (ans.: usually just some | number voted on by the board). It may well be that the options | are never worth anything even after the extended period. | | It is clear that these are not ISOs (statutory options), | because statutory options by law only allow up to 3 months to | exercise after employment ends. | entangledqubit wrote: | To me, this seems a little odd to complain about given that | all those factors were true about the equity compensation | when people signed on. The company didn't fundamentally do a | bait and switch or change the rules. | | Layoffs suck but I found the extended exercise windows and | other benefits to be rather pleasantly responsible given the | situation. | xhrpost wrote: | I believe the 90day limit for ISOs is just the time to get | the tax benefits. You can still exercise after 90days, you | just pay more. | pastor_bob wrote: | I guess undercutting Vimeo wasn't cheap | MintDice wrote: | throwaway1777 wrote: | Feel like the real story is a bunch of competitors are eating | their lunch. | gtfoutttt wrote: | Who are those competitors? The subject company is tho only one | I know of like this. But I am not really active in the creative | space so I'm ignorant. | blisterpeanuts wrote: | Youtube and Facebook both offer monthly subscription plans | for creators. | mrtranscendence wrote: | Which hardly anyone seems to use, at least for YouTube. I | watch too much YouTube for my own good, and I can't | remember the last time someone encouraged viewers to donate | money on a recurring basis via any company except Patreon. | mwidell wrote: | And the reason for this is likely that youtube takes at | least 30% of the money, while patreon is around 5-8% | Minor49er wrote: | Gumroad is becoming a big one | kradeelav wrote: | Subscribestar, which I'm much more of a fan of since they | have more common sense rules around NSFW art. | throwaway675309 wrote: | I don't think it has anything to do with common sense, from | reading their guidelines it sounds like they just ban NSFW | stuff all together. | voxl wrote: | Common sense rules == completely banning all NSFW work? | | https://www.subscribestar.com/prohibited_content | | I'm all for having some SFW platforms, but let's not | pretend that there isn't a dramatic, dramatic demand for | NSFW content, and that banning it is nothing short of | prudish. | lmm wrote: | I'm no fan of banning such things, but an outright ban is | much clearer and more comprehensible than Patreon's very | murky and subjective (to the point where it's almost | impossible that they're not selectively applied, if only | by accident) rules. | dividuum wrote: | ko-fi.com seems to morph more and more into a competitor. | scelerat wrote: | This seems to simply be how Patreon operates: yearly layoffs | donatj wrote: | 80 / .17 = 470 employees. | | How does Patreon need this many employees? It really doesn't seem | like that much of an operation. | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | I would guess >300 of those employees aren't working on the | core product. | abimaelmartell wrote: | Didn't they just fired their whole security team a few weeks ago? | HankB99 wrote: | Apparently all 5 of them. | | https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/09/patreon-security-layoffs/ | o_1 wrote: | What's the growth from graphtreon vs these layoffs. Most top | patreons have quadrupled or more monthly earnings from 2020. This | could just be a netflix style "thanks for the hardwork, goodbye". | bArray wrote: | > Last week, we let go of 5 teammates from our security | organization, which stemmed from a different set of reasons from | the ones guiding today's decisions. The change last week was part | of a longer-term strategy to continue distributing security | responsibilities across our entire engineering team, bring new | areas of expertise into Patreon internally, and continue | partnering with external experts. Unfortunately, the change | generated concern that we were reducing our security investment, | but I wanted to make it clear, especially in light of today's | changes, that we are in fact increasing our investment in | security. | | This is interesting, and I'm not entirely convinced. It seems as | though their security team was not warned and you would expect a | handover process. | | > The change last week was part of a longer-term strategy to | continue distributing security responsibilities across our entire | engineering team | | > Unfortunately, the change generated concern that we were | reducing our security investment, but I wanted to make it clear, | especially in light of today's changes, that we are in fact | increasing our investment in security. | | This doesn't sound like an increased investment, it sounds like a | decreased investment. "Why are we paying these people when we can | just get the normal engineers to do this?". Maybe this is | possible, but who's going to allocate sprint time to work on | background pentesting and documenting? | | You may say "we will get an external team to do this", but will | they get access to source code? Will they get access to upcoming | features? | mherdeg wrote: | Hmm -- how is Gumroad doing? Is their business affected by the | same economic slowdown issues, or did they find another way | forward? | lxe wrote: | Every SV company: | | 1. Start a company that does a thing well | | 2. Hire enough people to do the thing well | | 3. For some reason, hire more and more people to do more and more | random things | | 4. Hire more managers who hire even more people | | 5. You are now a complicated mess and can't get anything done | | 6. Run out of money | | 7. Fire people and write a sad post. Continue to collect hefty | CEO salary. | | Why not just stop at 2? | jesuspiece wrote: | I've wondered this as well. Look at Uber, how are they not | profitable? How many more engineers/general personnel do they | possibly need to hire? | squeaky-clean wrote: | Looking at their app they do a lot more than just give rides | nowadays. UberEats delivers from restaurants, but also | apparently groceries now? They have a short-distance package | delivery option. Rental cars. And some kind of tool to book a | plane and hotel for travel? | | I don't know if it's the right business call, but Uber is | like 10 different companies now. | Ekaros wrote: | Because taxi business isn't actually that great business. You | have to employ lot of relatively expensive drivers and they | have to pay for costs of complex machine... And the users | want to get it as cheap as possible and complain somewhat if | prices ever go up. | D-Coder wrote: | Many people do. They have a five-person company that does one | thing and that you never hear of, either while it's running | happily or when it goes out of business. | ransom1538 wrote: | If you take VC money you are on a different track. VC's place | thousands of bets with a %99.9 failure rate. But the hits, are | so huge, they cover all their bad bets. So they want you to | take the money and swing for fences. | rmah wrote: | Because if you stop at #2... | | 1) you won't attract any follow-on investment capital; | | 2) your original investor will be angry that you're sitting on | a pile of money that is doing nothing; | | 3) you will likely grow slower than your other competitors. in | some markets, this is death, in other markets, this is fine. | | Patreon had nearly 500 staff before layoffs. Now has about 400 | staff. You may have a hard time understanding what all those | people do, but I suspect they're all quite busy. | lxe wrote: | > You may have a hard time understanding what all those | people do, but I suspect they're all quite busy. | | I'm guessing 100 managers at least. Busy hiring more people | to staff their perpetually understaffed teams, each doing | some disjoint initiative. | Ekaros wrote: | Shouldn't point 2) be start paying the pile of money back? Or | allow investor to sell the whole thing to someone else who | just want to live on dividends. | LegitShady wrote: | The investors don't want their pile of money back - that | would just be a loan, they want your business to go to the | moon so their equity becomes much more valuable than their | investment. The investors will call for more investment and | faster growth, so they can find a window to sell for big | money. | flavmartins wrote: | +1 | | That's just not how VCs work. Basically it's you HAVE to | always show hockey stick growth. | | Steady 5-10% per year isn't good enough. It has to grow | exponentially. So that's why you keep hiring and keep | spreading out the service into a whole bunch of other areas. | harerazer wrote: | I'm just going to point out that growing 10% per year is | actually exponential growth | [deleted] | didgetmaster wrote: | There are plenty of companies that have been highly successful | at growing way beyond their first product or service. If Apple | had stopped with PCs, we wouldn't have iPods, iPhones, iPads, | etc. | | The danger is when a startup seeks to grow just for growth | sake. Hire way more people than we really need so we attract | investors by showing rapid growth is their modus operandi. That | approach has actually worked enough that many companies are | willing to travel that risky road. But that road is also | littered with casualties. | lmarcos wrote: | Please don't give away the secret sauce. Let those silly | entrepreneurs and investors keep playing with fire. | pastor_bob wrote: | Patreon is/was clearly trying to become an all-in-one platform | to justify their increasingly large cut (like 15% now). | Stopping at 2 doesn't achieve that. | adrr wrote: | Because a startup isn't about growing sustainable. It's about | build an expensive rocket ship and trying to grow at record | speeds. Most companies will fail but a select few will have | 10x+ gains. | | You don't need VC cash to start a successful company but the | time horizon is much longer. | unity1001 wrote: | > Why not just stop at 2? | | Because your investors will never allow that. And without their | money, you cant even reach #2. | _Adam wrote: | >So within the next 10 minutes, teammates who will be leaving the | company will receive a calendar invitation to a video call with a | leader in your function and a teammate from the People team. In | that meeting, you'll review the details of your separation and | have an opportunity to ask any questions you may have. | | I would have sent the invite out beforehand to avoid the entire | companying spending the next ten minutes in complete uncertainty | about their futures. | quickthrower2 wrote: | > We are offering our nine Dublin engineering teammates | relocation packages to join these US-based teams. | | Do they get a payrise to match US salaries? | drusepth wrote: | Probably a better link than whatever the Instagram post is | (behind a login): https://blog.patreon.com/a-note-from-jack | tomovo wrote: | TIL: Jack Conte is the keyboard player in Pomplamoose. Weird. | an1sotropy wrote: | he was that before Patreon was a thing, and they're connected: | https://www.inc.com/alexa-von-tobel/jack-conte-youtube-patre... | shtopointo wrote: | "I take full responsibility" - ok, what's the responsibility you | take? | remram wrote: | *I* take responsibility by having *you* be unemployed. It makes | sense if you don't think about it. | jfasi wrote: | Looks like most of the layoffs are in marketing and sales, and | that they're still hiring on engineering and product. Honestly, | I'm surprised they had marketing and sales people to begin with. | Those sorts of efforts pay off most with big-name, high-end | artists who probably don't need monthly patrons to be successful. | Focusing in improving the product seems like a smarter move, | especially given how janky their product was until quite | recently. | bombcar wrote: | These "user generated content companies" spend a lot of time | and money marketing to the content creators (Patreon is | defending against the built-in platform monetization of things | like Youtube and Twitch, et al) and getting big name content | creators on their platform (see some of the leaks related to | Onlyfans, etc al). | Lanz wrote: | It'd be good to see Patreon face some more serious competition. | They are by far the dominant force in their segment. | phamilton4 wrote: | Not being in the know, what are the serious competitors to | Patreon? Utreon? Buy Me a Coffee? Youtube itself? | api wrote: | Apple and Spotify doing podcast subscriptions maybe? | yamazakiwi wrote: | As a new user of Patreon (literally this week is the first | time I've used it) I finally signed up because a content | creator is posting their videos to Patreon a day early. | Youtube could solve that problem. | | Does anyone have any other examples of what Patreon does | for them? | bombcar wrote: | It's cross platform and PayPal hasn't decided to eat it | as a feature yet. That's it. | hobofan wrote: | OnlyFans | ivraatiems wrote: | As layoff announcements go, this one is pretty solid. Cuts | immediately to the chase. No sugarcoating. Takes full | responsibility. Offers pretty solid severance packages. | | I can only hope that if my organization has to lay people off, | they'd be half as kind as some of the recent ones have been (and | not at all like others, such as Klarna). | browningstreet wrote: | Patreon's handling of expired cards is terrible.. people I know | who used Patreon just lose subscribers because the flow for | fixing an expired card basically doesn't exist (or didn't, maybe | it's been fixed since). Those people left Patreon and won't be | returning. | | Their new engineering staff could fix that, for one. | cronix wrote: | Interesting. I haven't had to enter new data for any | subscription service when a cc expires for years now. Somehow | the new info gets relayed to the service without my input. | Sivart13 wrote: | Certain credit card providers have a (paid?) service where | companies like Patreon can poll for the updated details of | any of the cards they have on file. | | My card didn't automatically update and I can confirm that | the site gets weirdly broken. | datalopers wrote: | They laid off the entire security team last week | CobrastanJorji wrote: | Glad to see they're really thinking long term. After getting | rid of their security team, they should maybe rethink those | pesky fire extinguishers that have done nothing but expire. | AngeloR wrote: | I think this is just the start for some bad things are patreon... | | This video of execs at Patreon apparently turning a blind eye to | employees calling out patreon users that were selling images of | underage children: | https://twitter.com/TizzyEnt/status/1315626557688483841?s=20... | | They also laid off their ENTIRE security team: | https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/09/patreon-security-layoffs/ | tptacek wrote: | It's not actually that unusual to absorb security into | engineering; if engineering is already doing most of software | security, and engineering/ops is already handling IT security, | then the rest of security might in fact be duplicative of stuff | third parties can do just as well. | | I have no inside knowledge as to whether this was the case at | Patreon; no opinions about Patreon whatsoever. But re-orging | security into and out of engineering is not unprecedented. | [deleted] | verall wrote: | I don't think that's the right twitter link | phpisthebest wrote: | Patreon decline had 3 Phases | | 1. Censorship which caused a market reaction for more | competition, and the first mass exit of the platform | | 2. Changes in the Fee Structure and billing policies, this | caused the 2nd mass exit from the platform | | 3. Platforms getting better at internal monetization (i.e YT | SuperChat and memberships) | | There has been little advancement of of the patreon platform, | and with more and more competition from other direct compeitors | (subscribestar, etc) and different monetization avenues | (TeeSpring,etc) there is little reason for creators to use | patreon outside of the network effect, and since they are not | growing that effect is smaller every day | adamhowell wrote: | I'm guessing this is the Twitter link you meant: | https://twitter.com/TizzyEnt/status/1569439160561442817 | rvz wrote: | As an insult to injury this was announced on his Instagram. | | So professional! /s | karaterobot wrote: | It was announced on the Patreon blog, the poster chose to link | to Instagram (annoyingly, for those of us not on Instagram). | | https://blog.patreon.com/a-note-from-jack | | I assume OP expected the blog post to be taken down or changed, | so they captured it and linked to the capture instead of the | original. I feel like the protocol for this should be to make a | capture, post a link to it as a _comment_ in the thread, and | link to the original in the post. | behnamoh wrote: | The pandemic is over and so are most remote "jobs" that people | started doing on Onlyfans, Patreon, etc. a couple years ago. | bo0tzz wrote: | Your quoting suggests that you think what people on onlyfans | and patreon do aren't "real jobs", but in fact to succeed in | those spaces needs very hard work. | acheron wrote: | Digging a big hole then filling it back in is "very hard | work" too but that doesn't make it a real job. | garmanarnar wrote: | Construction companies would like a word with you. | woodruffw wrote: | And yet, the Hoover Dam was a job very well done. | lovich wrote: | What, pray tell, qualifies a job as a "real" job? | bombcar wrote: | I'd say something like people are actually willing to pay | the _average_ or even the _worst_ job-doer something | resembling a living wage. | | If the stats from things like Patreon are to believed | (and filtering out the "dead weight" of creators who | don't post or have given up without closing their | account) there's a serious "top 1% of creators make XX% | of the revenue" problem. | | Which means that for a small fraction, it's a job, for | the vast majority it's a money-losing hobby. | lovich wrote: | Do you not believe working in retail or restaurants are | real jobs? Because the vast majority of them are not paid | a living wage in the US and have to rely on having | multiple jobs or welfare. Walmart even teaches you how to | sign up for welfare as an employee | bombcar wrote: | Those are real jobs and should be paid a living wage or | eliminated if that's entirely unfeasible. There can be | arguments at the edges but I think people generally agree | on that. | | And even if you don't, certainly an "industry" where 99% | of the people "employed" don't even make the poverty line | or make back their expenses (patreon and only fans would | fall here) wouldn't. (The people trying to 'make it big' | are probably moonlighting as retail/restuarant anyway, | just as all those who tried to make it in Hollywood did | in years past). | | There's certainly major abuses but the 1099 and "self | employed" world is even more full of them than the W4 | world. | freeone3000 wrote: | By that definition, real jobs are doctor, dentist, and | software developer. We don't pay the worst in most jobs | anything more than the legal minimum. | CobrastanJorji wrote: | Yeah, "adds value to the world," "works hard," and "pays | well" are radically different metrics. | panzagl wrote: | Oh, you know, Javascript Ninja, Devops Rockstar, a real | job. | | /s | behnamoh wrote: | > but in fact to succeed in those spaces needs very hard | work. | | But that doesn't make it a job. You could do hard work in | moving a mountain but that's not a job. | | Needless to say, earning money off of your looks (something | you didn't work hard to gain in the first place) doesn't | qualify as hard-working job. | unity1001 wrote: | > But that doesn't make it a job. You could do hard work in | moving a mountain but that's not a job. | | If people are willingly paying you to do something, that's | a good job as any other job. | throwaway675309 wrote: | "earning money off of your looks (something you didn't work | hard to gain in the first place) ....." | | If you have a cognitive aptitude for mathematics, you | didn't "earn" that either - everything in some way or | another is part of your birthright and privilege, both | nature and nurture. | | If you genuinely believe that the mind is somehow magically | distinct from the same genetic system that gave you your | physique, I'm afraid you're the delusional one. | Scarjit wrote: | If you get paid moving that mountain, it would be a job. | DrBoring wrote: | > earning money off of your looks I'm assuming your taking | about the sex workers of OnlyFans. I find your attitudes a | bit dismissive and offensive. These are real humans with | real feelings that you're talking about with such little | regard. | | Plus, I earn money off of my natural intelligence. I didn't | do anything to gain it in the first place, I just happened | to have intelligent parents. | | > doesn't qualify as hard-working job | | Two questions: | | 1. Why doesn't it qualify as a job if they are earning | income? | | 2. Why should someone have to "work hard" to earn a living? | If have a high-value easy-to-sell product, then why work | harder than you need to? | eganist wrote: | > But that doesn't make it a job. You could do hard work in | moving a mountain but that's not a job. | | Job (n): | | 1. a paid position of regular employment. | | 2. a task or piece of work, especially one that is paid. | | --- | | It seems to fit #2 perfectly (exhibiting to an audience), | and #1 can be met based on e.g corporate structure | (subscription pay into an LLC that normalizes the salary | etc) | | I'd argue that it's in fact potentially "skilled labor" in | that it's not obvious what it takes to produce content that | brings regular subscribers. Tons of adult content creators | burn out and pivot because they can't get traction. | hellomyguys wrote: | What a very bizarre definition of a job | skyyler wrote: | >Needless to say, earning money off of your looks | (something you didn't work hard to gain in the first place) | doesn't qualify as hard-working job. | | Even if you're very conventionally attractive, you need to | put in a lot of networking and marketing before you can | make money off of "your looks". Even then, you don't just | sit back and let your looks do everything. | | Porn stars generally spend a couple hours DAILY in the gym. | Then there's all of the events you have to do to remain | relevant in social circles. Then there's actual shooting. | But before that there's hair and makeup. Then there's | outfits. Selecting garments that match your personal style | and also are sexy enough to excite your fans isn't easy and | it usually isn't cheap. | | Going through all of that to get paid by the fans is | absolutely a job. If the fans didn't pay, it wouldn't be a | job. | ranma4703 wrote: | It takes a LOT of work to "earn a living off your looks" | | Ignoring the time spent setting up shoots, editing, | engagement, etc, and focusing just on "looks", you have to | spend a lot of time on working out, make up, shaving, | putting together outfits, etc. | | If you think that looking good is something that doesn't | take any hard work, it's because you've never tried to put | in that work yourself. | behnamoh wrote: | Anything you do to make yourself look good has only | incremental effect; you must already have a "good" | foundation (genetics, race, etc.) | | An African American woman, for example, has almost zero | chance of making it to the top 10 p$rnstars list, no | matter how much she put effort and time to prepare | herself. | | Some things are just the realities of the world. Thinking | otherwise makes you delusional. | mrtranscendence wrote: | What are you responding to? (I feel like I'm asking this | a lot here.) The comment to which you're apparently | responding was only saying that it takes a lot of work to | make a living off of your looks; they were silent on | whether you need to have good genetics, the correct skin | color, or anything else. | unity1001 wrote: | If you knew how much some of those people who are doing 'remote | jobs' on Only Fans, Patreon now... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-13 23:00 UTC)