Product Hunt cleans house with layoffs impacting 60% of staff(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Product Hunt cleans house with layoffs impacting 60% of staff
https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/19/product-hunt-cleans-house-with-layoffs-impacting-60-of-staff/
55 comments
You seem to forget why companies hire people in the first place: for the sake of making more money and growing while paying those employees for services rendered as long as those services are needed.
A business, particularly one that isn't some state-subsidized, leeching megacorp, doesn't have an obligation (nor should it) to operate as a make-work office. Its most fundamental purpose is to benefit itself. There's nothing morally wrong with this. I'm sure you've hired people in the past for temporary work and then stopped hiring them when you don't need it. To call the guy the scum of the earth is absurd and smugly hypocritical. He did what he felt necessary for his company and was rather fair in helping the laid-off staff transition.
Dynamic economies work with these kinds of rights for companies. Countries that forbid it also tend to suffer stagnant employment numbers in which business are very careful about hiring in the first place. I'd prefer the former, it certainly helps younger people find jobs more easily than we see in some of the 50% youth unemployment countries where "workers are always protected". I'd suggest getting off your high horse.
A business, particularly one that isn't some state-subsidized, leeching megacorp, doesn't have an obligation (nor should it) to operate as a make-work office. Its most fundamental purpose is to benefit itself. There's nothing morally wrong with this. I'm sure you've hired people in the past for temporary work and then stopped hiring them when you don't need it. To call the guy the scum of the earth is absurd and smugly hypocritical. He did what he felt necessary for his company and was rather fair in helping the laid-off staff transition.
Dynamic economies work with these kinds of rights for companies. Countries that forbid it also tend to suffer stagnant employment numbers in which business are very careful about hiring in the first place. I'd prefer the former, it certainly helps younger people find jobs more easily than we see in some of the 50% youth unemployment countries where "workers are always protected". I'd suggest getting off your high horse.
It has gone so bad in many countries that companies cannot even fire people (due to headache that comes with it) and have to ask employees to rather resign via some way (WFO)
Badly for who?
Anyone who cares about efficiency. Imagine a world where every business was saddled with useless workers. How hard would it be to get a new job? They’d have to be ridiculously sure about you. Progress would severely slow down across the board.
Is efficiency the most important metric here?
Is bothering people who care about efficiency more important than the basic rights of those that dont?
Is bothering people who care about efficiency more important than the basic rights of those that dont?
It's not efficiency itself that's the sole metric, it's the ability to find a job in the first place, easily, fluidly, in a dynamic economy that lets business owners and workers both experiment fairly smoothly. You cannot have this without foregoing heavy handed worker protection laws. It's such an obvious bloody thing but apparently some people get so emotionally blind-sided by the notion of "companies firing = bad" and immediately assume that such a right always boils down to "greedy businesses". It does not.
Put yourself into the other shoes: You want to start a business, you have limited resources, you want to hire people who can help you in exchange for compensation and these people want that compensation, but the laws where you live make it nearly impossible to fire anyone you hire. What will you do? Be realistic, looking at your actual finances and human self.interest as objectively as you can.
Businesses are the private organizational expression of private people (or groups) using their personal resources to try to earn something more, improve their economic well-being. Saddling them with the ideological notion of being make-work resources just because they started something of their own that required employees for fixed aims is absurd.
It also promotes informality and labor black markets, in which people who prefer actually getting a job and money for living expenses to "enjoying worker protection" in the abstract but having it basically impossible to get hired legally in practice. So they accept being hired under the table. Now that they're working informally, as if they were illegal immigrants, they're even more open to abuse than they would have been if they could just get hired and fired easily, but at least formally, and under at least basic rules of minimum wage and labor law.
A simple analogy would be you hiring a gardener to trim your hedges and mow your lawn and then being forced to offer him work any time he asks for it from then on. I doubt you'd accept this. In fact, I doubt you'd even hire gardeners ever again.
Put yourself into the other shoes: You want to start a business, you have limited resources, you want to hire people who can help you in exchange for compensation and these people want that compensation, but the laws where you live make it nearly impossible to fire anyone you hire. What will you do? Be realistic, looking at your actual finances and human self.interest as objectively as you can.
Businesses are the private organizational expression of private people (or groups) using their personal resources to try to earn something more, improve their economic well-being. Saddling them with the ideological notion of being make-work resources just because they started something of their own that required employees for fixed aims is absurd.
It also promotes informality and labor black markets, in which people who prefer actually getting a job and money for living expenses to "enjoying worker protection" in the abstract but having it basically impossible to get hired legally in practice. So they accept being hired under the table. Now that they're working informally, as if they were illegal immigrants, they're even more open to abuse than they would have been if they could just get hired and fired easily, but at least formally, and under at least basic rules of minimum wage and labor law.
A simple analogy would be you hiring a gardener to trim your hedges and mow your lawn and then being forced to offer him work any time he asks for it from then on. I doubt you'd accept this. In fact, I doubt you'd even hire gardeners ever again.
>"Put yourself into the other shoes: You want to start a business, you have limited resources, you want to hire people who can help you in exchange for compensation and these people want that compensation, but the laws where you live make it nearly impossible to fire anyone you hire. What will you do? Be realistic, looking at your actual finances and human self.interest as objectively as you can."
I am in the other shoes, and have been for decades, like my parents were before me. I never hire people with the expectation of firing them. If your having to fire a lot of people through the course of doing business you're hiring the wrong people and need to revise your hiring practices. This is your failure not societies.
>"A simple analogy would be you hiring a gardener to trim your hedges and mow your lawn and then being forced to offer him work any time he asks for it from then on. I doubt you'd accept this. In fact, I doubt you'd even hire gardeners ever again."
This is a horrible analogy. Nobody hires their gardener as an employee. It's the perfect example of the opposite. Given the difficult to fire people hypothetical environment you propose companies would be well served to hire their labor as contractors. This is very common. And a gardener is the perfect example.
A fair analogy would be a pilot who invests years of their life and lots of money to be trained in a certain profession. There should be protections for people like that.
I am in the other shoes, and have been for decades, like my parents were before me. I never hire people with the expectation of firing them. If your having to fire a lot of people through the course of doing business you're hiring the wrong people and need to revise your hiring practices. This is your failure not societies.
>"A simple analogy would be you hiring a gardener to trim your hedges and mow your lawn and then being forced to offer him work any time he asks for it from then on. I doubt you'd accept this. In fact, I doubt you'd even hire gardeners ever again."
This is a horrible analogy. Nobody hires their gardener as an employee. It's the perfect example of the opposite. Given the difficult to fire people hypothetical environment you propose companies would be well served to hire their labor as contractors. This is very common. And a gardener is the perfect example.
A fair analogy would be a pilot who invests years of their life and lots of money to be trained in a certain profession. There should be protections for people like that.
> Absolute scum of the earth.
Strikes me as harsh given that we know essentially nothing about the company's plans. The laid off employees were given severance and the CEO offered to personally intro people to hiring companies. The CEO stated it was to increase speed and focus (i read as reducing meetings/overhead).
I understand people are upset with layoffs taking place, but how do you think a company should behave when they realize they are wasting time and money?
Strikes me as harsh given that we know essentially nothing about the company's plans. The laid off employees were given severance and the CEO offered to personally intro people to hiring companies. The CEO stated it was to increase speed and focus (i read as reducing meetings/overhead).
I understand people are upset with layoffs taking place, but how do you think a company should behave when they realize they are wasting time and money?
> when they realize they are wasting time and money?
> Traffic has never been higher and we’re in a great place, financially. It was for strategic reasons.”
Call me old fashioned, but no amount of execs introing me to companies that are hiring forgives them for realizing they don't give a shit about me and my job because they'd rather make more money. They should have thought about that before hiring in the first place. Severance isn't a reward, it's the absolute bare minimum.
> Traffic has never been higher and we’re in a great place, financially. It was for strategic reasons.”
Call me old fashioned, but no amount of execs introing me to companies that are hiring forgives them for realizing they don't give a shit about me and my job because they'd rather make more money. They should have thought about that before hiring in the first place. Severance isn't a reward, it's the absolute bare minimum.
How is it possible to justify this? Any layoff should have been thought about before they hired? In your sort of moral framework, a company would not be able to reduce headcount until bankruptcy.
No, companies don't give a shit about you, it's egotistical to believe you're that important that you deserve ongoing charity paychecks just because they hired you at some point in the past. Employment is purely, by definition, a transactional relationship. You sell labor. They buy labor. It's why you are free to leave as soon as it makes sense, and it's why they can do the same.
No, companies don't give a shit about you, it's egotistical to believe you're that important that you deserve ongoing charity paychecks just because they hired you at some point in the past. Employment is purely, by definition, a transactional relationship. You sell labor. They buy labor. It's why you are free to leave as soon as it makes sense, and it's why they can do the same.
> In your sort of moral framework, a company would not be able to reduce headcount until bankruptcy.
That's not the case here, where the company has explicitly, publicly stated that this is not for financial reasons. At least when a company is looking at it's financials and realizes it isn't in good shape, it has some justification. That's not the case here: they're explicitly saying they're just greedy.
> Employment is purely, by definition, a transactional relationship. You sell labor. They buy labor. It's why you are free to leave as soon as it makes sense, and it's why they can do the same.
This is strictly false. Businesses go into a relationship with an employee with the knowledge that they simply cannot fire someone without cause. Businesses have elastic labor needs: less labor means less output means less revenue, but it also means less expense. The cost of living for an individual is very inelastic: the threshold for shelter, caloric intake, and other human expenses cannot simply shrink, or at least not on a short timeline.
When you weigh "we might not make as much money as we could because the people we hired aren't as strategically useful to us anymore" against "here's a bunch of people holding up their end of the bargain who still have bills to pay" I cannot understand how you COULDN'T stand behind my moral framework. Morality is about people, not profits.
That's not the case here, where the company has explicitly, publicly stated that this is not for financial reasons. At least when a company is looking at it's financials and realizes it isn't in good shape, it has some justification. That's not the case here: they're explicitly saying they're just greedy.
> Employment is purely, by definition, a transactional relationship. You sell labor. They buy labor. It's why you are free to leave as soon as it makes sense, and it's why they can do the same.
This is strictly false. Businesses go into a relationship with an employee with the knowledge that they simply cannot fire someone without cause. Businesses have elastic labor needs: less labor means less output means less revenue, but it also means less expense. The cost of living for an individual is very inelastic: the threshold for shelter, caloric intake, and other human expenses cannot simply shrink, or at least not on a short timeline.
When you weigh "we might not make as much money as we could because the people we hired aren't as strategically useful to us anymore" against "here's a bunch of people holding up their end of the bargain who still have bills to pay" I cannot understand how you COULDN'T stand behind my moral framework. Morality is about people, not profits.
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And perhaps rules like those are the reason these companies are built in the west. I say this as a person that grew up in a country that has lots and lots of anti-company pro-worker laws and now it’s in a hole so deep that the presidential candidates are selling “if you vote me I can guarantee we’d be back on the run in 40 years”
The figurative "wild west", not "the west". I also live in "the west".
Which btw is a terrible analogy. The west even while there was a "frontier" had laws and in fact was subject to the actual US military attempting to actively subjugate Native Americans. Laws absolutely existed - even every western had a sheriff or two - and to various degrees they were carried out in ways that we would certainly view as unacceptable today broadly speaking. The "wild west" if anything was characterized by enforcement by extremely punitive measures carried out sporadically for perceived deterrent effects. Law enforcement was organized both on a local and federal level - they just had a habit, that in some ways continues today, to be focused more on "a bad guy" instead of "the bad guy", hence the lynchings that went on against minority groups, but just because lynchings are extrajudicial didn't mean that the participants were not frequently part of said law enforcement (a posse comitatus, if you will). That's not really anything close to what the labor landscape looks like today, or the internet, or any of the other oft-seen but rarely critiqued comparisons made today.
Layoffs are a touchy subject but it has always struck me odd the view that companies have some moral obligation to continue employment even if there is no use or purpose or justification for that headcount.
"No use or purpose or justification" is extreme. What was the justification for hiring in the first place? "strategic reasons" in a non-answer. If there was no justification for the hiring, then management is incompetent, wouldn't you agree?
Example: When seeing a huge uptick in demand beginning to form, management can either ignore it and let competitors who do hire and build out steal their market share, or they can hire and build out and hope the demand sticks.
If the demand sticks, the business grows. Everyone wins, customers, shareholders, employees, society.
If the demand disappears, there is going to be a lot of slack in the system, employees that have nothing to do or are doing busywork on deadend projects which will never have customers or use cases.
A good practical example of this is that a lot of tech companies saw this after COVID. In some sectors of tech, demand turned out to be sticky, in others, it wasn't. Management in 2020 couldn't see the future and know what would work out and what wouldn't. Many hired out and now need to cut back, especially with rates so high and capital so expensive.
More often than not, it's much more complicated than "incompetent management". No one has a crystal globe.
If the demand sticks, the business grows. Everyone wins, customers, shareholders, employees, society.
If the demand disappears, there is going to be a lot of slack in the system, employees that have nothing to do or are doing busywork on deadend projects which will never have customers or use cases.
A good practical example of this is that a lot of tech companies saw this after COVID. In some sectors of tech, demand turned out to be sticky, in others, it wasn't. Management in 2020 couldn't see the future and know what would work out and what wouldn't. Many hired out and now need to cut back, especially with rates so high and capital so expensive.
More often than not, it's much more complicated than "incompetent management". No one has a crystal globe.
You've given an example that is not aligned with the incident being discussed.
If product hunt is doing so great, what is the strategy change behind these layoffs?
If product hunt is doing so great, what is the strategy change behind these layoffs?
It is simultaneously possible to be "doing great" and "have more employees than projects"
Businesses don’t operate for the purpose of giving people jobs.
When you hire someone you have taken on an obligation. The depth of that obligation depends on where you operate. I am happy I live and work somewhere where we hold companies to a higher standard.
> I am happy I live and work somewhere where we hold companies to a higher standard.
I don't know where you live, but virtually every place I can think of with strong labor protection policies have them for the benefit of those with jobs at the expense of those without jobs who would like to get one. Harder to fire equals harder to hire with few exceptions.
I don't know where you live, but virtually every place I can think of with strong labor protection policies have them for the benefit of those with jobs at the expense of those without jobs who would like to get one. Harder to fire equals harder to hire with few exceptions.
Unemployment is at a generational low right now. In fact, lower than USA. Seems like the jobs are there, somehow.
How do the demographics and labor force participation rates compare? Does the youth unemployment rate match the overall unemployment rate? Does your country have an exceptional growth rate that could sustain maximum employment despite those barriers to entry?
Companies are owned by people too. The idea that somehow the decision to engage in a consensual pooling of resources to organize an entity to conduct business somehow degrades a person is a wild take. In fact, the existence of companies as separate entities is in some way an insulation from the sort of state intervention upon the individual and their right to association that you describe. That's not a higher standard. That's higher barbarism, at best. Courts have the power to compel, coerce, and enforce through, however removed, the use of force upon the individual who may or may not have voluntarily assented to such power. Why would anyone hire anyone in the first place if you can't downsize when needed? You'd leave, if the state lets you, and in many places, it simply won't.
They do have an obligation to improve the common welfare: that’s why corporations were allowed to exist sans monarchal decree.
I reject the 70s-80s re-interpretation of corporations as “vehicles for maximizing shareholder value.” This is a modern neoliberal take, and is rewriting history.
I reject the 70s-80s re-interpretation of corporations as “vehicles for maximizing shareholder value.” This is a modern neoliberal take, and is rewriting history.
It's literally the definition:
From Oxfords:
1. "a person's regular occupation, profession, or trade"
2. "the practice of making one's living by engaging in commerce."
From Oxfords:
1. "a person's regular occupation, profession, or trade"
2. "the practice of making one's living by engaging in commerce."
And there's a reason your country probably has very few successful businesses.
Actually in this case I don't think he's wrong. Even in Italy (highly regulated job market), Companies can restructure like this.
The only obligation is that if they need to hire a similar role in the next 1 year, they'll have to re-hire the former employees if still available.
The only obligation is that if they need to hire a similar role in the next 1 year, they'll have to re-hire the former employees if still available.
> Ayyanger tells TechCrunch the layoffs were not due to economic factors.
> “It wasn’t for financial or company performance reasons,” he said. “Traffic has never been higher and we’re in a great place, financially. It was for strategic reasons.”
such as my personal bank account, continuing to emulate big tech like Twitter in my hopes to be considered like them, and finding other ‘deep cuts’ to be arbitrary: why 10% or rounds of 20% when you can do 60%
> “It wasn’t for financial or company performance reasons,” he said. “Traffic has never been higher and we’re in a great place, financially. It was for strategic reasons.”
such as my personal bank account, continuing to emulate big tech like Twitter in my hopes to be considered like them, and finding other ‘deep cuts’ to be arbitrary: why 10% or rounds of 20% when you can do 60%
Why does a simple site like this need more than even 5 employees?
Trying to become a unicorn when you are a miniature horse
I mean Instagram’s purchase for a billion was when it had 13 employees
from what I can tell, a lot of people hire for the sake of hiring, like a local politician might boast about jobs for the sake of jobs, and people kind of have that ingrained mentality, like they can be a part of that “a job creator” and hope to court people that appreciate that, like old growth capital firms that need to see headcount as rationale for more capital
from what I can tell, a lot of people hire for the sake of hiring, like a local politician might boast about jobs for the sake of jobs, and people kind of have that ingrained mentality, like they can be a part of that “a job creator” and hope to court people that appreciate that, like old growth capital firms that need to see headcount as rationale for more capital
You can do it tiny horse! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEA2lEXou8A
In earlier web days, sites with niche targets such as Product Hunt were labors of love. I personally knew of a site with ~250K users and extensive community engagement - all funded with advertising contracts. It was run by two guys. Only one of them full time.
Product Hunt tried to pivot multiple times years ago when it was evident that just being an aggregator alone won't have a positive ROI.
What a garbage way to refer to layoffs. Cleaning house. Bastards.
Discard everything that does not spark joy (more profits).
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I didn't even know this website was a business, or had a business model at all
Maybe worth noting that the CEO immediately brought on several friends from previous projects.
Nowhere in the article does it say how many employees there were. No idea how many actual people were let go.
https://archive.ph/2e3r0 (techcrunch doesnt work without JS)
They should probably focus on rebranding next.
60% of 20? Knowing how far Reddit went with just a few people Id be surprised if they were that many
Good thing he's operating in the wild west. This admission would land him in court in my country. Absolute scum of the earth.