Since 2022, many technology stocks in the United States have fallen into science fiction stocks. Looking ahead, there are many technology companies whose share prices have been cut by half or even by the knee When the tide of American technology stocks receded, a group of Technology Practitioners began to worry that they would be the first to become the "naked swimmer" After all, when the company has no money to burn, personnel streamlining seems to be imperative.
In 2022, staying at work is the first priority.
Text ｜ Juny editor ｜ Lianzi
Facts have proved that these concerns are not groundless. After several months of shock, the layoffs of some companies have also opened recently.
At present, the announcement of layoffs mainly includes growth technology companies whose share prices have fallen sharply recently, as well as start-ups whose valuations have soared all the way. However, it is worth noting that some previously popular technology manufacturers, including Netflix and meta, also reported some layoffs or suspension of recruitment.
In this regard, everyone lamented that it would be good to live well in 2022 without seeking great wealth.
After the first shot of mass layoffs, better Com has violently laid off 4000 people
As the dividend of the epidemic subsided, the performance of many fast-growing start-ups in the past two years ushered in a precipitous decline. American real estate fintech unicorn, once valued at $7 billion, is better COM is one of them.
Before last Christmas season, when everyone was immersed in the happy atmosphere of the new year, American real estate financial technology Unicorn better Com's 900 employees received a temporary video conference invitation from the company's CEO Vishal Garg without warning. After the meeting was closed, the CEO said directly, "if you attend this conference call, then unfortunately, you will be part of the dismissed group." The whole video will last less than 3 minutes.
At that time, the sudden news made better Com employees were caught off guard. Many people didn't even have time to join the meeting, and their "layoff order" took effect immediately. When they came back to find out why they were fired, they found that they could not use the company's computer, email account and slack discussion group immediately. They received a dismissal notice from HR only a few hours later.
In North America, most companies will inform employees in advance and give them enough buffer period even if they don't pay high compensation for dismissing employees. And better Com this ruthless way of layoffs is rare among North American technology start-ups.
However, the overwhelming doubts did not end the layoff drama. In recent months, better Com layoffs continue wave after wave. About 900 employees were laid off in the first wave last year, accounting for about better 9% of all employees. March 8 this year, better Com has made another round of layoffs almost without warning. The number of layoffs this time is as high as 3000, accounting for more than 30% of all employees.
In early April, better Com has come up with new ways to lay off workers. They use 60 days of paid severance pay and health insurance as "bait" to provide qualified employees of product, development and engineering teams with the opportunity to leave voluntarily. Two weeks ago, better Com carried out the third round of layoffs, and the personnel of real estate trading business were dismissed on a large scale, involving more than 1000 people. So far, in just a few months, better has laid off more than 4000 people, more than half of the company's total employees.
According to better According to the official statement of COM, the main reasons for the layoffs of the company are: first, it is found that some employees work to "fish in the water"; second, the business needs to reduce costs due to the interest rate environment and the fluctuation of the refinancing market. But internal staff broke the news, better Com's recent layoffs are full of randomness. There is no clear dismissal standard, and no one knows whether it will be his turn next. Some even claimed that they had suffered from PTSD invited by zoom conference.
︱ Robin Hood laid off 9%, but engineers have not been involved on a large scale
Recently, Robinhood, a former technology star in Silicon Valley and known as the "retail investor base", was really unable to withstand the pressure of declining performance and plummeting stock prices, and announced a round of layoffs with a proportion of up to 9%.
Last Tuesday, Robin Hood CEO Vlad tenev posted an open letter on the company's official website. According to the letter, under the stimulation of multiple factors such as the COVID-19, low interest rates and fiscal stimulus, Robinhood's business has developed rapidly from 2020 to 2021. At the same time, the company's personnel scale has also expanded from 700 in 2019 to nearly 3800 in 2021.
However, with the recent changes in market conditions, the company found that it had set up too many repetitive and redundant jobs. After careful consideration, the company's management decided to implement this round of layoffs, involving more than 300 people.
Data show that after Robin Hood was listed at $38 per share in July last year, its share price once soared to $85 per share, and its market value once approached $80 billion. However, with the arrival of various adverse factors, the current stock price hovers around $10 per share, and the market value has shrunk to less than $9 billion.
The picture is taken from Robin Hood
However, according to the information statistics of the laid-off personnel on LinkedIn, this round of dismissal mainly involves the relevant personnel of the recruitment, customer support, working environment and other teams, and less involves the team of engineers. In addition to part of the laid-off people in Silicon Valley, they are also distributed in Philadelphia, Texas, Denver and other parts of the United States.
According to the news from various channels, this round of layoffs of Robin Hood is relatively sudden. Before this round of layoffs was officially announced, some people posted on blind that they had heard some gossip that Robin Hood would be layoffs soon. At that time, a large number of Robin Hood employees left messages saying it was a rumor. As a result, they were slapped in the face by the company's official layoffs within two days.
Some personnel information of this round of ronbinhood layoffs is taken from LinkedIn
In addition, there is news that Robin Hood has also recently started the internal PIP process, and employees who fail to perform well will also be dismissed. However, compared with better Com's "cold to the end" layoffs, Robin Hood's attitude is relatively mild. The company said it would contact every dismissed employee, work with them to formulate post layoff plans, provide resignation plans and help them find new jobs.
｜ some job level recruitment of meta has entered the freezing period
Sometimes the workplace crisis is not just reflected in layoffs. The slowdown or suspension of recruitment also releases disturbing signals.
These days, the news about meta's suspension of recruitment is rampant on major workplace forums. Many job seekers post that their ongoing meta interview has recently been suddenly cancelled by HR. It can be seen from the exposure of these experiences that meta's recruitment freezing plan was put forward very suddenly. Many people had entered the second round or made an appointment for the interview to be held the next day, which was temporarily cancelled. This has rarely happened on a large scale before.
According to the information from the internal outflow of meta, meta has mainly suspended the recruitment of E3 and E4 level newcomers and ordinary engineers, and the recruitment of E5 senior engineers and other levels is still continuing. An obvious trend reflected from this is that meta has begun to reduce its energy investment in cultivating new people and focus on hiring more experienced engineers to quickly help the expansion and construction of new businesses.
Image cut from blind
Moreover, the green card application of meta employees, which has attracted much attention before, has not been completely solved so far. Although meta reached a settlement with the U.S. government on the violation of green card applications in October last year, the U.S. government also stipulates that the green card applications submitted by meta will be subject to key review in the future. Since then, meta modified the application rules of perm (the first step of green card application), which directly led to a sharp decline in the pass rate. Many employees were told that their perm was revoked after waiting for nearly a year.
According to the information transmitted by the internal employees of meta, everyone is pessimistic about perm's application, saying that the company has not given a clear time for settlement at the current level. In the forum discussion, some people thought that the impact of meta's green card application was underestimated. You know, at present, almost half of meta's engineering team are working as H1B.
Image cut from blind
Under all kinds of adverse news, the explosive news about meta's intention to start layoffs began to spread wildly in the circle these two days.
According to the rumors on blind, meta will announce layoffs of up to 12% in June this year. According to the news that meta's employees have not been confirmed in the last quarter, it still needs to pay attention to this expansion. In addition, many meta employees from also refuted this statement by leaving messages, saying that their team is still recruiting.
Even if the news that meta is about to lay off employees is not true, some job level recruitment suspension, employees' green card application and other problems do exist.
︱ Netflix "cut" new project tudum, and the editing team was dissolved on site
Netflix, which has always been the ideal of technology practitioners, has also recently tended to reduce its projects.
Last December, Netflix just launched a new website called "tudum" to provide subscribers with all kinds of information about "fans". Users can get the inside information of the series they like first from the website. They can also know the real life and the shooting gags of the actors after the adaptation of the series. They can also find the peripheral products and music of the series through the website. To this end, Netflix has also recruited a large number of writers, journalists and editors to join the project.
But recently, Netflix's performance has collapsed for two consecutive quarters, and the stock price has returned to four years ago overnight. It seems that this new project has also become the target of Netflix. Recently, some employees of tudum said that they and their editing team had been dismissed by Netflix. The laid-off employees did not receive prior notice. Many other employees knew that their colleagues had been hired through Twitter.
According to internal sources, although only more than a dozen employees are involved this time, the layoffs will continue to expand to more departments. It was also previously reported that Netflix canceled several animation programs under development, and Phil rynda, director of original animation development of Netflix, and his team have also been dismissed. The reason behind this is to focus on the main business and focus on the film and television works that can attract more users.
Tudum's former team members sent a message on twitter that they were dismissed
In addition, according to Bloomberg's recent report, under the pressure of falling stock prices, Netflix, which had previously dominated technology companies with a high amount of all cash model, also began to consider breaking the original flat system, dividing employees into different levels and setting salary composition according to different levels.
While technology giants are beginning to tighten their clothes and shrink their food, some start-ups are also struggling.
Except for the better mentioned at the beginning of the article In addition, at the beginning of last month, fast, a financial technology company founded in 2019 and invested by strip, also chose to close the company because of slow performance growth and burning money too fast, and more than 300 employees were dissolved on the spot. In addition, gopuff, a meal delivery giant valued at more than $40 billion, also announced 3% layoffs, laying off about 450 employees. On Monday, thrasio, an Amazon third-party retail aggregator valued at $10 billion last year, also announced that it would change its CEO and make large-scale layoffs.
Finally, what silicon star people want to say is that although many companies have exposed layoffs recently, according to the observation of silicon star people, many of the companies that have laid off employees are related to the poor management of the company founders or the impact of the economic environment. In Silicon Valley, it is far from reaching the level of forming a wave of large-scale layoffs, and there is no need to panic too much at present. But at the same time, it is undeniable that the current environment is indeed full of a lot of uncertainty. Looking back at history, sometimes the collapse is often only in a moment.