What law? I’m not criticizing Spotify at all for this decision, I’m just genuinely curious. A few other companies recently are giving away the laptops so I’m wondering what is different here.

It would be difficult for a IT department to guarantee, for sure without replacing the internals of the device, that the device doesn't contain sensitive information. Probably easier from an inventory and IT security perspective to just capture every device than try and coordinate with individuals to reformat, etc.

(for the same reason, some companies outright destroy old devices instead of reselling.)

Secondly, would you want to have a computer which your previous employer can wipe your disk at any time?

So all in all probably a good thing for both parties.

If they give away the laptop, it will be difficult to guarantee and verify that the data is wiped out entirely within whatever time frame they are aiming for. So, they want their property back.

I too am guilty of using work laptop for personal work like shopping etc couple of times.

Personal anecdote:

one of my colleagues was recently discussing about replacing his 6 year old laptop that he rarely uses, one of our architects commented : "I don't understand why anyone would need a personal laptop at home. We can use our work laptop for anything that our mobile can't do". I was surprised to hear that from an architect and even more surprised to see many others nod in agreement.

Edit: fixed a typo

If I were a senior government official or in some other high profile/sensitive role I'd probably be more conservative but it's pretty common to use some combination of personal and business-issued devices for everything.

Lots of possible reasons.

The main quest / side quest analogy works so so well!

> “There’s no cuts coming for us,” Harley Finkelstein told The Canadian Press. “We’re in a really good place.”

https://globalnews.ca/news/9494197/shopify-outlook-no-layoff...

Once a coach has to say "[player] has my absolute confidence in their success," you know the player is ~2 weeks from being benched.

Coaches and players... they talk about each other a lot.

Similarly, you don’t ask tech companies if they’re doing layoffs when the sector is booming.

That the question is even asked probably shoots the probability of benching/layoffs up to some ridiculous amount to begin with.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=taoiseach%20has%20full...

Might be true in other countries but I'm old enough to see this pattern play out a few times.

Or a sign of the kind of delusional optimism that leads to over-hiring.

An organization that has nothing but fairly senior researchers working on separate projects might need little management. An organization with lots of more junior engineers working on something like a rocket (where every part depends on every other part) might need more overhead.

Unrelated, I think that we should stop calling workers individual contributors. I think "workers" is a more fitting description.

"Individual contributor" makes the worker seem smaller and less impactful, as if management is contributing in a way that's superior and bigger than the individual. In reality, only the workers work, and managers manage, doing less work the higher up on the ladder they go.

Don't believe me? Here's a list of CEOs that somehow managed to be CEO of multiple companies at once.

- Jack Dorsey

- Jeff Bezos

- Elon Musk

- Carlos Ghosn

And yet, my employer forbids me from having more than one day job.

It arose from the assumption that managers have finite amounts of time and energy to spend with their people and their jobs.

Analyzing British military leaders, Hamilton found that the leaders could not effectively control more than 3-6 people. These figures have been generally accepted as the "rule of thumb" for span of control ever since, at least in the military where the bulk of my management experience lies.

Research that I have seen hints that people who were in I shaped teams (i.e. single person reporting to a manager) and V shaped teams (2 people reporting to a manager) were much unhappier than larger teams.

Similarly, somewhere close to 10 is when the there is just not enough 'managing' or mentorship happening. I have seen that work only in cases where most of the ICs are senior/staff level and are effectively self-managing.

https://jobs.netflix.com/culture

Also there is benefit of flat orgs which comes with higher ratio in terms of meeting reduction and also communication efficiency both top down and bottom up.

Am I reading this right that they decided they had too many managers, and are laying off some? They don't say it clearly in which direction they thought they were unbalanced, but I think that's the implication of "activities rather than crafter-driven outcomes", or just what is supposed to be the obvious answer when anyone says this is unbalanced?

> too many and you add heavy layers of process, approvals, meetings and… side quests (emphasis mine)

and

> A more fit for purpose Shopify centered on its main quest has less scope creep, fewer meetings, and more shipping great features for our merchants. (emphasis mine)

https://shopify.engineering/shopify-ruby-at-scale-research-i...

>Our numbers were unhealthy, just like it is in much of the tech industry.

Ok, can we consider this in your compensation discussions this year? That you mindlessly followed the crowd and left your company structurally weak? Or do we think you're going to shoot for record compensation this year?

Many important revenue driving products have been mangled by having their teams entirely removed, with pages going completely unanswered.

In at least one case, it seems like an entire team was cut in error.

The company was seriously negatively impacted, but the share price hasn't budged. To the extent that share price is connected to reality, I imagine it will take while for the market to notice the impacts of a layoff

1) wage suppression

2) by hostile take overs inside the company by MBAs, the phase lag between the layoffs and impact on velocity or the bottom line is too long. The second order fire that comes months later gives them an option to look like a hero again.

Most MBAs burn an asset for a short term gain. Period.

Businesses are path dependent, you can't just go "oh, not enough people hire more, oops! too many, fire some!".

For example, in the passive sentence "The tree was pulled down", the subject (the tree) denotes the patient rather than the agent of the action. In contrast, the sentences "Someone pulled down the tree" and "The tree is down" are active sentences.

Most recent layoffs have been framed around needing to focus the company due to economic and market headwinds. This reads like AI has transformed the mission.

What does "A copilot for entrepreneurship is now possible" mean here?

I think this is what is meant here[1]. Not copilot, but the idea is the same.

It is interesting, because 'prompt engineering' is being discussed in the same context. In the video, you will note several interesting bugs generated by GPT. Is it not exciting to see all those bugs in the next few years?

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y7GRYaYYQg

I guess their idea of AI is someone using the ChatGPT API. Good luck if they think they will "hack" some revolutionary AI together with a cowboy hacker culture.

"safety" stocks like AAPL are at all-time highs

real estate has budged slightly, but a rounding error off of the gains made in the last few years

even employment...tech hiring is getting hit but lots of other employers in retail, food & beverage are reporting record hiring and even wage increases

if there is a "crash", it hasn't happened yet

you may just end up with a sucky decade of stagflation...you are poorer every day, but just not dramatically so

But even if that is not your intention, it can come out as dismissive. Many people do worry about the future for very good reasons.

Plan for the future, good or bad, but don't dwell on what you can't control.

They affect me. I don’t give a fuck what the sun does everyday if I can’t pay my rent.

> “la de da nothing is wrong xd it is what it is” attitude

You misunderstood, no one above was taking that attitude.

Easy not to worry when you can't fathom that it may happen to you or your peer.

The other headline is that LLM and ChatGPT is reshaping the tech landscape. Tech companies are laying off engineers so they can hire AI/LLM engineers to compete with ChatGPT. Based on my limited knowledge, OpenAI is head and shoulders above everyone else. Google's Bard is a distant second.

In Jan/Feb posted the exact same job (an additional position) and got over 300 resumes including from ex-FAANG folks who we generally don't see applying).

Something sure has changed imo, and I also personally do believe things are about to get much, much worse for many people.

QoL for most Americans will continue to drop to match USA's precipitous decline in geopolitical status, but even Russia rebounded after just a couple decades. Hey, we got a bunch of O&G as well.

Yeah, not as bad as the CEO laying off 900 people via zoom, and then plying for sympathies at how hard this decision is for him to do.

our entire economy is out of whack in so many areas.

They are treating you like an adult by giving you a nice severance package. I don’t understand the need for people to have companies admit they were wrong.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/04/how-shopify-bungled-its-la...

https://techcouver.com/2021/01/06/shopify-to-double-engineer...

Aren’t CEOs paid ludicrously well to make long term decisions, rather than just flail around?

It would mean that _not_ hiring aggressively in a high-inflation period is harmful to business. To me, that is far more interesting to think about than CEOs making dumb mistakes and not getting punished for it because life isn't fair...

Assuming you have some productive use for the incremental employees, the discounted returns from those employees' contributions are decreased by an uncertainty factor and by the risk-free interest rate. When that latter term is near zero, hiring is restricted by the uncertainty of their performance and projects assigned to, meaning you get a lot of hiring by sensible, data-driven management teams.

When Shopify beings hiring again, they are going to be able to hire talent at a fraction of the price.

Also, this is largely a coordinated effort from activist investors specifically targeting large tech salaries. E.g. https://www.businessinsider.com/google-layoffs-cut-jobs-exce...

There is essentially a vicious cycle targeting tech compensation. Activist investors are convincing boards that they're overpaying their tech talent. Then those boards approve layoffs. Then those layoffs further lower salaries. Rinse and repeat.

source: I was a Shopify employee until today and can confirm my salary was closer to FAANG than not.

there are no government engineering positions in Canada paying anywhere close to this

Shopify wasn't paying like FAANG, but also not like a startup. I would say 75% of a FAANG.

The zeitgeist right now is that employee comp is/was simply too high. There have lots of murmurings lately that amount to that at many different levels of the capital chain. Perhaps what's interesting about now is that people are quite okay with saying it openly. Tech is an easy target since it is well-known, and the pandemic inflated the importance of tech artificially to some degree.

Fully grokking the idea that employee comp could be "too high" for the overall health of the economy really did a number on my economic worldview. Gone is the naive belief that rare/valuable skills secure higher salaries over a long period of time. I no longer trust employers to take care of me, and that getting better at building assets (in the form of products, mostly) is something to grow into to supplant and eventually buy out time spent working for someone else.

Feels so incredibly backward.

And yes I know its "stock performance" but what do you think drives this? With executive compensation mostly related to stocks, of course at the end of the day, thats what they want to drive up.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/25/britons-nee...

I settled into a role of research software engineer, where I do both applied research and development, applying a lot of compiler-ish stuff to different domains within cybersecurity, such as building out control flow graphs from binaries, thinking about how to instrument assembly code efficiently, fast pattern matching, and static analysis, where I am currently. The role fits me like a glove, but it isn't for everyone. In my job search, I started at, "I want a job doing compiler work," and eventually broadened scope a few times until I landed on, "I want a job where compiler-type approaches are on the table of possibilities." This offers a wider variety of work, which I like.

I can discuss more over email (check my HN profile) if you'd like, but most of what I know is US-centric due to how funding works for these types of research. Larger orgs like FAANGs also have it, but the pool is much more competitive, as you'd expect.

Those parts you mentioned like the static analysis or control flow graphs sounds cool

While I agree that this is a naive belief to have (at this point in my career I think there's almost a slightly negative correlation between skill and TC) the general talent pool for software engineers has, at least in my experience, dropped tremendously while TC has exploded.

The most important skills for getting high paying jobs in the last few years has been grinding leet code, then grinding systems design etc, etc. Software engineers no longer have "rare/valuable" skills, they have highly commodified, easily replicable skills (at least at the interview level).

Software engineers today simply aren't that skilled (at least on average) despite what they want to believe. It reminds me a lot of dotcom bubble where anyone with a pulse that could turn on a PC could get a high paying job.

AI is already displacing some people from their work. I hate both absolute capitalism and socialism/communism. How can AI help us find a sweet spot?

But what is going away, permanently, is the space between extremes. Pour one out. I miss it already.

Wouldn't it be the opposite? When the market recovers, they'll competing with everyone else for talent, when instead if they held onto their talent, they could be paying less.

What I've been told about Shopify is that they were seen as a good place to get "western" experience before jumping ship (often for folks who couldn't pass the higher bar for US immigration) because they were already not very competitive with companies in the valley.

If you're going to suggest 9/10 is also a fraction or something I'll counter that 4/3 is also a fraction, and no one uses "a fraction of the price" to refer to an increase in price

Is there evidence of this now?

What I see is a small fraction of the open roles I'm used to seeing.

Compensation, on the other hand, is the same at these big companies. If not even higher than it was a couple years ago.

"Back where you started" with a now highly demotivated team isn't quite back where you started.

>>Our numbers were unhealthy, just like it is in much of the tech industry.

But that didn't prevent him from profiting from it nor from the layoffs.

To be completely honest, I've never been bullish on Shopify. To me it looked like a "mee too" play for investors that missed the boat on Amazon, Square and Stripe.

CEO's are neither prophets nor oracles. They are effectively dice-rolls with a face. Not rollers, but rolls. No matter what, sometimes you get bad numbers.

Founder CEO's like Lutke are heroes. They have skin in the game. This forces them to calculate their risks. Their actions and decisions have greater weight because of this - their payday is not guaranteed, especially early on in the game.

Non-founder CEO's are rent-collectors. They have no skin in the game. Unlimited upside and no downside. They get a handsome payday no matter what.

Non-founder CEO's and the absence of skin in the game is what yields the bastardy that is modern corporatism: highly-paid people who can flail around all they want and still land on their feet.

In this case, Lutke made a bad bet, but with Shopify's success, he's at the point where the result of his bets have no impact on him. He already got his payday.

But they also captain their first large enterprises: do they know what they're doing? Can they transition these firms into businesses that will endure? Or will they capriciously chase shiny objects while they waste the trust and goodwill of investors, the people who work there now, and the people who will want to work there in the future? They might have seeded the garden, but it took thousands of smart people to build it up, and it takes a constant supply to maintain it.

A new CEO will probably be rich, sure, but not "endow a historical dynasty" rich, and might know how to take a successful company and reposition it for the long term. Maybe the younger guys can do it. But it would just be for vanity at this point.

Musk has reminded me that even billionaires are one accidentally legally binding agreement away from pissing away $40B

There is no tangible difference between being worth $1B and $100B beyond social cachet. It is impossible to spend meaningful money at that level.

Then why are they compensated like they're gods?

John Tuld : So, what you're telling me, is that the music is about to stop, and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of capitalism.

Peter Sullivan : Sir, I not sure that I would put it that way, but let me clarify using your analogy. What this model shows is the music, so to speak, just slowing. If the music were to stop, as you put it, then this model wouldn't even be close to that scenario. It would be considerably worse.

John Tuld : Let me tell you something, Mr. Sullivan. Do you care to know why I'm in this chair with you all? I mean, why I earn the big bucks.

Peter Sullivan : Yes.

John Tuld : I'm here for one reason and one reason alone. I'm here to guess what the music might do a week, a month, a year from now. That's it. Nothing more. And standing here tonight, I'm afraid that I don't hear - a - thing. Just... silence.

Shopify being a beneficiary of both the government mandated lockdowns and the Fed backed investment bubble really had no option but to dramatically increase headcount. Their business literally doubled from 2020-2021 due these actions.

To believe in 2021 that in 2022 the Fed would undergo the most aggressive tightening cycle in history triggering significant headwinds for both startups like Shopify and their small business customers was absurd. At the time the Fed was saying that they weren't "even thinking about thinking about raising rates" so you basically had to assume that Fed lacked all credibility.

I guess what I'm saying here is that there is a reason why so many companies got this wrong beyond incompetence. So if you don't like it you should consider redirecting your outrage.

Shopify was just a really fun place to work. And in part this was because they did a really good job of interviewing. Technical, yes, but in particular behaviorally.

So I can honestly say that many of the colleagues I know being let go are truly great colleagues. They were some of the most impactful people I worked with in my org (discovery) and they are a great get for any company.

The interview was conducted by the recruiter and while she didn’t flat out ask personal questions, she asked questions that would almost cause me to reveal personal information such as my marital status and sexuality. It was not fun coming with made up responses to avoid that because it’s none of her business.

There’s a reason interviews should stay professional. I’m surprised they haven’t been sued.

With that said, there are lots of reasons why a company might want to vet candidate attitude besides discriminating based on protected characteristics.

Out of curiosity, what kind of questions did you find invasive or discriminatory?

I get that it's totally an innocent intent, but there are much better ways to assess a candidate's soft skills, that is strictly related to their professional experience.

Many if not most people find us a desirable attribute in coworkers and workplaces. I get that it's not for everyone, but not every workplace is a good fit for everyone.

I think you're getting some rude comments because of exactly this fact

fwiw, when I interview candidates in a technical interview, I still attempt at some small talk to get a sense of "can I have a normal conversation with this person"

(appreciate the sensible responses btw!)

(The two options that work here are to post something thoughtful and substantive, or not to post.)

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

1. That is a very deterministic statement 2. This is a part of the process, not the entire process. There are still technical elements tested during the interview. 3. The signal that they are looking for, but do not tell candidates, is a story about overcoming obstacles.

What I will say about the lifestory, is that it aligns with the skillset required to do well in a corporate environment. Namely telling stories, being relatively interesting, and having some ability to sell yourself and your accomplishments (in addition to being technically competent which is tested elsewhere).

But then again, that's probably why the environment seems 'fun'

Just because Shopify might name it something specific, doesn't mean it's all that unique. Some companies hold this potion entirely on a first/second phone call, others might having an initial section of the interview dedicated to talking about yourself and your experience.

Not sure how this weeds out non-native or non-extroverted people, both of whom are very capable of talking about their experiences. It would be great if you wouldn't infantilize them.

People who mentored me, who work hard, and do high quality work, and people who really carried the best of culture of the company (both technical and personal culture).

Really a shame to see this happen.

I'm bummed to hear about the layoffs, I hope the culture doesn't suffer too much. Shopify Ottawa was genuinely warm and familiar in a way few tech offices are able to be.

Sadly I got vetoed by one interviewer for an inelegant game of life solution (first time I’d ever seen GoL and I got bogged down in the middle logic) - never been so disappointed ever as every interview I had went really well on a personal level and (with the exception of that one) all my code was fine.

I hope to see Shopify continue to do well, I’ve used it for over 10 years and love using the platform.

That’s drastically different. Most orgs that’ve run layoffs over the last few years have terminated access immediately, or even before informing those losing jobs.

This feels more human, and I hope it goes well for them.

The last time I got laid off was from a fintech company while WFH. It went like:

8am: Mysterious all-hands appears on all our calendars

10am: All-hands happens, layoffs announced

10:45am: Meeting with my manager happens

11:00am: I'm mid-slack-message with my team trying to coordinate a quick goodbye zoom chat when my laptop is remote-wiped and all access was cut off.

I totally understand why you'd do that and don't really fault them, but it certainly was a bummer. If you can safely do otherwise, it's a really nice gesture.

Right now I can't access any Slack channels, I can't access Google Drive/Docs, I can't send an email to an external address. I can only DM people and email people in the company.

In about 15 minutes I'll be shut out entirely.

As far as such things go it seems like a reasonable balance of humane consideration and legal prudence.

I don't understand the point of a statement like this. Why not just admit logistics turned out to be a sunk cost and you're abandoning it, rather than say "We actually killed it!"

Shipping is getting expensive across the board, which might be part of it.

I know this sounds insensitive but I am slightly envious

Edit: am dumbass. plus one week per year of tenure as corrected below. Still not bad IMO

You could be over 50 work for a month and be entitled to 9 months pay. Talk to a lawyer before you sign

That said: where do I sign up for 16 weeks of severance pay?

The cruel irony is that having Shopify on your resume will open a lot of doors and likely result in a shorter job search than those laid off from lower-profile companies with less severance.

For point of comparison, my no-name series-D gave us a little over two weeks… and I’m unfortunately still looking 20 weeks later.

Absolutely dreadful job search. Six months and nothing. A couple of awkward interviews that went nowhere. No one will touch me, and the few that do have pretty obvious issues. Meanwhile, friends that have well known names on their resume (even if it’s for infamy) are doing fine.

The picture painted in the media of these 'pampered' employees - true or not - does affect the perceptions of some hiring managers.

Then he says they're selling to Flexport, an act which doesn't sound like a "main quest" at all ... it sounds like it's a difficult side quest being offloaded to someone else.

For Shopify customers: What does this mean for shops using Shopify Fulfillment Network?

The bigger picture here is that Shopifys visions of becoming an aggregate Amazon and competing in this space are dwindling.

Sad as there is a real solution waiting here.

What a way to lead, and what an absolutely grotesque euphemism (not to mention a barbaricly tortuous use of English). Why do companies write like this? It's just awful.

I'm only half-joking when I suggest that if they'd taken this text and asked GPT-4 to rewrite it in a compassionate tone they'd have got a better result. (I say this having used GPT-4 quite regularly in recent weeks, although not for these kinds of purposes. It's quite impressive, along many axes, and I'm confident would have made a decent fist of this piece.)

https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/04/how-shopify-bungled-its-la...

You aren't the audience, that's why.

https://1fish2.github.io/buzzword-bingo/corp-bingo.html

none yet. Jerry's working on adding weights to the buzzwords.

There are a number of consequences to this, and I don’t want to bury the lede: after today Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics; this means some of you will leave Shopify today

So are they going to fire 20% of the C-suite and upper management as well? :)

If the board doesn't think they are not doing their job, they will be fired.

How is it not difficult to understand for a self-appointed smart crowd?

Today, we're making some substantial changes at Shopify, all with the aim of focusing more intently on our mission. We believe these adjustments will help us better serve our community and we're excited about the journey ahead.

> to pay unshared attention to our mission

...unshared attention?

It was genuinely Tobi. That's how he talks and writes. That's exactly the analogies he would use. No PR person anywhere would write this letter for him.

Also, he is wildly obsessed with LLMs. I would place a large money bet that he did have GPT help him edit this document.

Is this on top of the layoff they had a few months ago? That means Shopify is really about 30% smaller all told.

I agree with all the other comments criticizing the CEO's leadership of furiously hiring and now making massive cuts, but I think that is missing the context that the CEO does not answer to you or me, or to business professors, or to his employees. He answers to the board, which typically care about stock price and not much else. Today is a massive success in that regard.

On one hand, it was really nice having a fulfillment partner directly related to the webstore. It gave a sense of harmony for future growth of services. From a stock perspective, it was a money suck, but hey, look at Amazon.

On the other hand, the Shopify web platform feels a little neglected and I hope this will allow them to re-focus. From a stock perspective, maybe this will help get their immediate finances in order.

They've made some solid improvements and additions, but there are a lot of little things that need attention. One of my quibbles is that you can't make private or unlisted products. They're either visible to everyone, or disabled. There are a lot of people asking for that feature, and it's not a hard one to implement. There are a lot of things like this that probably wouldn't take a lot of resources to implement but would significantly improve the merchant experience.

> don’t want to bury the lede: after today Shopify will be smaller by about 20% and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics;

Does that mean layoffs AND part of their company being sold off.

Or does it mean employees being reassigned because part of the company is being sold off?

Granted I don't know much about Shopify.

But when I read things on the face of it ... it sounds confusing.

Expected: 'Shopify lays off 20%'

Actual: 'Shopify will be smaller by about 20%'

It sucks because I really liked the company. I liked the culture. I liked the leadership style. I liked the mission. I genuinely think that company is doing good for the world, and making money in the process.

The challenge now is that the leadership have burned a lot of trust with the employees. They repeatedly said no more layoffs were coming, but with this move they all benefitted financially quite well- the stock is up 25%.

The move deeply undermines the company culture that they worked so hard to build. I hope Tobi has a plan for how to repair that damage.

I was around for layoffs last year and I found it very surprising that nobody made more noise about the fact that executives never shared the hard numbers they used to make their layoff decisions. I'll be very curious to hear chatter over the coming weeks around how they rationalize these layoffs.

If nothing else, stock prices tell a pretty cynical story.

The CEOs / Executives are literally appointed by the board who in turn are voted in by shareholders. It is their job to increase the share price.

The world is better of with efficient capital deployment.

So, I don't understand how the smartest people in this world don't understand the fundamental working of capital markets.

Note: it's the same shareholders that have allowed to get $200-$300k TCs when smart people around the world toil the same as you for $60k. So, you can't have it both ways

You can't have it both ways. Start misinformation about how capital markets work and not expect to be corrected.

HN is a discussion forum. If an incorrect fact or misguided opinion is shared, it will be debated.

I'm sympathetic to OP, but I also understand the dangers of misinformation and the resulting brainwashing of anti-capitalistic movement it causes and I will protect capitalism.

Truly the hero capitalism deserves.

democracy + socialism

democracy + capitalism.

One period marked poverty, child mortality, While the other marked good standard of living and reduced child mortality.

I'll let you guess and pick the confounding variable from the equation. That's the advantage of independent thinking vs brainwashed-by-liberal-universities (and thank god I didn't study in some brainwashed liberal university)

This is a meme that needs to die.

> The world is better of with efficient capital deployment.

Even if this were true, rising share prices don't necessarily indicate efficient deployment. Chasing short-term share price increases often incentivises behaviour detrimental to company in the long-term.

Meta/Google/Amazon/Microsoft are literally investing R&D $ that will pay off 10+ years later.

Yet they all have laid off people.

Just because you laid of people doesn't mean they aren't thinking long term.

Really how can reddit/HN and social media be so blind about this when they have data screaming at them?

> Really how can reddit/HN and social media be so blind about this when they have data screaming at them?

Maybe don't start with the assumption that everyone else is an idiot.

This was a job I looked forward to each morning. It was just a fun place to work full of talented people and a great culture. There were exciting projects in the works and I wanted to keep being a part of them. My time was cut short and it's disappointing to say the least.

They tried to hire people who care and that showed in the daily interactions. It's in stark contrast to today's actions and I won't be so trusting again.

Best of luck to you!

This is a cut throat game of capitalism, you do know that right? He's going to be rewarded for making these cuts. There is no downside for the winners.

Hope.....unfortunately that's not how the game is played. Unions, worker protections, and taxes on the wealthy those are real actionable goals.

Tobi has never given me the impression that he's a sociopath. It's part of why I wanted to work for Shopify. I used to joke that "'Shopify is the no assholes company.' 'But what about Kaz?' 'It's the no assholeS company- we're allowed one!'". But honestly, even my view on Kaz softened up over time.

Either the leadership at Shopify are genuinely nice people trying their best, or they are way better than the Amazon leadership at hiding their sociopathy. But either way, it felt nicer working for them.

You can't be serious... What good those bunch of [censored] could possibly do?

As a merchant - worst decision ever was made to work with them. Wasted tens of thousands of dollars for nothing. Everything is bad - tech, support, "dedicated manager", API, plainly everything is horrible.

good for the world... Seriously?

Looking at it from their perspective, I would have made the choice to lay me off (or fire me). The reality is that I just did not get enough meaningful project work. I talked to my manager frequently and it was always something "just around the corner". My manager went on parental leave 3 months after I started. Pretty much everybody took most of December off. Our division did a re-org which shook everything up, wasted more time. I didn't get any meaningful projects until the start of February, my 6th month of employment at Shopify. I was doing really well there, felt good about my work and my contribution, whereas I'd been floundering for 6 months with impostor syndrome and existential crisis.

But it was just too late. I got the axe. I don't feel too personally bad about it, although I hate interviewing and have performance anxiety when it comes to technical interviewing stuff. I want to take time off to rest but I'm afraid I'll use all my savings up and still not have a job.

I wasn't there long enough to really know for certain, but I feel like part of the problem is the monolithic nature of the codebase. Getting projects greenlit required a bunch of political wrangling and convincing of the senior leadership team by the product folks. Things just moved really slowly. The "Get Shit Done" (I kid you not, that's what they call it) process of shipping projects seemed interesting but nobody really followed the documented process. I got the feeling it was a lot of back channel conversations, gate keeping by higher up folks, with people every step of the chain asking themselves, "Will this decision make me look more impactful in my upcoming review?". Kinda feels like the way I imagine the bureaucracy of the Soviet Union operated.

I don't know. I have a lot of feelings about all of it, I'm personally really sad because I feel like I really had something to offer, something to contribute, but I spent most of my time just fucking around. Scale that up to a company the size of Shopify and it's just a tragic waste of human potential. But they will just pat themselves on the back, congratulating themselves on "making difficult decisions".

The 16 weeks severance is nice though. Takes the edge off.