[HN Gopher] Apollo Layoffs
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Apollo Layoffs
Author : adamkl
Score : 58 points
Date : 2022-12-15 21:16 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apollographql.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apollographql.com)
| akudha wrote:
| Is there a reason why these big layoffs are done just before
| thanksgiving, Christmas etc?
| halfway_there wrote:
| jcadam wrote:
| I'm assuming to get it done before the end of the fiscal year.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| EOY financials, usually.
|
| If you have to do layoffs, the best time is now. The second
| best time is a couple weeks before financial reporting ends.
| frozenlettuce wrote:
| End of quarter, I suppose
| __s wrote:
| There's been lots of big layoffs throughout the year. There's
| always an upcoming holiday
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| As soon as the economy recovers, doing these kinds of layoffs
| will be terrible for the companies reputation. Right now, it's
| more like "who can blame them, everyone is doing it".
| varenc wrote:
| It's near the end of the quarter and holidays tends to be less
| productive time for employees with many taking extra time off
| anyway. Even with the very generous severance is still makes
| sense to announce these layoffs before some of the least
| productive times.
|
| Also personally, I think I'd rather know about being laid off
| before going into the new year.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah, it's nicer to know you're on severance going into
| Christmas so you can tighten the belt than find out you don't
| have a job coming out with bills coming due.
| grumple wrote:
| > Thanks to an incredible performance by our Talent Acquisition
| team, one of the best in the industry, we grew headcount 2.5x in
| about a year. But the problem is that growing the company 2.5x
| didn't make us 2.5x more productive. It got harder to get things
| done because we didn't add the right mix of skills and seniority
| levels to our team.
|
| From The Mythical Man-Month: "If there are n workers on a
| project, there are (n^2 - n) / 2 interfaces across which there
| may be communication... The purpose of organization is to reduce
| the amount of of communication and coordination necessary". I
| doubt anybody would ever expect adding large numbers of employees
| to have a linear effect on productivity, especially if they
| aren't well coordinated. More people usually means more meetings
| and more communications costs, as well as more bureaucracy in the
| way. I find it hard to believe that a leader in software would
| expect otherwise.
| jcoder wrote:
| Yeah I read that part and immediately thought "tell me you've
| never read a single book on tech leadership without..."
| wolpoli wrote:
| Perhaps management sees tech work in the way they see assembly
| line workers - they believe that doubling the number of teams
| will double the ticket throughput.
| Rooster61 wrote:
| Why are software companies still grappling with the mythical man
| month? You'd think by now we'd have learned our lesson.
|
| More hands /= more productivity, at least on a linear scale
| pwinnski wrote:
| Far too often people are added to existing teams, as if they
| didn't believe Brooks' observations about communication.
|
| Less often, but much better, are people being hired and put
| onto new teams, focused on new projects and products.
| Developers can scale horizontally, but not vertically.
| francisofascii wrote:
| In many cases, the primary goal is to increase revenue, and
| eventually profit, even if productivity decreases.
| tshaddox wrote:
| If you're talking about Brooks's law, that's a pretty specific
| observation that doesn't seem like it applies here. It's very
| specifically about adding workers to a project that is already
| behind schedule. It doesn't certainly doesn't mean anything as
| broad as "a company cannot do more things by increasing its
| employee count."
| quonn wrote:
| But of the reasons Books gives, most apply regardless of the
| project being late, such as the communication overhead and
| the fact that splitting the project neatly is difficult.
| tylerhou wrote:
| Apollo is a large project with many features. I'm sure they
| have many teams working on relatively-self contained
| subcomponents.
| Rooster61 wrote:
| I don't think I've ever worked on or even seen a software
| project that wasn't in some way considered behind schedule.
| Very, VERY rarely are the correct number of people hired at
| the beginning.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I'm fairly certain that even without them all working on the
| same thing, 2.5x more employees will never be 2.5x faster.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Not all of that is dev. After a certain point, a lot of growth
| comes from marketing, sales, sales engineering, consulting,
| support, customer success, etc.
|
| I'd wager most core engineering teams in a co like Apollo are
| probably quite small and focused. I'd guess the cuts are coming
| from the ancillary teams.
| Rooster61 wrote:
| My comment was about the company as a whole, and slightly
| targeted more towards management. That said, you are right,
| dev usually has very little control over these kinds of
| decisions.
| mattbillenstein wrote:
| Headcount is a good way to justify a valuation given an
| investment round - and you have to spend the money chasing
| growth anyway whether it makes sense or not.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| Too many business schools teach classes that claim that
| managers don't need to know the business that they're in. They
| just need to know the math. Then apply what comes out of
| "organizational psychology/sociology" courses to the remaining
| staff. And when a new CxO takes over, he brings in his cronies
| who puffed him up at the last place (aka "the new broom sweeps
| clean"). This is why software companies end up with mismanagers
| who don't know beans about programming.
| ProZsolt wrote:
| The problem managers measured by how many people they manage so
| they incentivised to hire more people.
| trollerator23 wrote:
| I have no idea what Apollo Graph QL is, but it was interesting to
| search by URL and see the progression of related HN titles and
| their engagement.
|
| 2018 July. Apollo server 2 released woo! (mostly ignored)
|
| 2019 Feb. We switched away from Slack woo!
|
| . . . (Some PRs everybody ignored)
|
| 2019 June. We got a $22M investment woo!
|
| . . . (Many PRs everybody ignored)
|
| 2022 Dec. Oops, we are laying of lots of people...
| alexchamberlain wrote:
| Outside of Facebook, Apollo is _the_ GraphQL company, with
| innovations in the federation space in particular.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Their HN may have been ignored, but both of the last two
| companies I've worked with have both used Apollo.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Apollo is synonymous with Graphql at this point.
|
| If you need you consume a Graphql API you most certainly reach
| out for Apollo on the clientside to query data.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Layoffs are going to suck regardless, but this is one of the best
| severance packages I've seen in this wave:
|
| * 15 weeks base pay + 1 week per year of employment
|
| * 6 months COBRA + $300 mental health
|
| * no 1-yr cliff, options can be exercised thru next year
|
| * you can keep all your equipment
| jcadam wrote:
| Crazy. Usually it's just "Pay stops today, benefits at the end
| of the month. Hand in your badge - off you go."
| datalopers wrote:
| No it's not. Severance is extremely common, while this
| package is quite generous.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Severance is definitely not common in startups. They'll
| usually burn the cash right up until the very last investor
| says 'no more' and then call it quits. They might have one
| more pay period (or two) in the bank.
| fnimick wrote:
| Or worse: they go right up to the edge, convince people
| to work for back pay for "a month or two", then shut down
| afterward. I've seen that happen.
| johnvanommen wrote:
| I got hired by a place, and my first paycheck bounced.
|
| The owners are now billionaires.
|
| (They sold the company to a Fortune 100 about 18 months
| later.)
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| "If I haven't already talked to you, today is your last day.
| You will receive one more paycheck and you can keep your
| laptop."
| [deleted]
| robofanatic wrote:
| just curious, can one collect unemployment during severance?
| jcadam wrote:
| I would think not. The one time I was on UE (back in 2008),
| you had to report _any_ income you received.
|
| edit: apparently in some states you can - at least in
| Colorado in 2008, you could not. Generally your unemployment
| would be reduced by the amount of income you brought in. So,
| in any case, severance payments from a typical tech job would
| far exceed UE anyway...
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Hmm, I thought this was a good question so I looked it up. At
| least in my state you cannot.
| cmh89 wrote:
| It's state by state. I know you can collect unemployment
| while receiving severance in Washington.
| jrib wrote:
| not an expert, but my understanding is it depends on how the
| severance is paid off.
|
| If the company keeps you on payroll and pays you weekly, then
| you cannot collect unemployment. If the company gives you a
| lump sum then you may be able to.
|
| If a condition of the severance is that you sign a document
| saying you are quitting instead of being fired, then you
| cannot collect unemployment.
|
| My understanding comes from recent googling because of
| similar layoffs that happened at my company. I'd welcome more
| informed thoughts on the matter.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _If a condition of the severance is that you sign a
| document saying you are quitting instead of being fired,
| then you cannot collect unemployment._
|
| This is false. If a company makes you sign a statement that
| you are quitting instead of being fired as a condition of
| getting severance, they are committing unemployment
| insurance fraud and are subject to civil and criminal
| sanction in most states.
|
| (The point of trying to make employees do this is to avoid
| claims against the company's unemployment insurance account
| in the state. How UI works differs from state to state, but
| in all instances claims against UI increases the company's
| ongoing UI expense.)
| bombcar wrote:
| And a key giveaway is that companies rarely pay severance
| to people who actually quit.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| This is how people get caught for fraud in quite a few
| cases too. They create a one sided contract that outlines
| their fraud and then they distribute it to people who run
| straight to lawyers, as they should.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > If the company gives you a lump sum then you may be able
| to.
|
| Yep, in the case of the lump sum you're not being paid
| after you're given the lump sum. I was laid off in 2014.
| Got 4 months in a lump sum when I went out the door. There
| were no problems applying for unemployment.
| johnvanommen wrote:
| I had a layoff like that, they gave me the option of
| choosing. Lump sum or "stay on the payroll but have no
| access."
|
| I went with the latter because it paid better.
|
| For a while I was always stressed out about background
| checks, because it showed that I was working two jobs. (I
| got a job to replace it almost immediately, but continued
| to get paid by the old place.)
| xwdv wrote:
| Sorry but where exactly would a background check show you
| have two jobs?
| [deleted]
| DevX101 wrote:
| That's a fantastic deal.
| lfittl wrote:
| The "$300 mental health" seems odd - for any kind of
| counseling/therapy/etc sessions this is a drop in the bucket in
| terms of cost.
|
| It will easily cost 10x to work with a mental health
| professional (and insurance companies sadly pay a very small
| amount of it). So why add this to an otherwise reasonable
| package?
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| Apollo should cease to exist. It is a terrible product and
| basically designed for being a DDOS attack vector. Never design
| things like this. They are on the opposite track to the entire
| web industry.
| quonn wrote:
| Can you expand on this? Is this a generic criticism of GraphQL?
| Apollo server? Client? And what do you mean by opposite track?
|
| I really like GraphQL but agree that it's not trivial to
| implement well.
|
| I also think it recently became a bit less relevant for web
| applications (React server components come to mind) but it's
| still very useful for some web apps, mobile apps and generally
| for designing nice APIs.
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| We use GraphQL a lot for static content. Most content on
| modern webs should be static, or at least deterministic. What
| I am saying is that GraphQL should not be used at runtime to
| do these dynamic magic queries, which is the key feature in
| Apollo.
| detaro wrote:
| For reference, according to their current team page, 246
| employees (at least 246 publicly listed ones)
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| Say the truth.
|
| The expected growth of revenue by growing our workforce did not
| happen. Together with the tough economic climate, we came to the
| conclusion that letting 15% of our workforce go will put the
| company in a better position to survive and navigate the future.
| Hopefully there will be future opportunities that allow us to
| grow again.
|
| We are all very sorry for this. Personally, I can barely sleep
| thinking about the stress and troubles my former colleagues will
| face having lost their job. We feel it's our duty to provide a
| fair severance package with at least x more months of pay, y
| months of health insurance, etc.
|
| I am not a writer! Others could do this much better!
|
| At least pretend to be a fucking human and don't write disgusting
| copy-paste trash that sounds like it came from a lobotomized HR
| junior like Mr. Schmidt did.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Nobody ever likes these announcements. Half the comment thread
| would rule at your "can barely sleep" comment. They're too
| human or too detached, too brief or too prescriptive. At the
| end of the day, there are fewer things that matter to a firm
| than the text of their lay-off announcement.
| vault wrote:
| I'm curious to know from some (ex?) employee how badly this was
| managed. In my experience it's really hard to fire 15% of
| employees by personally talk to each of them, without massive
| delays (e.g. one is on holiday, different timezones, etc). The
| first 2 or 3 that get their accounts deactivated, usually trigger
| mass panic in the company.
| pcurve wrote:
| This is one of the more straightforward announcements with
| minimal sugarcoating. Letting employees keep the equipment is a
| nice touch, since honestly they're not worth much to the company
| anyway. Wish those impacted best of luck.
| [deleted]
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| > I am very sad to make this decision. It's a consequence of the
| approach that Matt and I took in scaling the company over the
| last year, and we take full responsibility for the impact that
| will have on the lives of our departing team members.
|
| Why do CEO's always say this empty nonsense. If you accept
| responsibility, you accept consequences - what consequences is
| Geoff Schmidt going to be facing? Hurt feelings? Give me a break.
| celtain wrote:
| What would you prefer that they say instead? "I made no wrong
| decisions, I have no regrets leaving all of you unemployed."?
| sidfthec wrote:
| "I'll be resigning when [the board/leadership] finds a
| replacement."
|
| I always get massive push back when I suggest this, but it's
| the only remedy that makes sense. If you have to layoff 15%
| of the workforce when the growth was under your command, and
| you want to take responsibility, then step down. Own your
| mistake.
| yCombLinks wrote:
| The goal of the business isn't to maximize employment. It's
| to maximize profits. Getting rid of employees doesn't mean
| the CEO did a bad job of maximizing profits.
| nkohari wrote:
| That's only true if the company is better-suited to be run
| by someone else. CEOs are prominent, but they're still just
| people. A person can make mistakes and still be the best
| person for the job.
| quonn wrote:
| For startups such a step is likely to ruin the company. And
| in any case that founder would keep their stake in the
| company while not being able to influence it anymore.
| Doesn't make sense.
| tshaddox wrote:
| What if the board doesn't want you to quit? Surely it's
| better to do what's best for the company going forward
| rather than to broadcast your self-flagellation.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If they're the best person to lead the company, that's what
| should continue to happen for the benefit of the _other 85%
| of employees_.
| quonn wrote:
| Perhaps instead of ,,responsibility" they should said ,,we
| are to blame" or ,,it is our fault".
| pastor_bob wrote:
| "Have no illusions. This is a business. Somebody has to take
| a fall, and it's you. Best of luck, and don't buy the Koolaid
| at your next job."
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| It is humblebragging and getting ahead of rumors. "We are
| growing strongly, but" followed by the usual platitudes about
| funding, taking ownership without consequences by leadership,
| and showing how great the severance is. There is no good reason
| this should be a public communication.
| Rooster61 wrote:
| > what consequences is Geoff Schmidt going to be facing?
|
| Loss in confidence of his employees, fear of mass exodus,
| pressure from stakeholders, etc...
|
| I don't usually defend CEO's, and it sounds like this one has
| committed some pretty serious errors, but I certainly would not
| want to be sending that email out.
| dnissley wrote:
| This comes up every thread about layoffs -- accepting
| responsibility means not passing the buck and saying "it was
| out of our control!" or "this was due to outside circumstance
| X".
|
| The explicit consequences are up to the owners of the company,
| not the court of public opinion. The owners wouldn't be beyond
| their rights to demand the CEO's resignation, although neither
| are they obligated to do that either since everyone makes
| mistakes. And as others have pointed out there are implicit
| consequences as well -- less trust from remaining employees,
| etc.
| pcurve wrote:
| Yep. This is a strike 1 for the CEO and everyone knows it.
|
| Unless there is someone else who can do better job, it
| doesn't make sense for him to step down. However, I do wonder
| if it would appeasing to take voluntary pay cut as a more
| visible form of taking responsibility. Just a thought.
| bberenberg wrote:
| The business they built is failing. The emotional toll is
| extreme. Founders I know are either in poor health due to
| stress, or place an outsized emphasis on staying healthy. You
| and others who post this every time seem to be saying "Ah yes,
| you're not suffering enough in my eyes". How much suffering is
| enough? Should your degree of blood thirst be applied to
| employee actions? Are blameless retrospectives a mistake and we
| should start firing people for making mistakes?
| jonathankoren wrote:
| To paraphrase Don Draper, that's what the insane CEO and
| founder stock grant is for!
| ibejoeb wrote:
| At the same time, everyone in the startup game needs to know
| that this is a fairly likely outcome. It's just not as safe as
| being at an institution that can weather the storm.
|
| I tell potential hires explicitly that this can fail, and that
| there's a runway, and that it's uncertain. I've seen so many
| places try to sell people that it's just kicking ass all the
| way to the bank.
|
| So, when a CEO makes this kind of statement, I would refer back
| to the initial messaging before getting out my coals and rake.
| Nobody made anyone sign on to a nascent software company. It
| absolutely sucks to find yourself without income, but you've
| got to know your risk tolerance. And, by that, I mean you need
| to know how well you tolerate risk, and you need to _know_ your
| exposure. If management wasn 't forthright, well, that's really
| shitty.
| amrocha wrote:
| "Institutions that can weather the storm" like Google? Like
| Facebook? Amazon?
|
| The entire industry has had layoffs, regardless of size. In
| fact, in my experience there's plenty of startups that are
| still growing and hiring the laid off talent from the big
| institutions. Apollo was not one of those companies, but it
| doesn't seem like it being a startup had any impact.
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