[HN Gopher] Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2...
___________________________________________________________________
Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume
forecast
Author : drone
Score : 116 points
Date : 2023-01-11 20:17 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theloadstar.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theloadstar.com)
| willcipriano wrote:
| Remember when everyone cut jobs and canceled orders at the
| beginning of the pandemic and it really bit them? I'm like 49%
| sure that's going to happen again. Something funny is in the air.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Do you expect easy money to come back? Nearly all of the
| companies laying people off are the unsustainable ones.
|
| I can imagine a lot of companies struggling to hire in a few
| months. But I can't imagine they being the same ones that are
| just firing.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Google? Microsoft? Facebook?
|
| There are a lot of companies not unsustainabled, at least in
| the 10 year frame, that are laying off.
| lmm wrote:
| I think easy money is coming back. There's still a bunch of
| wealth that doesn't know anywhere to find returns, that
| hasn't changed.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| [dead]
| xienze wrote:
| It's slightly different dynamics. At the beginning of the
| pandemic, people thought the world was going to end (either in
| literal terms or just economic ones). The massive hiring came
| after people realized that life would go on.
|
| What's happening today is a result of the free money spigot
| being turned off. The layoffs and hiring freezes are going to
| be a bit more sticky.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I would agree with you, except for the fact that hiring was
| completely out of control during 2021-2022
|
| Taking Amazon for example, look at this chart:
| https://www.statista.com/chart/7581/amazons-global-workforce...
|
| Amazon's headcount literally _doubled_ from 2019 to 2021. The
| recent layoffs barely move their headcount back at all.
|
| While Amazon may be the most visible, this pattern was repeated
| across a lot of smaller companies. Even my employer was setting
| arbitrary goals to grow headcount by certain numbers last year
| and hired a lot of people with questionable qualifications in
| the process. Now they're laying people off and using it as an
| opportunity to cut their mistakes.
|
| A lot of good people are getting laid off, but I have a feeling
| that many of these layoffs are an overdue correction from
| companies that were too afraid to let anyone go in the past few
| years. Now that the hiring market has changed to give employers
| the upper hand, it's only natural for them to start wanting to
| cut underperforming employees and focus on the people doing
| most of the work.
| thwayunion wrote:
| _> Amazon 's headcount literally doubled from 2019 to 2021._
|
| Amazon's net sales literally doubled between 2019 and 2021,
| from $280MM to $470MM. The doubling of headcount is about
| what you'd expect.
|
| There was definitely irrational exuberance in hiring during
| 2021-2022. But Amazon's exuberance was far more rational than
| most of tech. Unlike all of the other FAANG++ companies,
| Amazon is and always has been a low margin and labor
| intensive business.
| WWLink wrote:
| > Now that the hiring market has changed to give employers
| the upper hand, it's only natural for them to start wanting
| to cut underperforming employees and focus on the people
| doing most of the work.
|
| That reeks of "I'm so sorry but with the tough financial
| times right now, we have to run a skeleton crew, so we won't
| be able to approve any of your PTO requests and we're
| expecting you to work long hours for the forseeable future"
|
| Then later at the earnings meeting: "We made record profits
| this quarter! The CEO is getting a giant ass bonus!"
| epa wrote:
| In this case the maritime shipping industry has a huge
| oversupply of boats (compared to last year which had a huge
| undersupply). Consumers are slowing their spending and
| retailers have a lot of inventory.
| ctvo wrote:
| > Remember when everyone cut jobs and canceled orders at the
| beginning of the pandemic and it really bit them?
|
| No. Did they have layoffs previously? I also don't remember
| anyone cancelling orders and cutting jobs at the beginning of
| the pandemic.
| willcipriano wrote:
| March 2020[0] businesses laid off millions and six months
| later were begging for workers.
|
| [0]https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2021/temporary-layoffs-
| remain-h...
| ctvo wrote:
| Sorry, I misread your original comment as it really bit
| _Flexport_ previously.
| [deleted]
| spamizbad wrote:
| I wonder if this is what drove a lot of pandemic hiring. A
| bunch of companies froze their hiring in March-April (some did
| layoffs), realized they made a mistake, and in the Summer went
| on a hiring spree.
|
| A bull-whip effect, but for employment.
| dakiol wrote:
| Perhaps I'm naive, but I think companies are doing massive
| layoffs these days because of some sort of "domino effect".
|
| There are companies out there who would love to lay off half
| their staff, but in regular times they couldn't just do it
| (because it wasn't a common thing, and makes them look "bad"...
| everyone would protest). But since nowadays every damn company is
| doing massive layoffs (and not unknown companies, but companies
| like Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc.) then they take advantage of
| the situation and proceed to do the same.
|
| > While we are looking forward to what's to come in 2023, we must
| also make hard decisions necessary to set us up for long-term
| success.
|
| This could have been said any damn year in the past, but massive
| layoffs is the latest trend, so why not.
| dpflan wrote:
| This is from earlier and seems pertinent: Why are there so many
| tech layoffs, and why should we be worried? (stanford.edu) -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34339698
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| You are naive they just want to rehire positions at lower rates
| if you see in the article they are cutting 600 but are hiring
| for 350 to 400 people. It would immediately allow them to
| replace higher wages workers that have been with the company
| with entry level positions . Also it seems like an
| identification of long term trends and they figure they want to
| invest in automation.
| dakiol wrote:
| Well, that's what I said. They are doing it not because of
| "bad times" or "recession" or "post-covid era", they are
| doing it because that's what they wanted to do from the
| beginning. They couldn't do a massive layoff in the past
| because it would get them bad rep, but nowadays, it barely is
| a thing anymore (just look at this thread: people commenting
| "well, at least the severance is nice". What the hell?
| Massive layoffs shouldn't be seen as regular news)
| hamandcheese wrote:
| The roles fired and not the same as the roles hiring, for the
| most part.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| This is literally what interest rate hikes are meant to do
| though, and everyone plays along. You hike rates, which
| switches people to saving instead of spending, since no one is
| spending companies cut costs and downsize instead of spend for
| growth and hey presto, demand collapses.
|
| In a cheap money environment you take the money and you gamble
| for growth, in an expensive money environment you do your best
| to run lean. The pain is moving between these two. The winners
| are the guys who did a raise at the peak and can use that cash
| to accelerate through the downturn, and the losers at the guys
| who _just_ didn 't quite get there, who now are forced into
| taking capital at a massively diminished valuation.
| super256 wrote:
| The FED is currently raising rates to fight inflation. One of
| the FED's main goals is slowing down demand, as policymakers
| can't control supply.
|
| So, to fight that elevated inflation they are killing demand,
| and when demand sharply drops, you can't keep paying your
| workers as before (because you sell less goods!).
|
| Moreover, companies simply got fat during the pandemic and over
| hired. I mean, there are probably also a few (lot) companies
| which do what you write, but I don't think Flexport is one of
| them. It's more likely they over hired like everyone else.
| Also, you might want to take a look at the current container
| fright prices [1]. Pretty parabolic.
|
| [1] https://fbx.freightos.com/
| themagician wrote:
| Another impact of rising rates and declining demand is
| decreased credit lines and increased costs.
|
| The world, particularly business in the US, really did get
| used to cheap borrowing for everything. Using a line of
| credit for everything or acquiring massive amounts of easy to
| service debt has been basically a standard business practice
| for the last 20 years.
|
| I am actually surprised things haven't imploded yet. So many
| companies have acquired massive debt that's going to become
| increasingly impossible to service. It feels to me like we
| are waiting for the first big domino to fall.
| rafale wrote:
| Also the market is betting the Fed will not stick to their
| forecast and will end up lowering rates in 2023.
|
| I tend to think they will stick to their guns: they will
| raise to 5+% and stay there as long as unemployment is below
| 4.5%
| whatever1 wrote:
| The AMZN logistics ceo first ruined AMZN with the over expansion
| and then took the ceo role in flexport to do exactly the same
| thing.
|
| Amazing incompetence.
| greatpostman wrote:
| These people just got into amazon early and rode the wave to
| the top. Some of them are truly talented, most were in the
| right place at the right time
| pbalau wrote:
| You are phrasing this as most of these people were simply
| lucky to be there, when the reality is that most of these
| people are the reason why Amazon is the top dog in online
| retail...
| saysAl0t wrote:
| Right place and time (era of cheap money) explains the
| majority of our so-called genius tech CEOs.
|
| A handful of ideas from info theory coupled with government
| desire to hype nation state brand does not a genius make.
|
| None of these people have established net new ideas. Just
| borrowing from Godel, Shannon, Turing, and the like.
|
| Computer networks put the visibility, routing of logistics
| within reach of the masses. But we're obliged to preserve the
| meme of aristocrats knowing best.
| pinewurst wrote:
| Not just CEOs, a lot of upper management all over. My own
| employer just hired a bunch of ex-Microsoft & Google people
| who are hardly the sharpest pencils (other than
| politically) and it seems all about the name on the resume.
| saysAl0t wrote:
| Indeed: https://hbr.org/2016/09/excess-management-is-
| costing-the-us-...
| [deleted]
| pm90 wrote:
| This is really surprising considering the number of open recs
| they post on linkedin.
| confidantlake wrote:
| It is time we stop treating recs on linkedin as evidence of
| hiring. It is just as much an advertising tool as it is a
| genuine desire to hire people.
| crote wrote:
| Wow, that's a huge surprise.
|
| I hadn't heard of Flexport before, but they seem to be focused on
| global shipping. The company I work for ships almost all of its
| products internationally, and we have seen a _massive_ price hike
| over the last 2-3 years. Some of it necessary due to rising
| costs, but we know for a fact that larger-volume customers are
| still getting lower prices. Additionally, the well-known carriers
| still offer incredibly poor service - most notably when it comes
| to tracking shipments and providing proper updates. This seems to
| be exactly the market Flexport wants to tackle.
|
| If they can't even compete in the current overheated market,
| something must be going seriously wrong at their end.
| anm89 wrote:
| The market right now is FAR from overheated. In fact maritime
| shipping is collapsing right now.
|
| https://www.drewry.co.uk/supply-chain-advisors/supply-chain-...
|
| Both volume and rates are down roughly 80% YOY.
| alsfjslkdfgj wrote:
| > down roughly 80%
|
| Meh! it is still over 18% up from before the arbitrary price
| hikes on 2020.
| crote wrote:
| Trust me, we're not seeing any of that in practice yet.
| Although that could be because we almost exclusively use air
| shipping.
| WWLink wrote:
| That the companies are so sensitive to spikes and valleys in
| the market speaks louder about how badly run the companies
| are than anything else.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| How would you better run transport/logistics company to not
| be as sensitive to spikes and valleys as a typical current
| transport/logistics company?
| coolbreezetft22 wrote:
| I interviewed for a software engineering position here literally
| just yesterday.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Reading the letter, it looks like the departing folks are being
| offered good severance. That makes me happy to see. I've been
| through rounds of layoffs myself. It never feels good, but how
| the company treats you if your number is called makes for a
| lasting impression.
| epivosism wrote:
| Many people seem surprised that an organization would
| simultaneously hire and fire. I think that's normal.
|
| At the end of every season, the Yankees fire some players and
| hire others.
|
| Old cells in organisms die or are killed, while new ones are
| born.
|
| Soldiers going on missions may put down the equipment from the
| prior mission, and pick up new equipment.
|
| The argument "the organization is behaving selfishly, they should
| just repurposing the existing organization member" is inane since
| the function of members of an organization depends on the
| member's specialty, role, purpose, and an organization's purpose
| can change over time.
|
| It's really strange people act like this is some killer argument
| when in fact nearly every organization with multiple entities
| does something analogous (grow in some ways, shrink in others, at
| the same time)
| paxys wrote:
| I have been badgered by their recruiters multiple times a week
| through the last 2-3 years. No doubt they grossly overhired
| during that period.
| anm89 wrote:
| People in this thread seem to be expressing confusion as to why
| they would be doing this "when the economy is still so strong"
|
| The economy is not "still strong" by most measures. Employment is
| still strong although there are lot's of arguments to be made
| that when you dig beneath the surface things are much less rosy.
| But it get's way worse when you look past employment.
|
| Both volume and rates on maritime container shipping are down
| roughly 80% YOY. https://www.drewry.co.uk/supply-chain-
| advisors/supply-chain-...
|
| PMIs are falling off of a cliff
| https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/manufacturing-pmi
|
| S&p Earnings are in steep decline off the peak
| https://www.macrotrends.net/1324/s-p-500-earnings-history
|
| Consumer revolving credit is extremely high while the savings
| rate has fallen off of a cliff since the pandemic peak
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/REVOLSL
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT
|
| Housing volume has fallen off of a cliff, auto wholesale has
| fallen off a cliff, Major Metro Commercial real estate volume has
| fallen off a cliff while REITs are suspending withdraws.
|
| All of this while tax receipts are about to drop off of a cliff
| while US debt to GDP and deficit to GDP are essentially at
| historic highs while the rollover rate on that debt is constantly
| increasing.
|
| And then realize that the US is in a drastically better position
| than China, Europe and Japan
|
| It seems like some of the HN crowd is very out of touch with the
| realities of the economic data.
| msoad wrote:
| I don't know what Flexport is, all I know is that it was the only
| jobs ad in Hacker News for a long time
| mattigames wrote:
| At some point I wondered if flexport had bought hacker news or
| something like that to be seeing their ads so frequently.
| jacquesm wrote:
| No, Pachyderm bought HN.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Funny, it's one of these companies that screams "we are
| hiring!" everywhere but looking at their Linkedin employee
| growth it's basically flat for more than a year.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| As yc company I believe you get certain number of these posts
| for free. I think they were just one of the very few who was
| still using them
| alismayilov wrote:
| Same here. When I saw the company name, I remember that I was
| seeing job ads from this company on HN for a long time.
| ProAm wrote:
| This is the guy that got famous during the pandemic for
| suggesting ports stack containers 3 or 4 levels high vs the
| standard of 2 [1] [2] Turns out 2 is just fine.
|
| [G] https://www.npr.org/2021/11/03/1051773672/a-look-at-whats-
| ca...
|
| [H] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28957379
| nickff wrote:
| Where did you get the impression that two is fine? I am
| somewhat familiar with the issue, and looked at both of your
| links, but still don't understand. Where I live, they stack
| containers six high.
| ProAm wrote:
| > Where did you get the impression that two is fine?
|
| That part was a joke because of Flexport's layoffs due to
| lack of volume. The stacking is probably a separate topic
| compared to the success of his business, but was just
| stating why his name and company are familiar on HN.
|
| I personally believe they should stack them vertically vs
| horizontal stacking to save space so they are always
| accessible vs 2-3-4 high. (also a joke)
| bkor wrote:
| I still don't get the bit where you say 2 high is
| standard. It's not. Though US port infrastructure is
| special, it's very outdated/inefficient compared to
| pretty much the rest of the world.
| ProAm wrote:
| It's from the article last time this came around [1] "For
| instance, Petersen says, local zoning rules prevented the
| owner of truck yards in Long Beach from storing
| containers more than two high"
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/11/03/1051773672/a-look-at-
| whats-ca...
| baumy wrote:
| I have a message from them in my linkedin inbox from January
| 3rd (8 days ago) telling me about exciting opportunities there.
|
| > You'd be joining at an exciting time, Flexport is in a hyper-
| growth stage
| bityard wrote:
| Can you imagine the backlash they would get from both inside
| and outside the company if they started pulling job recs
| before publicly announcing the downsizing?
|
| See also: insider trading
| stefan_ wrote:
| Huh? Most companies in the world realize they can not
| afford permanently recruiting 10% of their headcount long
| before they need to layoff anyone.
| baumy wrote:
| Fully agreed, it just shows what people should already know
| - the only folks who know a layoff is coming in advance are
| C suite and VPs, maybe a few others. And they will lie
| through their teeth about it right up until the moment it
| happens. I'm sure the recruiter who sent that message had
| no idea this was coming, and is just doing his job.
|
| The rest of us have to read the tea leaves. But for every
| company that lays people off, you'll find employees
| swearing up and down that the business is healthy, layoffs
| aren't happening, and they know this because execs assured
| them for the third time just yesterday that there's no
| plans for layoffs.
| [deleted]
| akavi wrote:
| YC-funded freight forwarding company. Basic thesis is by using
| tech, you can dramatically lower the labor costs of forwarding,
| and since freight forwarding has huge returns to scale, the
| benefits compound. They raised 2 G$ from 2019-2022, and their
| CEO used that warchest to expand counter-cyclically through the
| pandemic. TBD if either of the two theses pan out.
|
| Freight forwarding itself is the industry of coordinating the
| logistics of freight shipment, ie subcontracting with physical
| movers of goods (ocean carriers/railroads/trucking companies)
| and dealing with customs/legal requirements involved in the
| movement of goods
|
| (Disclaimer: former FP employee and current shareholder)
| bambax wrote:
| > _Basic thesis is by using tech, you can dramatically lower
| the labor costs of forwarding, and since freight forwarding
| has huge returns to scale, the benefits compound_
|
| Is this remotely true though? Aren't the main costs of
| forwarding simply fuel?
|
| At some point I was importing goods from China (really small
| volume though) and I did ask them for a quote, and they were
| twice the price what the Chinese factory could get me from
| their own forwarder.
| akavi wrote:
| Freight forwarders merely subcontract to the underlying
| carriers, who, theoretically, are pretty commoditized. In
| this model, the differentiating costs for a freight
| forwarder is in the labor required to organize the various
| subcontracts, which is what Flexport attempts to drive down
| via tech.
|
| That said, I can't really vouch for the soundness of this
| argument one way or another. It's been a long time since I
| worked there, and my primary interest when I did was more
| in understanding the industry at a conceptual level than in
| litigating the viability of the business model.
| kyllo wrote:
| Yes, a freight forwarder is sort of like a travel agent
| for freight--it's a middleperson role, in contrast to
| carriers, which are "asset-based" and operate
| vessels/planes/trucks.
|
| Another significant cost factor for a freight forwarder
| is IT integrations with customers and carriers--many of
| which are very old-school and use EDI, SOAP, or even CSV-
| over-FTP to communicate shipment instructions and
| statuses.
|
| I'm not sure to what extent Flexport implements these
| kinds of integrations with their partners, but there is
| definitely a significant hurdle to breaking even on
| investment in this kind of automation vs. just hiring
| clerks to process everything manually with e-mails and
| phone calls, especially in countries with lower labor
| costs.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| Not who you responded to, but I've listened to a number of
| interviews from the former CEO (highly recommend the Odd
| Lots podcast for his interviews and many other supply chain
| related conversations). A couple concepts, some details may
| be a bit off and I'm very open to correction.
|
| There is a lot of administrative cost. IIRC, you might have
| something like 1 dispatcher for every 50 drivers. You have
| other people giving quotes via phone, decently high
| turnover for truck drivers, slow loading warehouses that
| cause a cascading effect when the driver can't complete all
| the stops planned for the day, and a strict limit on hours
| worked for truckers.
|
| Some of the pandemic port congestion was truckers arriving
| at a port to pick up a particular load, but that load
| wasn't ready right then. Flexport has an app which
| basically let drivers on their platform arrive at a port,
| grab any container that's part of their platform, and take
| that to the destination. This prevented countless hours of
| idle trucks in ports.
| bambax wrote:
| There was an article I think on HN a couple of days ago,
| wondering why Uber and Lyft still couldn't turn a profit
| after all these years, while cab companies are still
| around and thriving, and wondering where all the money
| went.
|
| Isn't it possible that tech simply overpromised, and that
| a couple of guys here and there smoking, typing numbers
| in spreadsheets on old computers, yelling over the phone
| and writing things down on post-it notes are simply
| cheaper and just as "efficient" as an army of AWS EC2
| instances spilling out logs on S3 under the supervision
| of highly-paid engineers and dev op guys?
| makestuff wrote:
| My roommate worked at a freight forwarder, but from what he
| told me, the entire thing is a mess of excel spreadsheets
| and highly inefficient.
|
| I think the pitch of flexport is what if we modernize the
| technology and make it more efficient by reducing or
| removing the need of all of these people managing the
| forwarding via excel.
| kyllo wrote:
| I think part of the problem with that pitch is that the
| cost of an IT integration in this industry could pay for
| a _lot_ of people in Asia to manage a forwarding
| operation in Excel. Ocean carriers don 't have like,
| APIs. It's all custom integrations with EDI, SOAP, or
| CSV-over-FTP and you have to have a lot of tedious
| meetings with them to figure out how to map out and
| interpret the data they can send and receive.
| iab wrote:
| They raised two gillion??
| fallingknife wrote:
| G$ - > gigadollar. Not exactly standard, but I like it.
| slt2021 wrote:
| is 1 Gigadollar = 2^10 Megadollars?
|
| or did op mean Gigidollars = mere 1e3 Mebidollars ?
| [deleted]
| winphone1974 wrote:
| I prefer gigabucks, but tomato, tomatto
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Two googols
| akavi wrote:
| G => SI prefix for 10^9
| trimbo wrote:
| "2 Gs", in the US at least, means "two thousand" (G as in
| Grand)
| ghaff wrote:
| I wouldn't immediately parse that abbreviation in the US
| --but if I did I'd parse it as G being shorthand for
| grand. More commonly 2Gs would be used for 2x the normal
| force of gravity--i.e. you weigh twice as much.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > More commonly 2Gs would be used for 2x the normal force
| of gravity--i.e. you weigh twice as much.
|
| That's a lower case g.
| Oxidation wrote:
| Also G (uppercase) doesn't have units that result in G$
| being a plausible quantity even if you could combine
| number-unit quantities and use like a unit like that
| (which you can't for this exact reason): dollar-cubic
| metres per kilo per second per second.
|
| It's also _rather_ small.
| ghaff wrote:
| As with many things I never expect others to be
| respecting arbitrary style guides when they write
| something. (Same reason I wouldn't use semi-weekly or
| biweekly.)
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The guy went to the trouble of adhering to the guide,
| appending the unity at the correct place, and
| contextualizing it so it's clear.
|
| It's everybody here that is getting out of their way to
| avoid understanding the number.
| wongarsu wrote:
| And in many places M stands for thousand, from Latin
| "mille" (as well as the Roman numeral). That doesn't keep
| people from counting in kilo-, mega- and gigadollars.
| Still less confusing than dealing with short vs long
| scale numbers in translation.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Which is why you see millions of dollars often
| abbreviated as $5MM, to avoid the confusion with single
| M.
| winphone1974 wrote:
| So 2 gigabucks, gotcha!
| secondcoming wrote:
| 2 Gigadollars.
|
| For wages that's 1000^3, for taxes it's 1024^3.
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| $2.4 billion - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/flex
| port/company_fin....
| moneywoes wrote:
| Is there room for more innovation in the space, thoughts?
| happytiger wrote:
| Definitely. Once you start moving containers you realize
| how crazy the system can get. There's lot of room to
| improve the current systems.
| amalgamated_inc wrote:
| I think it's that guy typesfast?
| [deleted]
| Patrol8394 wrote:
| Totally! I was literally spammed by FP recruiters .. hyper
| growth, hyper growth ... and now you see it ... give me a
| break!
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Why do so many startups use this stupid language? It sounds
| like a crypto scam.
|
| Quick! Don't think! Get in on the ground floor so you won't
| be left behind when we go to the moon and you can become a
| bazillionaire!
| [deleted]
| jasode wrote:
| _> I don't know what Flexport is_
|
| Don't know the exact origin of the name but maybe an easy way
| to remember it is "FLEXible transPORT".
|
| To massively oversimplify it for the sake of being short:
|
| - ship a small package within the same country --> UPS/FedEx
|
| - ship a large heavy package (e.g. forklift pallet) within the
| same country --> freight trucking company
|
| - send a shipping container from one country to another that
| requires a ton of complicated government paperwork for export &
| import, pass customs inspection, pay duty fees, and involves
| coordinating ocean carriers, railroads, air freight, docks, etc
| --> a freight forwarding logistics service like FlexPort.
|
| E.g. you invented a new electric scooter and had a factory in
| China manufacture a thousand of them. Now you have to ship
| those 1000 scooters from the factory to a warehouse in USA.
| That's the business FlexPort is in. FlexPort itself doesn't own
| any ships or railroads. It is a coordinator (acts as agent) for
| various transport companies.
| blacklight wrote:
| -
| brianwawok wrote:
| Only a 4 minute uncertainty window seems ok to me?
|
| If you were CEO how would you lay off 20% of your company?
| blacklight wrote:
| Probably I wouldn't lay off 20% of my staff at all, unless I
| was really sailing in stormy waters with no way out. And
| Flexport isn't: there's been a slight dip in global supply
| chains caused by the uncertainty in China, but nothing so
| dramatic nor permanent that you should run and fire 1/5 of
| your staff - you only do that if something happens like China
| attacking Taiwan, and you know that for years to come trade
| won't be the same. It sounds to me like another Silicon
| Valley company laying off large chunks of their staff because
| everyone else is doing so:
| https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-
| la.... Or maybe because VC funds are suddenly draining for
| everyone?
|
| And,if I really had to lay off so many people, I'd take a
| more personal approach. Invite the whole company for a
| virtual or physical meeting where I explain why I have to do
| that, why I have no alternatives, and communicate the
| decisions to the managers, so people can be let go after
| talking to a human. Not after getting an email out of the
| blue in their box, in the middle of a working day. This has
| been impersonal and faceless on so many levels.
| brianwawok wrote:
| The "I would never do X" is a classic response of someone
| who hasn't had to be there and do that. I suspect if you
| ever make it to that position, you will reach a point where
| you either have to do a big layoff - or your company will
| fold. So it's rather likely that you will fold, and no
| longer be a CEO.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| If you think any of the companies that have done big
| layoffs needed to do so in order to survive I don't think
| you are paying attention to their fundamentals.
| anm89 wrote:
| Funny how 99% of message board participants are sure they
| would never do layoffs but 99% of CEOs actually do them
| abadger9 wrote:
| This is one company i've always wanted to work for- my mother is
| a CTO of a company in the same space/different aspect of the
| pipeline so I knew this company was going to do well when it
| entered the YC batch, but I've never even received a screening
| interview. Hope i can apply once the economy recovers
| sremani wrote:
| >> It is also hiring some 350 to 400 engineering and software
| staff, as it focuses on efficiency and technology.
|
| Is it safe to say the Global Trade is down but there is still
| demand (for now) for tech efficiencies.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| So far, it is still a good time to be a software engineer.
| 72f988bf wrote:
| The original source seems to be posted at
| https://www.flexport.com/blog/flexport-co-ceos-note-to-emplo...
| CityOfThrowaway wrote:
| Interesting that they say:
|
| > At Flexport, 2023 is going to bring extraordinary velocity -
| we are in the process of doubling our software engineering
| talent and moving to single threaded business organizations to
| build world class products faster, and we will continue to
| invest in delivering best-in-class operational execution for
| our customers.
|
| Looks like they are laying off non-tech workers who they have
| made (or will make) obsolete through automation
| globalise83 wrote:
| moving to single threaded business organizations
|
| What does that even mean? They are only able to do one thing
| at a time? Doesn't sound like a recipe for business success
| to me...
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| "They are only able to do one thing at a time?"
|
| To be fair, many new businesses cannot do one thing at a
| time, so maybe singular focus is a good thing at this
| stage...
| wheelinsupial wrote:
| "A single-threaded leader is a leader who is 100% dedicated
| and accountable to a specific product, such as your mobile
| application, customer account, or the search capability in
| your e-commerce store. The single-threaded leader is
| responsible for turning strategy into real results, and
| they are empowered to do so."
|
| https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/enterprise-strategy/two-
| pizza-t...
| panda88888 wrote:
| Probably removing redundancy in the business flow process
| path?
| paxys wrote:
| Narrowing focus is often a good thing for companies.
| makestuff wrote:
| Dave clark brought this from Amazon. At Amazon they call it
| "STLs" or single threaded leadership. Basically you assign
| one director/vp/etc. to the business, and they are
| responsible for PnL/success.
|
| It isn't that you do one thing at a time as an entire
| company, but your org is focused on one thing. For example,
| maybe there is a director who runs an org in charge of
| international freight forwarding.
|
| I'm not really sure how things are organized at other large
| companies as Amazon was my only experience into mega corp
| work.
| grey-area wrote:
| A global recession is coming against a backdrop of the Fed
| raising rates, that is going to be very painful. A lot of people
| here don't seem to realise this is the case or are in denial.
| This is a bubble bursting, this is serious.
|
| Lots of companies are laying off workers or at least freezing
| hiring because they anticipate earnings cratering, or are already
| seeing it happen. They haven't reported on it yet, but they will
| in the coming months. The layoffs will continue to gather pace,
| as will bankruptcies.
| calr wrote:
| In my mind, Flexport is part of the "real" economy of moving
| atoms. They don't fall into the more fluffy "we are a startup
| that helps other startups start-up". I wonder if this is an early
| sign for a rough recession that spills outside of the current VC-
| backed tech slowdown.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I'm not sure it's that strong a signal, the covid effect on
| shipping meant that there was a huge backlog of stuff to ship
| which of course got worked through eventually. But yes one
| should expect an actual recession outside just shrinking the
| tech bubble.
| cj wrote:
| This article quotes the letter sent to employees, which is
| published here:
|
| https://www.flexport.com/blog/flexport-co-ceos-note-to-emplo...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-01-11 23:00 UTC)