Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music

Re:Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight A... by spriggan3 on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @10:47PM (#11386630)

> Spotify waste so much money on their employees, who effectively do very little

Plenty of businesses waste money on some employees who effectively do very little, like diversity officers, equality consultants and such useless positions ... The problem isn't them , the problem here is Spotify unstustainable business model, period. They will go down, sooner or later. The fact that they had to take a loan means they can't raise money through VC rounds anymore. It's clearly the end of an era for a LOT of startups. And that's fine. It's call redistributing cards.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight A... by jrowley on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @10:57PM (#11386658)

A diversity officer isn't necessarily a waste of money. They can be crucial for ensuring a solid company culture that levages talents from a diverse pool of people. If you make your company inhospitable to groups of employees based on their race or religion you are only hurting your bottom line.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight A... by danieltillett on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @11:58PM (#11386869)

You shouldn’t need a diversity officer to stop your business being inhospitable to employees on the basis of background - this should be core to your business culture. It is like having a come-to-work-and-get-stuff-done officer.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight A... by jrowley on Wednesday March 30, 2016 @12:03AM (#11386889)

Well I agree, ideally this should be automatic and inherent to a business, but when a company gets to a certain size you need people to be really thoughtful and consciously focused about this stuff, otherwise it can slip. So sometimes growth necessitates a dedicated person thinking about these issues.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight A... by p4wnc6 on Wednesday March 30, 2016 @12:31AM (#11386977)

More often, the person is just a token hire who functions more to ensure legal deniability on the company's part for anything that might pop up related to a diversity issue.

I hope more companies hire diversity officers for the sake of thinking hard about how to ensure that policies and company behaviors aren't harmful.

But for me it's a "I'll believe it when I see it" sort of thing. The default belief has to be that it's just a token position for the sake of legal deniability, just as most of HR has evolved into.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight A... by LoSboccacc on Wednesday March 30, 2016 @02:49AM (#11387404)

Yup. I've yet to see a diversity office having an actual budget and spending power.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight A... by JonFish85 on Wednesday March 30, 2016 @10:25AM (#11389459)

A diversity officer isn't a waste of money if it impresses other people who want to give you business and pat themselves on the back for supporting diversity. If you pay someone $500k/year to be a "Chief Diversity Officer" and that shields the company from bad publicity, then it's probably "worth it", even if that person sits in their office playing solitaire all day long.

[ Parent | on HN ]