Cheap capital feeds good bad and ugly ideas.  
 Cheap capital makes it easier to ring fence top talent  
 This correction is needed to have money flowing in the right direction. Some firms such as CRED still don’t have a moat, where as some like Unacademy, Meesho have a moat but hard to make it profitable.  
 The good thing is the talent behind these startups is good and just like capital will flow towards better ideas (demand side - as these firms will continue to hire and supply side: as people would aim for these firms)

Growth Manager

We are seeing news of layoffs from many companies in India as well as RoW; Being at the receiving end of it is utterly painful. But who is to blame?   Hindsight is always 20/20; So in the current m...

We are seeing news of lay-offs from many companies- in India as well as RoW; Being at the receiving end of it is utterly painful. But who is to blame? 

Hindsight is always 20/20; So in the current moment, we can go about and blame the management for overhiring and now firing.

But since a lot us would get into similar shoes over time, would love to know how others would have done it differently.

When the market was kind and capital was cheap, companies/functions/leaders wanted to experiment with every or more ideas having some potential. They wanted to test every market (in terms of geo expansion) and if they wouldn’t competitors would. Definitely some experiments become successful while some fail. There would have been a pressure from Investors which would have translated to internal pressures.

Even most of us were just shifting jobs for money without even having conviction in business models of companies we were joining.

Who to blame? Investors for seeking growth or CEOs to not have enough hindsight or experience to know such times will come or functional leaders to comply to wishes of their management? Or us to fall into unsustainable greed trap?

But now it is about survival. Cutting off vestigial or infected organs vs letting the whole org die. What would you have done differently in the shoes of these CEOs?

What would you do in similar position?

Product Manager

What would you do in similar position?- Grapevine

I don’t understand what the point really was 

- companies with a bad product are still struggling 
- companies with a good product are still growing
- rent in Bangalore, Mumbai is still sky high 
- salaries are still high, people are still asking for more 
- food is expensive as ever 
- stock prices of companies that fired people never really went up 

Someone make any sense or any of this?

Layoffs were a total failure at changing anything

Analyst

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

Just an open ended question on why are layoffs happening on such a scale. I personally feel the skill to salary ratio has fucked up so much lately that the companies are having to fire people who are essentially useless to them. More of liabilities than just assets! What do you think?

Layoffs - who do you blame?

Absolutely agreed. Hiring in hordes because money was easily available earlier and founders/companies thought that they will be able to build more and hence get more value / valuation sooner was the core reason why the skill to salary ratio got f’ed up. And it’s good that it’s being reset now. 
  
 Coming to who to blame for layoffs - no one. It’s pure capitalism - there was money, hence there were jobs. For whatever time people got paid a lot more than they deserved - they should be rather thankful. If they built their life around the assumption that this much money was the new normal, it was their naïveté. Companies got to survive, and they have to do whatever has to be done… as long as it’s ethical. Firing is fine. Not paying salaries / dues is not.

Founding Engineer

Software Lead

I have been through ups and downs in IT, but these layoffs seem crazy. There is just no pattern to it, more like everyone is firing let me fire.

Honestly I feel its high time Tech companies, Startups take a hard look at their business and revenue model. Most just seem to be in a herd mentality.  Every one is mass hiring, let me also mass hire. Every one is giving exorbitant salaries, let me also give.

Its become more a cycle now, hire in large numbers, find there is no work to give, no revenue to sustain, and so mass fire again. This just cant be going on. 

Who makes mistakes that results in revenue loss or crunch? 

Top management 

Who gets fired ? 

Every one except the ones who are responsible.

Dont fucking give me the reasoning that you are doing this for efficiency and streamlining.

No you are just doing it to protect your own arse, while making scapegoats of others.

So the Musks, Pichais, Zuckerbergs happily take fat bonuses, while drafting teary regret letters for firing. And they are supposed to be our role models to look up to? 

Enough is enough IT industry can't forever be running in this same mode. These hire and fire cycles are getting weary nowadays.

Rant on the layoffs

Software Engineer

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

IIT grad here building a venture backed startup. I think 99% of folks here believe that venture backed founders are super entitled and in a much "cosier" position than employees

Just sharing a few facts about our journey so far if it helps anyone improve their perspectives-

1) Paying ourselves 33% of our campus salary & 60% of what we are paying to our employees (Talking about Pure Base Salary here, not including ESOPs)

2) Insane stress - You basically have to raise money to build (esp if its deeptech because of the high fixed costs) and there are predefined metrics you have to always chase, sometimes just beyond yourselves. 

Your product will be copied if it's good because well, they always have more money than you. You work 7 days a week for insane hours, chasing metrics required to be "afloat" 

3) 99% of venture backed startups result in 0 liquidity gain for founders. So basically in all likeliness, everything is for a net negative return compared to if we took the campus job

So, when you wholeheartedly bash founders as if they are sitting On a goldmine while you are toiling for THEIR gold Treasure, just understand that more likely than not, there is not really any gold but rather an irrational hope they are clinging to

Also, Yes-we pay above market to our employees (100% hike for the last one) but the truth is some startups just Can't afford it. And ironically, there is a much higher looking down on these startups with meagurely paid founders rather than giants like Tech Mahindra paying peanuts to their employees while having a 1000% salary hike for the executives. 

Yeah, most startups need to do better but please appreciate if someone is atleast trying to do better because trust me, it's INSANELY HARD.. 

The number of posts I see about Flipkart making hundreds millionaires is way too less than the ones I see about pinpointing at every single mistake early stage startups do & I just wanted to express my opinion on it

Peace!

People way overestimate the life of founders

Oh no poor founders, they have to pay fair salary to their employees.

Founder

From the last few days there were talks going on about layoffs in Morgan Stanley. Some 7% of the global staff will be handed over the pink slip in this week. 
Well... It started happening from today ... Few colleagues from my department were laid, and the reason being "company is trying to survive in the market, company is planning the road ahead by taking such bold steps".
When this was announced, my anxiety shot up the next level and I couldn't wait for the meeting to finish.
The past few years have not been great for the business worldwide due to which many companies are forced to take such steps. These companies just have been doing a hiring spree from the last 1-2 years that now they are regretting their decisions and letting off their employees.
My question is - "If a company hires excessively during the bull market and is forced to lay off few of the employees during the downturn, has the company made an error by not evaluating the headcount or it was just simply the need of the hour" 
 
Please note - I know many people out there who have faced job cuts due to many factors, sincerely requesting people to take this matter very seriously

Layoffs - A complete mess made by the companies

From the last few days there were talks going on about layoffs in Morgan Stanley. Some 7% of the global staff will be handed over the pink slip in this week. 
Well... It started happening from today ... Few colleagues from my department were laid, and the reason being "company is trying to survive in the market, company is planning the road ahead by taking such bold steps".
When this was announced, my anxiety shot up the next level and I couldn't wait for the meeting to finish.
The past few years have not been great for the business worldwide due to which many companies are forced to take such steps. These companies just have been doing a hiring spree from the last 1-2 years that now they are regretting their decisions and letting off their employees.
My question is - "If a company hires excessively during the bull market and is forced to lay off few of the employees during the downturn, has the company made an error by not evaluating the headcount or it was just simply the need of the hour" 
 
Please note - I know many people out there who have faced job cuts due to many factors, sincerely requesting people to take this matter very seriously

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

As everyone knows that zomato is now hiring 800 employees after two months of a mass layoff, and exit of senior profiles like VP and CTO.

Let me tell you the truth about the founder. He is an opportunist. He doesn't give a shit about the culture or any employee. The company is built on the death of many riders and cheating with low-wage workers.

Timing- Isn't it a bit weird that a company that did a mass layoff two months back is now hiring? Seeing that many employees got laid off from the top-tier company. It is a great time to employ smart folks as the hiring competition in the market is at its lowest. Or the mass layoff that happened previously was planned with the thought of hiring again next year with very little competition and desperate candidates. 

Layoff: In zomato, it's hire and fire culture. I have seen many of my friends leave even after performing well. Honestly, sometimes I don't even feel human. It's expected from employees to start their day early and go late at night. If you want to leave early (around 6 or 7), you should have a solid reason for doing that. Here code release happens late at night due to less traffic. So it's expected of you to be available all the time.

Incompetent Managers- I have worked with two managers here. Both know the existing system as they were once an IC building that system. The issue with these people is that they grew up the ladder because they were the only ones left behind in the team. They lack real-world system knowledge. I have previously worked at amazon, and I know the team lead level there. But here it's like jo ruk gaya vo raja hai. It's hard to work with these people as they lack proper estimations of the projects and at the end of the day. The ICs have to face the wrath of the product teams.

People who are planning to join the company. Please do join, as working 24/7 you would learn a lot in a very short period of time. Also, the culture is team dependent, so you might get a team with chill environment.

Reality check at Zomato

Being an investor in equity markets, i was aware of the fact that US market will crash as the free money by fed draws back. I obviously was not able to link this up with the funding dry-ness.

I still expect a founder to be aware of these economic events. I am curious how could the management decide to go for hiring employees only to lay them off a year later. 

If you are a founder, would be happy to know the other side of the story.

What triggered layoffs ?

Let me explain in detail. 
 There are two parts to it and can be broken down basis PnL 
 1. Revenues : Sudden jump in tech( social media, e-commerce, ad tech, fintech, etc) plus supporting industries (chipmakers, laptop / device manufacturer) and the general economy with QE money  
 This impacted forecasts as most firms forecast AOPs basis historically trend (which clearly was an abberation) - this lead to higher HC estimates and rampant and quick hiring  
 Variable costs: CAC, customer support, sales incentive all spiked up as 1. Everyone was putting money (inc bidding price for key words) and 2. Huge customer inflow due to covid (edtech, e-commerce) that required support  
 Fixed costs: While office space / rents remained steady or dropped as % of revenue. This was offseted by fixed tech (software, hardware, people) costs and other costs like (legal, HR, Business, Marketing, supply chain, etc.) the talent was expensive to source plus their need was instant as you already had customer to be served  
 All of this lead to rampant hiring, inflated CTC, rosy forecasts, etc.  
 everyone had turned a blind eye to inflation implications (as for the past 30 Y no one saw a shooting inflation - hence the key decisions makers had now experience & idea about it) - till Dec’21 even FED said inflation is transatory. 
 It was the Ukraine invasion that opened people eyes. Oil went up, food prices went up, UK Europe saw an energy crisis etc 
 This made all the rosy forecast mentioned above duller as 1. Demand was expected to reduce due to higher cost of living 2. Capital became scarce as funding drired 3. Cost of capital (WACC) became expensive as hurdle rate climbed (which is rate of return for bond)  
 Management and investor panicked as they have limited partners (LP) to answer and quess who are these (big pension funds) so people’s pension money had come into startups which were not showing signs of exit for investors. 
 All in all - it is a pain we all have to bare for being exuberant in 2021-2022:

Welcome to Confessions's Private Community

It's getting dirtier by the day and sure some orgs are still up to their dirty tricks.

The models:
- Appraise and then Lay Off: Why bother putting bandaid on a stab wound? Anyways the folks are going to fight how to answer the ..why were you laid off war, and now you are adding another twist.. why were you appraised and then laid off?
- Low appraisals to force quit: Undervalue them so they leave on their own. It’s a leeches way to cut costs. Kill morale 100%. Severance penny spent $0.
- Trap them in PIP: Dress it up however you want - very very few escape this death sentence.
- Silent treatment: No assignments, No meetings. Watch them spiral into anxiety and leave to save their sanity.
- Workload overload: Drown them in work until they break. No need for layoffs list until they make it to your collapse list first.
- Strategic reorg: Re-organize them out of existence. Offer a demotion or a proxy role in a random team that you know they dont want as an alternative. 
- Sudden policy changes: oh! I have seen so many I can't keep up with this one. 
New policies that make their life hell. People leave to escape your pettiness.
- Mandatory relocation: Demand they move to an undesirable location. Then you treat remote employees like outsiders. Exclude them from key projects, conversations until they feel like foster care kids, second-class citizens. You know the outcome from there on.
- Use the "Culture Fit" excuse: Call out how they’re not a culture fit. Vague, unchallengeable, and forces them out without severance.

And don't sell me "the org has got to do what it has got to do to survive" line. I don't buy that
If you have seen this being done, I understand your silence, but I don't value it.
If this has been done to you or someone close to you, I am sorry. Orgs and the people failed you. 
We could be 1000x better than what we are operating as.

dirty tricks played by orgs to Lay Off employees

Human Resource

Link: https://inc42.com/buzz/unacademy-fires-another-250-employees-to-turn-profitable/

Unacademy fires 250 employees to 'turn profitable'

Pathetic. How many times these so called another layoff?  
 This is pure scam. Such kind of CEOs and CTOs have no right to be at such higher places. These id*ots come to media and give lectures also. There should be some laws in place for layoffs. These People wake up and do layoff. Some get funding and then do layoff and some vice versa. Some fire and then again post about hiring next month shamelessly. It's like a fashion for the. Layoff is no more a last resort these days.  
 These kind of companies will surely go down the drain.  
 CEOs and higher management should be made to disclose their salary and perks so that junior employees should also know how much salary difference is there and is there really a need for cost cutting.  
 Of not, we should atleast stop respecting/ideologise such people. If possible stop using/promoting their products as well. Treat them the way they treat employees.

Software Developer

Operations Manager

I am so frustrated by observing how some Indian startup founders have been mistreating employees. This is happening literally in all the startups and corporates.

Many of us invest their precious time and money obtaining degrees, only to become corporate employees.

India won the WC on Saturday night, and since then, I have seen numerous rant posts from people complaining that they missed this moment because they were overworked.

The rate of employee exploitation is alarmingly high, as founders often believe they have alot of options and are driven by their greed for money.

Look at the plight of startups, the top management says they do not have money so they lay off the whole departments without any prior notice. Yet they spend so lavishly on showing investors or on their socials how cool they all are.

We are bloody engineers, not their family bound slaves.
Why do we suffer ? 

I believe it is high time that we establish a union for employees working in the IT industry.
This exploitative culture needs to come to an end.

A Union of-by-for White Collar Employees

Work culture has become ultra toxic. Managers have started nano managing and literally are a pain in the ass. Product giving unrealistic timelines and leadership agreeing on the same without even consulting the developers and even if the developers are raising concerns, no fucks are given infact they are made to realise that this is how a startup should work. Literally everyone is working their asses off and still unable to meet the deadlines. Empathy is completely lost and WLB is a sham. People including me want to switch but are not even getting time to prepare.

Rant on Swiggy wlb

This is all trickling down from the Leadership, they are trying to cut down costs by any means. Already had one round of layoffs, now they are doing silent layoffs in the form of PIPs. 
  
 Also, Leaders have lost the long term focus and are trying to find out more and more short term projects related to profitability.  
  
 There was always this pressure of work, but in the past 7-8 months this has become unbearable with no empathy in the organisation.

Analytics Manager

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Quoting from The Ken (which btw I would highly recommend).

How many of you think this is true for Bangalore and problems that we are facing now with this generation.

+++++++++++++

Between 2020 and 2022, investors pumped billions of dollars into startups whose founders and leaders offered up the mythical “hypergrowth” narrative. Those startups, in turn, pumped money to hire and grow a layer of mid-level and senior-level executives whose job was to deliver on that hypergrowth narrative.

And salaries went through the roof. Hikes of 50% and above were par for the course.

Cut to the present.

If overvalued startups are widely recognised as a problem, can overvalued employees escape the same fate?

A CEO of a prominent company estimates that “in product and tech, 20-30% are in this category”. 



- Extract taken from Ken

Unhireable category of employees, how true is this?

CEO will always say employees are paid too much 
  
 Who exactly is recognising overvalued startups as a problem? Most are still trying to run the grift and were only hampered by interest rates lowering their runway. You can see how many are opening AI startups that have nothing to do with AI whatsoever, not to mention the number of Crypto / Web3 companies in our country. 
  
 Executive pay has always been the problem, take a look at any graph showing the skyrocketing ratio of Executive:Employee salary ratio, and for terrible decision making and management as a trend.

What would you do in similar position?

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