[HN Gopher] Changes at YC
___________________________________________________________________
Changes at YC
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 278 points
Date : 2023-03-13 20:42 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ycombinator.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ycombinator.com)
| ftxbro wrote:
| > Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today.
|
| guys maybe they were impacted in a good way tho?
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| no, they meant the way when a car impacts a wall, or when stool
| gets impacted in a colon
| tropicaljacket wrote:
| Maybe your question is a joke but I assume "impacted" means
| laid off in this context.
|
| Kind of like when people say someone "passed away" to mean they
| died
| karamanolev wrote:
| Can we please just use "fired", "let go" or even "we
| separated with"? Impacted is just soft wording taken to a
| comedic level.
| smugma wrote:
| Fired implies with cause. In the US, it would be "laid off"
| and in the UK it's often "made redundant", which is itself
| more ambiguous than need be.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| "As of today, we are no longer buying labor from 17 people
| we previously bought labor from".
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| Whoosh.
| Ekaros wrote:
| So where is the bailout for these impacted people? Wasn't it just
| recently that YC posted a plea to bailout so that people wouldn't
| be fired? And then they don't do one themselves?
| ethanbond wrote:
| I'm not necessarily pro-bailout but there's a clear distinction
| between job losses due to money trapped in a failed institution
| versus job losses due to a business deciding to eliminate those
| jobs.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| You mean like a fund where corps like YC pay into on the
| regular and then people who are laid off get back some of their
| salary for a portion of time? It would be like insurance but
| for being unemployed, just like we have insurance for your bank
| failing.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > Wasn't it just recently that YC posted a plea to bailout so
| that people wouldn't be fired?
|
| No, that never happened where did you see that?
|
| > So where is the bailout for these impacted people?
|
| Unemployment exists and I'd bet a lot they got severance pay.
| djyaz1200 wrote:
| I'd be very interested in the specifics of how and why late stage
| investing is so different that the success of YC in early stages
| doesn't translate.
| PKop wrote:
| Prices were higher, and upside was lower.
| lchengify wrote:
| Not privy to special information w.r.t. this change, but I can
| think of a few:
|
| 1. Breaking focus / competing on multiple fronts. Lots of firms
| specialize in A-stage or later. By investing in seed and later
| rather than just seed, the later stage firms see you as a
| "competitor" for, rather than a "supplier" of, early stage
| startups. You have that many more competitive relationships
| rather than cooperative ones.
|
| 2. LP fundraising. LPs have to make choices as to who to fund,
| especially in this economy. Later stage vetting, returns, etc
| are different than early stage. May not be worth the heavy lift
| of competing for LPs.
|
| 3. Specialization. Once you get into later stages, you get
| firms that specialize by industry vertical. Not just business
| (marketplace, fintech, hardware) but even within software
| (SaaS, dev tools, consumer, enterprise, etc). Might make it
| harder to make deals. You now have a multi-front problem where
| each potential counter-bidder for the deal lead has hyper
| specialization to the startup, whereas YC is a generalist by
| nature.
|
| 4. Competition for deal terms. Most of the time, the deal lead
| sets the terms. If you can't aggressively bid to lead deals,
| they may not get the best economy for each of the deals since
| the lead may have other priorities. This may produce less
| optimal returns vs just putting more money into seed.
|
| 5. Partner / investor preference. VCs compete for partners /
| investors. If partners in the late stage at YC are limited to
| only YC companies vs the whole late-stage market (or have other
| limitations), it may not work for them vs going to a firm with
| less terms.
|
| Ultimately as a generalist investor, pre-seed/seed/A-and-later
| are very different markets. With interest rates this high and
| everyone being more picky, it becomes harder to outperform
| unless you can operate in that market independently. I suspect
| YC looked at a model for their returns and came to this
| conclusion.
| anyfactor wrote:
| I just realized w.r.t means "with respect to".
|
| Heck this just happened a few days ago, I recieved an email
| with that lingo followed by a keyword. I opened a fricking
| ticket for it, asking if we have any information on that
| "w.r.t. <word>".
| bsuvc wrote:
| Well, for one, I imagine the "network" provided by YC is less
| valuable to late stage companies than it is to early stage, so
| YC probably found they were not able to bring as much value.
|
| Second, the amount of capital needed to invest in later stages
| is much higher, and with companies delaying IPO, they would be
| tying up capital for much longer than they probably expected
| originally.
|
| I have no insight into YC, this is just my guess as to how it
| is different.
| illiarian wrote:
| All of Y Combinator startups try follow the same playbook:
| successfull exit, or successful IPO. YCombinator benefits from
| both.
|
| Since most YCombinator startups never see any profit, late
| stage investment becomes a risky proposition since even "top
| YCombinator startups" lose billions of dollars a year, for
| years, with no path to profitability or recouping investments.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I am not VC but I think this is kinda apparent from the get go.
|
| In early stage you are betting on and nurturing a small team
| with a full-of-hope business plan. They need relatively small
| bits of help that can go a along way. So both "who you are
| chosing among" and "how you are helping them" is very specific.
|
| With bigger companies, the team and the business plan is more
| proven and they need help navigating size and scaling their
| offering - a very different set of people you are chosing from
| and what they need from you.
|
| I am sure there's a lot of additional nuance.
| roflyear wrote:
| If it is, bad look for YC: obviously they did not think it
| was apparent, and they should be the experts.
| cm2012 wrote:
| YC took a risk with a new division and then closed it when
| it didn't work. That's not a "bad look" at all.
| roflyear wrote:
| It's a bad look if it's "obviously why it didn't work"
| xyzelement wrote:
| To be clear, my grandparent post is about how the two
| domains are obviously different. That's not the same as
| "obviously wouldn't work out"
| ip26 wrote:
| If you fail to do something hard, it's easy to guess why;
| it was hard. But that doesn't impute it was foolish to
| try.
| xyzelement wrote:
| These are two separate topics.
|
| The things are obviously different. Why YC thought they
| might be synergic and where that went wrong is a separate
| question. I have no idea.
| rosywoozlechan wrote:
| > bad look for YC
|
| I guess don't apply to them for seed funding for your next
| big idea if you don't like the way it makes them look.
| roflyear wrote:
| I wouldn't! They take too much of an ownership %.
| cm2012 wrote:
| Id guess that YC has a much greater competitive moat in the
| former. It's much "easier" to do late stage investing - a few
| big transactions instead of many many small ones, and
| everyone's working with the same information.
|
| Very few places have the infrastructure to deal with large
| volumes of start-ups + a lead flow of small companies trying to
| join YC, so there's no acquisition costs. Add to that, YC's
| experience with small start-ups compounds - they can probably
| predict start-up success way better than competitors at this
| point. That's almost certainly not true for late stage
| investing.
| danvoell wrote:
| I would think having seed stage investments would offer
| additional late stage moat. My first thought was that the
| current down round later stage environment is squeezing a ton
| of common equity founders/execs. Its tough to be both founder
| friendly and investing at later stage prices that leave many
| startup execs low in equity/motivation.
| rosywoozlechan wrote:
| > is so different that the success of YC in early stages
| doesn't translate
|
| that's not a claim made in the article. It just said the late
| state was different enough to be a distraction from their core
| mission of being an early stage investor. A company with just
| an idea and 2 founders and nothing more is obviously very
| different from a company with many employees, a revenue stream
| and a long list of customers. It should be obvious how
| different that is.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| It costs a lot more to invest in a late stage startup than an
| early stage one.
|
| In the current economic climate they probably can't afford (or
| just don't want to risk) to invest large sums, while on the
| contrary can "take advantage" of early stage startups which
| will struggle more to get funding.
| fgimenez wrote:
| My pithy observation - Early stage investors are fantastic at
| extrapolating from minimal data points. Late stage investors
| are fantastic at extrapolating from many noisy data points.
| They screw up because the methods for each of their
| extrapolation functions are entirely different, so much so that
| they manifest as cultural differences in investment firms.
| berkle4455 wrote:
| > how and why late stage investing is so different
|
| It requires due diligence and knowing how to invest instead of
| throwing darts and celebrating the occasional bullseye as proof
| of your acumen.
| uptownfunk wrote:
| More upside on the table if you get in early. It's probably
| just not an efficient use of their time since the returns from
| gettin in early are so outsized.
| richardw wrote:
| They have the absolute advantage in early stage, from marketing
| to skills and focus. Surely everyone thinks YC first. Not true
| in late stage.
|
| Focus. Much easier to have the entire company focused on one
| thing.
|
| Specialisation of labour. Become experts, make sure nobody
| catches you.
|
| When you start diluting your goal you trade off focus and
| specialisation, potentially reducing your advantages.
|
| Now I'm wondering how to apply that to myself. The answer seems
| obvious but I like being a generalist.
| erickhill wrote:
| 187 comments almost entirely focused on language usage, and at
| best two to three words.
|
| Fascinating.
| ptero wrote:
| Clarity and technical honesty are very important in technical
| work; especially so in a startup: you want people to focus on
| solving technical issues, not translating corporatese to human.
|
| Plus, if a group tries to hide behind the wording for an
| inconvenient message what else would it sweep under the rug? YC
| is usually _way_ better than this, which may be the reason
| there is so much attention to the wording which reads like the
| standard PR spin. My 2c.
| aikinai wrote:
| Probably because there's not much new in the layoff story that
| hasn't been covered in tens of thousands of comments on
| previous layoffs. But this is the first time a lot of people
| have had an outlet to discuss the frustrating linguistic
| phenomena that have been on display this cycle.
| hmoodie wrote:
| not only that but it's the exact same top-comment subthread
| that appears at the top of literally every story involving
| corporate comms. I wonder if it's the same people every time or
| if there's a constant influx of new commenters who feel
| strongly about corpspeak.
| siva7 wrote:
| This thread has to be best description of nerds i've seen
| nappy-doo wrote:
| Yours too
| kerblang wrote:
| Sticks and bones may break my bones, but words can divert me
| into hours and hours of endless hairsplitting and bickering
| until I die of being bored with myself and doctors gather and
| marvel at the inexplicable fact that I am still complaining in
| the absence of a discernible pulse
| tempaccount420 wrote:
| In an already difficult economic climate, it's heartbreaking to
| hear that these individuals will be impacted by this change in
| strategy. I hope that YC will do their best to support these team
| members during this transition.
| mehlmao wrote:
| Man, YC cared so much about protecting jobs two days ago when
| they were begging for a bailout. What happened?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Would YC be willing to share more about the effectiveness of the
| Continuity Fund? A post mortem would be welcomed and valuable
| imho.
| npalli wrote:
| In case you are wondering, that is about 20% of the staff.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/13/y-combinator-cuts-nearly-2...
| eimrine wrote:
| That's great (from my sofa's PoV)! If your mission is to fund
| youngsters and we know the story about that bank from the Silicon
| valley so this is the best way to save some resources.
| lucb1e wrote:
| The change that the title hints at:
|
| > we're going to decrease the amount of late stage investing we
| do
|
| Which allows letting go of 17 employees involved with that, which
| is 20% of employees. EOF (and that was already more info than the
| article contained)
| bobobob420 wrote:
| can those employees not be staffed to other projects? surely
| the skillsets are reusable. Something is very fishy about this
| and the timing.
| lucb1e wrote:
| No no, clearly it is just a coincidence that lay-offs are
| happening everywhere at the same time. YC must have made a
| fully independent assessment and decided based on
| spreadsheets and algorithms that this is the correct business
| strategy by using past data and developing predictive
| metrics. Just looking which business unit to cut loose based
| on cost reductions cannot have been a part of this process.
| distantsounds wrote:
| just mere days after SVB crashes and burns, wonder how much pg
| had tied up there.
| Finbarr wrote:
| The YC Continuity team did amazing work helping me and many other
| later stage founders. I'm sad to read this news.
|
| YC is best known for their early stage investing. But Ali, Anu
| and the team created some excellent programs for later stage
| companies as well. Shogun benefited from the Series A program,
| Scaling from A to B program, and the YC Growth program. I wonder
| what's happening with all of those initiatives.
|
| Through these programs and the direct support and mentorship from
| the Continuity team, we learned a ton and significantly scaled
| our startup.
|
| Wishing all of the affected team all the best.
| garry wrote:
| Thanks Finbarr. The group partners and MD's and I know these
| are important and valuable programs, and there is a lot more we
| need to be doing for alumni and the experience after companies
| do YC.
|
| I don't have more to share now, but know that I really value
| you and this note.
| roflyear wrote:
| How much $ does YC make per employee?
| i_love_cookies wrote:
| [dead]
| pwmanagerdied wrote:
| [dead]
| auggierose wrote:
| I am wondering if "impacted" is used because really lots of
| different things have happened to these 17 team mates. Or if
| "impacted" = "fired", and "team mates" = "ex-employees".
| MattGaiser wrote:
| That is the point of writing it that way. So you have to do the
| mental work yourself of translating "impacted" to "fired."
| O__________O wrote:
| Does this also mean YC is killing off their YC Continuity
| Programs:
|
| >> Series A Program: Help founders achieve the best possible
| outcome when raising a Series A via year-round workshops,
| fundraising guides and 1:1 support.
|
| >> Post-A Program: Batches for YC startups immediately after
| their Series A to share best practices for growth: managing a
| board, building a team, key metrics for a Series B and more.
|
| >> YC Growth Program: Graduate school for startups. We bring
| together cohorts of CEOs of rapidly growing YC companies to focus
| on the challenges of company building: the changing role of a CEO
| at scale, setting strategies and success metrics for the
| organization, hiring and managing great leaders, and more.
|
| Source:
|
| - https://web.archive.org/web/20220812233728/https://www.ycomb...
|
| _____
|
| EDIT: Related comment from Garry on the topic:
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35143443
| gingerrr wrote:
| Yes https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35142261
| O__________O wrote:
| Not seeing anything related to the programs I referenced, am
| I missing something?
| gingerrr wrote:
| Sorry - the link in that thread is to a tweet, not the
| article the tweet links, which is what I wanted to link -
| that article indicates the partners leading the fund (and
| program) left YC.
|
| Also, the continuity program page (provided info for all 3
| programs) is completely gone:
| https://www.ycombinator.com/continuity
|
| I haven't heard specifics about those programs but with the
| partners leading gone it seems difficult to imagine them
| continuing - fair point though, no solid news.
| O__________O wrote:
| Already linked to a source that shows the references to
| the programs are gone in my original comment; though that
| page is still there.
|
| Also, might be wrong, but "theinformation.com" as a
| source is insta ban as a result of it being a "hard
| walled" content; hard walled meaning it's not possible to
| access the content via alternative means. If you have a
| source that's not blocked, feel free to provide it,
| otherwise just see this as promoting a source that's ban
| on HN.
|
| Here's all the dead submissions, though you likely have
| to have "show dead" turned on from your profile settings:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=theinformation.com
| gingerrr wrote:
| Oof, I don't lurk here during work nearly as much as I
| used to - missed the memo about it being a banned source,
| do you have a link for that? In the past that source has
| unpaywalled articles specifically _for_ HN readers so I
| 'm saddened (but not really surprised) they decided to go
| for the full cashgrab.
|
| Not really sure what you want here - the evidence of
| those programs being affiliated with YC has been scrubbed
| from the public web, do you not believe in Occam's Razor
| or are you waiting to find a quote delivered straight
| from Garry Tan's mouth on the question before you accept
| the likely conclusion from all evidence?
|
| edit: either way, I don't have a second source - that
| article from theinformation is the only active story I've
| found that specifically names the partners leaving.
| O__________O wrote:
| HN rarely comments on bans, though almost 60 submissions
| have been posted in past 30-days and every single one is
| dead.
|
| Here's a comment from dang, the only official HN mod,
| related to "hardwalled" submissions:
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35074950
| gingerrr wrote:
| Oh, got it! Thank you for scrounging that up I was
| specifically looking for mention of that site, no wonder
| I didn't find it. Makes a ton of sense in general and
| it's lame we no longer get a special exception to their
| wall.
| O__________O wrote:
| Related comment from Garry:
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35143443
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| Probably, or at least scaled back?
| earlystagethrow wrote:
| [dead]
| blobbers wrote:
| Can YC post some info on their fund that they're winding down?
| Would be nice to put that out in the public.
|
| Any YC team members care to comment?
| tabbott wrote:
| I wish there were some publicly available numbers to analyze
| here, but it seems likely that YC's late stage funds have lost a
| lot of money (on paper) doing late-stage investments at sky-high
| valuations over the years leading up to 2022 that are now down
| significantly as a result of the current startup downturn.
|
| Folks who are thinking about these YC changes as a layoff are
| missing the point -- YC is exiting what had been a major part of
| their business (especially if measured by total dollars
| invested).
|
| And from the outside it seems likely that the reason for the
| layoff is probably less that YC is in troubled financial
| straights and needs to cut costs on its operations, but because
| their late-stage investing business was losing money and YC has
| decided to give up on it and no longer has work for specialists
| in that work.
| swyx wrote:
| and yet Anu Hariharan and Ali Rowghani seem to be leaving to
| start a new fund. no failures in VC, just pre-success :)
| breck wrote:
| I like it. Double down on what people love about YC--getting more
| people to become entrepreneurs.
|
| The later stages there's plenty of YC companies out there that
| can help (WeFunder, Mercury, Brex, Clerky, Stripe, LSTE, etc).
| pastabol wrote:
| "Farisa will arrive." --spray painted at Y Combinator
| headquarters by a just-now ex-employee, 13 marzo 2023.
| zac23or wrote:
| Changes? They are layoffs. This PR language is irritating.
| voz_ wrote:
| > Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today.
|
| Never allow corporations to speak in passive, weak, blameless
| terms.
|
| Use direct, honest, language, and force them to do the same.
|
| "Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today." - > "We laid off
| 17 employees today"
|
| "I was impacted by layoffs" -> "Google laid me off" etc
| Kerrick wrote:
| Maybe they weren't fired? The way the post was worded has me
| wondering if they'll be retrained and have their roles changed
| to fit YC's new needs.
| justinator wrote:
| Exactly the point - passive, weak, blameless terms makes it
| nebulous on what has happened. Just say you want you need to
| say - you're the captain of the ship.
| [deleted]
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Oh c'mon, there's no way this is it. If they hadn't been laid
| off there wouldn't be an external announcement. You don't
| post something like this merely to announce that you're
| retraining some employees.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| They wouldn't announce it if that were the case. I am curious
| whether it would have been announced at all without all the
| heightened economic fear.
| naet wrote:
| They were 100% laid off. The wording is intentional and
| standard for the industry.
|
| You aren't "impacted" by changing roles or retraining, you're
| impacted by losing your job.
|
| "we want to acknowledge and express our appreciation for
| their substantial contributions" translates to "these people
| will no longer be contributing as they are laid off effective
| immediately".
| beebmam wrote:
| It is important to keep in mind that the companies are the
| ones doing the impacting. They don't have to lay people
| off, they're choosing to.
| lcw wrote:
| I think this is just a matter of opinion. When something severe
| happens it's natural to not use the most harsh term to describe
| the event. It doesn't seems like something malicious.
|
| When describing a death many people will say "they are no
| longer with us" instead of describing the circumstance of
| death. When talking about traumatic events we as a society have
| a natural propensity to not use triggering words. There is
| nothing intrinsically wrong with that unless it's hiding
| information. As described above no one is hiding anything
| because we all understand what happened.
| johnfn wrote:
| Perhaps you could argue over the use of "impacted", but the
| use of passive voice is pretty objective. "We impacted 17
| roles today" or perhaps "I impacted 17 roles today" is, well,
| it's still pretty bad, but at least it takes some
| responsibility.
| lcw wrote:
| I agree with you, but I think a passive voice is used
| correctly in that sentence you are referencing. It puts the
| emphasis on the impacted employees and then goes on to
| speak to their contributions. This takes away the company
| for a moment from the conversation to discuss the "impacted
| teammates". They were using an active voice up till that
| point.
| tshaddox wrote:
| "They are no longer with us" is widely understood and very
| unlikely to be ambiguous. If you said "they were impacted" I
| would lodge the same complaint.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"It doesn't seems like something malicious."
|
| No it seems like weaselicious to me.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Death is inevitable, unexpected, unplanned, usually caused by
| things beyond human control. Layoffs are a planned thing
| explicitly done by one human to another in order to increase
| corporate profits.
| 300bps wrote:
| Layoffs are often a choice between letting a small
| percentage go or causing the entire company to go out of
| business.
| swatcoder wrote:
| * * *
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| Do you have some data to back that up? I'm not sure if a
| small percentage of employees are so expensive as to be
| the tipping point for a company to go out of business.
| cloverich wrote:
| Employees are one of or the most expensive part of doing
| business for many. I guess you could google Gross vs Net
| margins in various companies or industries as an example
| (maybe here[1]). But layoffs aren't merely firing people,
| they are "firing people and not re-hiring for their
| positions or work." So it's often closing out on entire
| product strategies, such as the case here with YC.
|
| [1]: https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/
| datafile...
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| > Employees are one of or the most expensive part of
| doing business for many
|
| Not debating that. I'm debating:
|
| > Layoffs are often a choice between letting a small
| percentage go or causing the entire company to go out of
| business
|
| Show me a company that MUST let go a SMALL PERCENTAGE of
| its workforce in order to not go out of business. Meaning
| a company which is hanging by a thread and that thread is
| (again) a small percentage of the workforce. Because if a
| small percentage of the workforce is expensive enough to
| provide you with the runway you need to continue doing
| business, that runway is short enough that the company
| will cease to exist anyway, so the point is moot.
| [deleted]
| herval wrote:
| When someone is accidental, blameless or unexpected, like
| someone suddenly dying, it's entirely natural to use
| something like "passed away". Not the case when someone is
| directly responsible - "X was murdered by Y" is quite common,
| I believe?
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| Please don't compare death with layoffs. One if an inevitable
| but tragic part of life the other is an inevitable but tragic
| part of keeping the shareholders happy.
| khazhoux wrote:
| I think the whole notion of companies doing things "for the
| shareholders" is vastly overblown. Doesn't it make perfect
| sense on its own that YC realized the late-stage game was
| not working out, and that they were not going to be able to
| use those people effectively on other work?
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| Perhaps they meant seventeen of their teammates have impacted
| colons? It's an odd thing to share, yes, but these are trying
| times.
| raz32dust wrote:
| Why is it the corporation's fault though? We live in a society
| and governance structure which encourages corporations to
| consider revenue over everything else. Why would they act
| differently? What _should_ Google do? Sorry I understand the
| human cost of layoffs. But it is a reflection of what this
| society values. If you want corporations to consider the human
| cost, you need to make it feature in their financials. Or the
| government should offer better protection to unemployed people.
| cardosof wrote:
| I, too, prefer that companies spoke in direct, plain terms,
| without PR shenanigans.
|
| Does anyone know why do they do this, though? Is it to de-risk
| potential lawsuits or do they believe people prefer that way
| ("sounds professional")?
| petercooper wrote:
| Assuming legal signed off on the basic message, I'm guessing
| it's out of a sense of 'politeness' in a delicate situation.
| Consider how someone might publicly communicate a
| relationship breakdown with language like "we're parting
| ways" or "we have made the decision to end our marriage."
| _Sometimes_ you get plain, direct language but people might
| infer acrimony from it.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| A combination of cargo culting/"sounds professional", and
| just wanting to make yourself/company look less bad.
| annexrichmond wrote:
| Never mind " _I_ was impacted by layoffs ", I often see " _my
| position_ was impacted by layoffs "
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| I was impacted by layoffs recently. As in, my department was
| good, but for how long? Should I start looking for another
| job?
| _puk wrote:
| In many places, without at will employment, you can't lay an
| individual off, but actually have to make the position
| redundant.
| herval wrote:
| To be fair, that's usually accurate - unlike someone getting
| fired because of their own performance, layoffs are usually
| untargeted, and include people that were great at their jobs.
|
| And let's face it, getting fired is a huge stigma, so it's
| totally understandable that someone would phrase it like
| that, as the victim of the situation
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| It's hard to blame anyone for using the "soft" terms about
| their own situation, since firing tends to be a very
| sensitive topic. It's not hard to blame companies for using
| those same terms, since it comes off as "MBA-ish" and
| sleazy.
| loeg wrote:
| "Exonerative tense," "mistakes were made," etc.
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/past_exonerative
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistakes_were_made
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/07/14/...
| DeltaCoast wrote:
| I've never heard this as an actual term, thank you for
| sharing.
| stonogo wrote:
| Submitted for inclusion:
| https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-
| to-...
| kylecazar wrote:
| Favorite example has to be Luis Suarez in his apology for
| very clearly biting a World Cup opponent in front of the
| world some years ago:
|
| "The truth is that my colleague Giorgio Chiellini suffered
| the physical result of a bite"
| [deleted]
| alexpotato wrote:
| I liked Zinedine Zidane's:
|
| "I am sorry I was kicked out of the World Cup final but I
| was not sorry I headbutted him".
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| He missed a bet in not describing that as a "powerful human
| mandibular compression"
| xavdid wrote:
| Some newspapers are really dreadful about this with regards
| to people killed/injured by cops.
|
| A well-known example from the NYT:
|
| > A reporter was hit by a pepper ball on live television by
| an officer who appeared to be aiming at her
|
| https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2020/new-york-times-
| twe...
| zamnos wrote:
| There was one circulating where the newspaper headline
| stated that "A man with no active warrants was shot by
| police." Which is just about the most nefarious way to
| say "an innocent man was shot by police".
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| That one I actually understand. Calling somebody innocent
| is a _very_ strong and contextual / scoped statement,
| and ultimately that's what the courts take their time to
| do (and even they I think kinda stop shy? I don't know if
| acquitted is the same as innocent. I feel it's more "not
| proven guilty").
| tjohns wrote:
| In the US, we have the presumption of innocence. Until a
| court says you're guilty, you're innocent.
|
| Most modern countries consider this a fundamental right.
| [deleted]
| Zak wrote:
| Those don't mean the same thing at all, and the headline
| is weird for any possible set of facts.
|
| The average mass shooter has no active warrants, but most
| people would consider it correct for the police to shoot
| him to end his killing spree. The average wanted
| fugitive, on the other hand is usually arrested without
| any shooting.
|
| I read the article linked in another comment, and the
| headline I would give it is "Police kill man while
| raiding wrong house".
| hk__2 wrote:
| Isn't it different? IANAL but having an active warrant
| issued for you doesn't really have anything to do with
| you being guilty or innocent. It just means the police
| must conduct you to the juge, either because you're a
| suspect or (in some countries) a witness.
|
| Edit: I guess this is this story:
| https://www.actionnews5.com/story/35967817/officers-kill-
| man...
| bombcar wrote:
| "A man with no active warrants issued" also perfectly
| describes every single one of the 9/11 hijackers, but
| that wouldn't equate out to "innocent" either.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Careful. Presence or absence of warrants has almost
| nothing to do with getting shot.
|
| Assuming you have no warrants out for your arrest, should
| you charge at a police officer with a knife or gun drawn
| while yelling that you were about to kill them, and then
| ignore any commands they issued, what would you expect to
| happen?
| schrodinger wrote:
| Newspapers also need to be careful to not spout facts
| about a potential crime that doesn't have a guilty
| verdict. They'd have to throw an allegedly or something
| in there to write it as you described which I don't know
| would read as well. The way they wrote it let them put
| the facts first (woman hit by pepper ball shot by police)
| and then hedge the intent with an "appeared to."
| madeofpalk wrote:
| "Officer involved shooting"
| khazhoux wrote:
| That example seems fine to me. There is clear attribution
| (" _by an officer_ "), and the "appeared to be aiming"
| could be to emphasize that the officer was not just
| generally shooting into crowd, but targeting individuals.
| [deleted]
| SalmoShalazar wrote:
| YC is not special. It's a business and they'll use weasel words
| like the rest of them.
| dllthomas wrote:
| While those examples do use the passive voice, the passive is
| not the real problem. "These events impacted seventeen of our
| teammates" is the active voice, and it is no more forthright.
| "Mistakes were made by Bob, Sean, and Susan, who have been
| fired" is (if accurate) quite clear about assigning blame while
| using the passive. It's true that some people overuse the
| passive, and for those people noticing and considering whether
| to rephrase can produce better writing, but insisting on
| forgoing the passive entirely probably won't. If we want to
| prevent evasive writing, we should look for and call out
| evasive writing, whatever voice is used.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| To me it's the phrase "these events" like it's something
| beyond their control. Replacing that with "our decision"
| would be taking more ownership.
|
| Edit: re-reading TFA, they don't attribute the layoffs to
| "these events" so I'll amend this as being a response
| directly to the parent comment.
| dllthomas wrote:
| Right, the active construction does grammatically require
| we put something there, where in the passive we get to omit
| it, which is why the passive is sometimes used for evasion.
| But if you're interested in whether someone is being
| evasive, just... look at whether they're actually assigning
| agency appropriately. Grammatical form doesn't answer that.
|
| See also
| https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/index.php?s=passive
| for much related amusement.
| jmyeet wrote:
| What you're talking about linguistically is the difference
| between passive voice ("I was laid off") vs active voice ("YC
| fired me"). It is a pervasive technique and a form of blame-
| shifting. Whenver you see a headline, ask yourself which voice
| is being used and why. It is a key part of media literacy.
| bloodyplonker22 wrote:
| I knew an ex co-worker who grew up in another country whose
| manager, in a "sync up meeting", told him that he was
| "impacted" and he didn't need to continue work on his current
| sprint. He came out of the meeting with a smile, had no idea
| what this meant, and he showed up the next day.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Did he get to keep his red stapler?
| smithmayowa wrote:
| Damn that sucks dude probably thought he was being praised or
| something.
| fdomig wrote:
| You are absolutely right. This is the only correct wording.
| concordDance wrote:
| Does this accomplish anything other than increasing resentment?
| [deleted]
| roflyear wrote:
| It's precise, and language should be precise: http://www.butt
| e.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/style_purpose....
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Yes. It makes one admit to a mistake. Intellectual honesty.
| "We failed" instead of "we are a victim of circumstances".
|
| Edit: however, a pr release with language other than what's
| written on the linked page can be a liability.
| comte7092 wrote:
| Begs the question, what do you think companies gain by using
| such passive language?
| pastabol wrote:
| A number of reasons already discussed, but in person it has
| the "benefit" of slowing down (drawing out) bad news. It's
| like string betting in poker, but it's also a way of
| showing dominion over time (by burying the lede and making
| someone anxious.)
| aatd86 wrote:
| Sometimes it's not for the company but for the person who
| was laid off.
|
| To mean that the person was laid off but it wasn't their
| fault. It's their position that was impacted. Somehow.
|
| Result the same but sentiment might be dulled a little. Not
| blaming the person but blaming external conditions that
| resulted in someone being made redundant.
| jeron wrote:
| when you first read it, did you feel better or worse for
| the employees when they wrote impacted vs "laid off"
| sverhagen wrote:
| I went back to GitLab's announcement, because I thought
| it was better:
| https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2023/02/09/gitlab-news/
|
| Turns out, it says: "reduce the size of our team by 7%",
| which also isn't as specific as the OP is suggesting.
|
| HOWEVER, they then go on to spend more than half of their
| post explaining how the impacted staff is supported, and
| YES, that did make me feel better.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Distancing. It lets people who make these decisions portray
| themselves as the helpless victims of the way things are,
| rather than people who have made choices that have led to
| this.
|
| "The market says that we need to downsize" sounds a lot
| better than "an investment analyst says I go, or you go".
| MattGaiser wrote:
| You have to stop and think about what it really means.
| "Impacted" just means something happened. You have to do
| the legwork to get to "called into a meeting and fired."
| breakingrules wrote:
| I actually believe he put out a 10/10 example of how this
| should be done. We all know what he meant, he was concise and
| then reminded you of the mission and that this is all about the
| mission.
| slantedview wrote:
| Maybe you can grant him 9/10, but you always have to deduct
| some points for hiding behind euphemisms.
| [deleted]
| i-use-nixos-btw wrote:
| 9 would be far too high IMHO.
|
| If you're laying people off, say it straight and with a
| backbone. The language is passive, weak and makes it sound
| like a mere consequence of a slight breeze upon a dainty
| leaf causing it to gently fall from a tree.
|
| 17 people lost their jobs. Likely many of those have
| families to feed, houses to uphold and bills to pay. In
| this economy, the same will likely happen to many of us and
| a statement like the above would feel like a punch to the
| gut.
|
| The uppercut that follows is:
|
| > we want to acknowledge and express our appreciation for
| their substantial contributions.
|
| Saying you want to acknowledge and express something is not
| the same thing as acknowledging and expressing something. A
| statement would struggle to get more generic than this.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Laid off is itself a less harsh version of fired.
| pcl wrote:
| In the US, "laid off" has a pretty substantially different
| meaning than "fired".
|
| "Laid off" usually means that the company shut down a group
| of roles, and the individuals happened to be in those roles
| and so lost their jobs.
|
| "Fired" usually means that the individual was intentionally
| let go because of behavior / competence / etc. of the
| individual, not the group.
| itronitron wrote:
| We hereby lay their employment with us to rest.
| schrodinger wrote:
| There's usually a significant difference for the individual
| where laid off means you get unemployment while fired
| (implies cause) does not.
| margalabargala wrote:
| They're not quite the same, those two terms have taken on
| different meanings. "Fired" has come to mean "for cause", and
| "laid off" has come to mean "not for cause".
| bradleyjg wrote:
| My hunch is that the evolution was driven by executives,
| probably in the 70s and 80s, that didn't want to say they
| were firing people in order to make more money.
|
| In other words the same dynamic that now leads to
| 'impacted'.
| ip26 wrote:
| It's a very useful distinction; it likely would have
| evolved one way or another.
| femto113 wrote:
| In the UK they have the term "redundancy" (as in "your
| position has been made redundant"). Can't see that term
| catching on in the US but it does cover the use of "laid
| off" to mean "the company chose to eliminate the position
| I worked in rather than choosing to get rid of me as a
| person", and thus may carry less stigma.
| heyyyouu wrote:
| And "laid off" means eligble for uneployment; "fired" often
| does not.
| adfm wrote:
| For some, "laid off" has the same connotation as furlough.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| A furloughed employee has the expectation that employment
| can resume with the company, while a laid off employee
| does not. This is important for tax and other legal
| considerations.
| r_hoods_ghost wrote:
| This very much depends on where you are. For example in
| the UK a lay off technically means being told to stay at
| home because there isn't enough work [1], although it's
| often used these days to mean "fired without cause", i.e.
| the American usage of lay off has become more common and
| it has simultaneously became common to use the term
| "furlough" to describe layoffs during the pandemic.
|
| [1]https://www.gov.uk/lay-offs-short-timeworking
| plorkyeran wrote:
| It had that connotation 50 years ago, but anyone who
| thinks it still does is just confused.
| SilasX wrote:
| It's the opposite: they started out distinct, but then, by
| the euphemism treadmill, became used interchangeably.
|
| And if you go back even further it meant something even
| milder, like furloughed or terminated with the intent to
| rehire when expected business picks up.
| wyldfire wrote:
| They're related, I suppose. But there's a real, meaningful
| difference between the two.
| sidlls wrote:
| Depends on the circumstances. I associate "fired" with a
| negative reason (e.g. performance, theft, harassment). "Laid-
| off" doesn't carry the same connotation.
| bink wrote:
| Fired -> Let go -> Laid off -> Impacted
|
| I'll be curious to see what comes next.
| smallerfish wrote:
| Reassigned to an external role
| ip26 wrote:
| Fired still semi-exists. Let go seems to show up for
| insufficient performance, e.g. semi-amicable "it's not
| working out". Fired shows up when somebody really screwed
| up, e.g. laws were broken or products failed.
| zen_1 wrote:
| Selected for new and exciting opportunities!
| caseysoftware wrote:
| "Fixed the error"
| nsenifty wrote:
| Completed? (like in Never let me go[0])
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(novel)
| morelisp wrote:
| Carousel!
| rvnx wrote:
| "Let go" is the worst, it implies "I let you go" -> "I
| allow you to leave" which is the ultimate humiliation when
| you are getting fired
| Arrath wrote:
| I think of it more like the protagonist (or antagonist,
| one could argue) of a movie holding on to the hand of
| someone (employee) about to fall off of a cliff (the
| descent, ultimately, to poverty and homelessness) just to
| make the metaphor as vivid as possible.
| Throw10987 wrote:
| Role is "disestablished"
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Terminated is to the left of fired.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Playing around at the online etymology dictionary, it
| appears dismiss is the oldest--early 15th century. Sack
| and fire are from the 19th century, and laid off in this
| sense isn't until the 1960s. Terminate, as in dismiss
| from a job, is first attested in 1973.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Can't we all just agree on "shit canned"?
|
| "Today we are announcing that 10% of our company is being
| shit canned".
| make3 wrote:
| fired usually means, with cause. laid off is for when a lot
| of people are getting cut at the same time because upper
| management asked to do big cuts
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes, and importantly if you are laid off you generally can
| get unemployment compensation. If you are fired for cause
| you often cannot.
| ak_111 wrote:
| This comment comes across as a silly nitpick given the sober
| content of the post, but I think it is completely fair given
| Paul Graham's many writings and tweets on the virtues of
| writing clearly and his hatred of what I call corporatese.
| marktani wrote:
| Not sure how involved pg was with this post as its stated
| author Garry Tan
| ak_111 wrote:
| You would imagine he read it at some point. You would also
| imagine his CEO would have internalised Paul Graham's most
| important piece of advice about communication (writing
| clearly).
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| When there's a PR person involved, truth goes away, double-
| speak comes in. Even in the case of YC, which in general is way
| better than most other organizations.
| beebmam wrote:
| There's nothing diplomatic about it. It enrages me far more
| than the truth.
| [deleted]
| lazide wrote:
| For you, but often for others it doesn't.
|
| It depends on if someone wants to believe the truth, or
| believe something else. Most want to believe something
| else.
| grayhatter wrote:
| hackers don't though; as a rule, hackers value truth over
| comfortable lies.
| warent wrote:
| This immediately stood out to me as well! It didn't come across
| as tactful, just bizarre
| bovermyer wrote:
| Passive voice afflicts many people's writing, not just
| corporations. Yes, it's a bad practice, but I don't feel it's
| egregious in this case.
| [deleted]
| comte7092 wrote:
| That is a reasonable argument if one assumes that this is an
| unconscious choice, however, passive voice has become the
| standard with these types of press releases. It is a
| conscious, intentional choice.
| pastabol wrote:
| Passive voice is a tool. It's perfectly valid and
| grammatical. The problem is the abuse of it to misrepresent
| one's agency or responsibility, but there's nothing wrong
| with the sentence, "I was hit by a car on the way to work."
|
| The issue with corporate passive is that business language is
| not only ugly but serves evil purposes. In person, it exists
| to slow down bad news so you can read and manipulate people
| ("string betting") and, on paper, its raison d'etre is to
| project authority to which one has no actual right.
| itronitron wrote:
| There isn't even a need for a public blog post about this
| change in business strategy. This reads fine as an internal
| email, but I've never worked at a company that publicly
| referenced their layoffs.
| [deleted]
| fairity wrote:
| I can think of a few reasons why YC would make this decision
| without admitting so publicly:
|
| 1) Too much negative signaling risk when they don't make follow-
| on investments
|
| 2) Negative returns given the recent downturn
|
| 3) The increasing business need to make non-founder friendly
| changes in late stage companies (e.g. replacing CEO)
|
| 4) Anu/Ali deciding to leave first to start their own fund
|
| I wonder if any of these reasons is a predominant driver.
| [deleted]
| greatpostman wrote:
| Wonder if this is related to the current down turn in risk assets
| and the venture capital blow up
| doodlesdev wrote:
| I find it almost impossible to not see them as related. Take a
| look at [0]. Long-term this could be a good decision, I believe
| early-stage investing really is different to late-stage
| investment, but of course the moment to make this decision
| makes it evident there are other factors at play that influence
| this.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35114009
| dang wrote:
| The timing does make that almost impossible! But if you want
| the actual connected edge in the directed graph I believe
| it's https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32637686.
| doodlesdev wrote:
| Hmm, that does make sense. The other comment here said that
| this kind of change is almost impossible to happen is such
| as short amount of time, which makes sense. Maybe they were
| already planning for a change in strategy by the new CEO,
| and this just happened to be an appropriate time to get
| done with the change already.
|
| edit: Oh well the other commenter was the new CEO LOL, not
| used to reading usernames. I guess that adds a bit of bias
| but I believe it's a true statement.
| garry wrote:
| Changes of this sort cannot happen in a very short amount of
| time. The timing was coincidental.
| bigbraintheroom wrote:
| I have made changes with other C-level employees in under
| 30m which had more than 30m of impact.
|
| Can you explain how that would not be the case here? Not
| understanding how this timing is "coincidental", it doesn't
| appear to be that way at all.
| garry wrote:
| It's not, this is about making YC awesome for early stage
| founders right at the beginning.
| echelon wrote:
| YC does early stage well. Spreading out focus and capital
| over other stages takes energy away from this.
|
| Other firms already have a good grasp of late stage and it'd
| be a battle for YC to improve over this.
|
| Maybe YC can return to late stage later when the environment
| changes.
| dang wrote:
| It's not--my understanding is that it's been in the works for
| quite a bit longer than that.
| bobleeswagger wrote:
| I don't think the timing is random considering the climate. I
| have a feeling these seventeen will land softly compared to
| 99.9% of those caught up in recent layoffs.
| zamnos wrote:
| "current down turn in risk assets" is almost as wonderful a
| phrase as "17 team members were impacted". The fact is that
| SIVB shares are now worth $0, and that many VCs and LPs were
| surely holding those can't be a total coincidence with today's
| "changes".
| johnbellone wrote:
| This wasn't the announcement I expected.
| bionade24 wrote:
| Y combinator website hugged to death by hacker news. Lmao.
| martin_a wrote:
| Title should be "YC fires 17 people". Can someone change that?
| jefftk wrote:
| "fire" != "laid off"
| aidenn0 wrote:
| "laid off" is a subset of "fired" "to fire" just means "to
| dismiss from a job" which includes lay-offs.
| zamnos wrote:
| At the very least, we can agree that " _Changes_ at YC " is
| burying the lede?
| nostrademons wrote:
| Only if you're not fluent in corporatease. Whenever I see
| an e-mail entitled "Changes in [some organization]", I
| assume that one or more of the following is true:
| 1. The leader is leaving. 2. People are getting laid
| off. 3. They're exiting a line of business. 4.
| They sold the company.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I agree. You're fired when you sexually harass or suck eggs.
| Being laid off doesn't have the stigma for the employee.
| balls187 wrote:
| Yes it absolutely does carry a stigma.
|
| What companies layoff their best people?
|
| (I say as someone who has been laidoff)
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Competent people who were effective at their job are laid
| off all the time. You're basically saying there's a
| stigma to not being the best at work.
| zamnos wrote:
| I mean if the company is pivoting and closing the entire
| division because they no longer need to, eg, make film
| cameras or make buggy whips, why would you keep anybody
| from there around? You don't need their expertise any
| longer. Even if they were the best at their job, if
| you're not doing those things any more, what would you
| keep them around for?
| davidw wrote:
| A company might lay off really good people when shutting
| down an entire business line, for example. It's different
| than firing someone.
| adamckay wrote:
| > What companies layoff their best people?
|
| Any company where the execs and decision makers are so
| far removed from the people they're judging, where they
| won't even truly understand or care what the person does,
| let alone who they are.
|
| Google and Twitter and two very recent large companies
| that have done just that.
| tabbott wrote:
| I don't think that'd be accurate - YC is exiting the business
| of late-stage investing, and that's the main news. It sounds
| like they had 17 people who were working on that part of the
| company who they laid off as part of this transition, but given
| the major role that YC Continuity played, it's significant news
| that they're no longer doing that.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Sorry to everyone who lost their jobs. It can feel like the end
| of the world and your worth. But I've seen throughout my career
| people land somewhere better. Someone once wise told me the most
| important saying in the world is "this too shall pass," which
| applies to all things, good and bad.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| "Everything that arises passes away."
| riffic wrote:
| no one died here sheesh
| honkler wrote:
| 17 jobs died
| riffic wrote:
| you'd be speaking about livelihoods then, not lives.
| ccn0p wrote:
| <checks URL>
|
| not reddit!
| layer8 wrote:
| Like clouds in the sky.
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| Also wanted to add: never forget that "the law of averages" is
| our friend when this happens. It ensures that there is always a
| good chance to lend somewhere if one keeps trying (submitting
| applications and giving interviews).
| whitemary wrote:
| [flagged]
| gus_massa wrote:
| I _had_ to search it and found this: " _Soviet Union
| (93,548) > Employment security, termination of employment
| (955)_" https://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex4.detail?p_lang=
| en&p_is...
|
| > _A dismissed worker shall receive a severance indemnity
| equal to the average monthly wage._
|
| [...]
|
| > _In case of restructuring or liquidation of the enterprise,
| the worker while seeking employment, retains his or her
| average monthly wage for up to three months, taking into
| account the severance indemnity._
| whitemary wrote:
| What does it say about families losing their sustenance? I
| am intentional in my phrasing. I care about people, not
| "jobs".
| slt2021 wrote:
| It shows that you have never lived in soviet union and
| happily eat communist fairy tales.
|
| Soviet Workers were exploited and underpaid by state,
| there was no private property and almost no private
| sector.
|
| Soviet Union employed highly educated PhD rocket
| scientists and paid everyone minimum wage, because there
| was no alternative.
|
| Literally every scientist family had to grow their own
| potatoes and veggies at home/dachas in order to survive.
|
| Can you imagine Harvard dean growing potatoes just to
| survive in cold winter months?
|
| Cars were not available, you had to wait for 7 years to
| be allocated a slot to purchase a vehicle.
|
| Almost no selection of consumer products, everything was
| DIY, because the only good thing Soviet State was capable
| of - is building tanks and rockets (that are currently
| being destroyed by Ukraine Armed Forces)
| whitemary wrote:
| My parents both grew up in the Soviet Union. Of course
| there was private property haha. Individuals, mostly
| farmers, could even own land!
|
| Your comment is a laundry list of fun talking points, but
| I couldn't care less. This debate concerns families
| having reliable material sustenance.
| slt2021 wrote:
| you should move back to soviet union if you like it so
| much. Get a real taste of communism.
|
| "Capitalist West is bad, communism good" (C)
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I worked with a guy who came up as an engineer in the Soviet
| Union. Back around 2014 he was laid off from a US tech
| company that had moved him over from Russia. He couldn't wrap
| his head around it. Said that in the Soviet Union there was
| no such thing as a layoff. If they needed to shut down some
| program they'd move you to another one. The whole layoff was
| just extremely disorienting for him - especially since the
| company had moved him over here only a few years prior.
| slt2021 wrote:
| highly educated engineers were paid like 100 rubles/mo,
| which is slightly above minimum wage.
|
| Why lay off people, when state can afford to keep them on
| minimum wage? and reap the benefit of their work (rockets,
| weapons, tanks, nukes, etc)
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| That's true. They gave the platitudes as millions starved
| while Stalin exported food and established the gulags and lay
| waste to civil society. Yay!
|
| The religion bit is really off kilter, unless you think the
| impermanence of all things is merely a religious idea and not
| a fundamental aspect of all reality. After all impermanence
| didn't apply in Soviet Russia? Oh yeah, it too passed. Guess
| not.
| whitemary wrote:
| All modern societies implement brutal exercises in
| primitive accumulation. Capitalist nations just exported
| their brutality to the 3rd world. Was that noble of them?
| I'm not seeing your point. (See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org
| /wiki/Primitive_accumulation_of_ca...)
|
| "Impermanence" is not a religious concept, but the vagaries
| in these platitudes are. Nobody in a capitalist society can
| rationalize layoffs. The best we can do is rationalize not
| thinking about them, which is the purpose actually served
| by the platitudes. Religion does the same.
|
| An actually scientific perspective would be far more useful
| and actionable. There is a good book on this topic: https:/
| /www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Engels_...
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Well since by and large you weren't allowed to not work in
| the Soviet Union being "laid off" normally meant you were
| being shipped off to a labor camp or being executed.
|
| Lets not pretend they didn't have millions in the gulags....
| ModernMech wrote:
| Unless you're rich, you're not allowed to not work in
| America either. Go ahead and try, you won't last long. Even
| social support programs come with work requirements in some
| places [1].
|
| Let's not pretend America doesn't currently imprison over
| two million people [2]. That's where you end up if you're
| poor and unlucky enough in America (being homeless is also
| criminalized in many places [3]).
|
| [1] https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/health-policy-
| center/pr...
|
| [2] https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-states-
| america
|
| [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeseq/2022/01/01/how-
| the-us-...
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| You realize they can get a different job right?
| whitemary wrote:
| The question is whether all families can sustain healthy
| and dignified livelihoods. And the answer is in fact they
| cannot.
|
| By definition, a capitalist economy has a hard dependency
| on labor surplus. Remember when the Federal Reserve
| literally said they were raising interest rates to increase
| unemployment? That's why.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| They couldn't in Soviet Russia either. I also don't
| consider livelihood synonymous with dignity. If you're
| going to advocate, I'd fall on the UBI side before I fall
| on the "meaningless command economy labor for the sake of
| laboring"
| slt2021 wrote:
| Have you actually ever lived in Soviet Union? or just read
| Lenin's books?
| aketchum wrote:
| where did this come from? The person you are responding to
| didn't say anything about Soviet workers. Also, having
| recently visited Cuba, while workers in a Communist society
| may not worry about layoffs, they still need second jobs in
| the black market to earn a living wage. I'm far from an
| expert in the Soviet Union but it seems crazy to use this as
| an excuse to shill the USSR
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Heard a story on NPR about someone who recently went home
| to Cuba from Spain. Said that in the past people in Cuba
| would ask him to bring electronics (stuff they couldn't get
| in Cuba), but this time when he asked family back in Cuba
| what they wanted him to bring they said "Food". When he got
| there he picked up a hitch hiker on the drive from Havana
| to his home town (in the past this was very common and very
| safe). The woman advised him that really shouldn't pick up
| hitch hikers because they tend to rob you. She was a
| healthcare professional of some sort and said she had to do
| several side jobs just to survive.
| robomartin wrote:
| Just so that it is clear: How does YC define "late stage"?
|
| I ask because the opening line is: "YC is known primarily as a
| place where very early founders create something from nothing"
|
| Does this mean that, going forward, startups that start with
| something need not apply? For example, a product and, say, one or
| many customers? Some revenue?
|
| Or does YC want to focus on the "something from nothing"
| category?
| cm2012 wrote:
| Late stage means series B+ usually
| cheeze wrote:
| Weak wording the same as every other company
|
| > Unfortunately, this means we will no longer need some of the
| roles
|
| > Seventeen of our teammates are impacted
| [deleted]
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Is "impacted" the euphemism of the 2020's? In the past I've
| seen "affected", but maybe that's passe now. So hard to keep up
| with all the progress in our language ...
| layer8 wrote:
| I mean, aren't founders always touting that they want to have
| an impact in the world? ;)
| epicureanideal wrote:
| I'm surprised that even an innovative, creative organization like
| YC wasn't able to create other positions for these folks. I guess
| that just shows how hard business is even for people who are good
| at it.
| Tade0 wrote:
| When I saw the March "Who is hiring?" I couldn't help but think
| "truly, who is?".
|
| My friend is on the lookout for a new role and his experience
| so far is that it's mostly CV hoarders who approach him on
| LinkedIn. One case we all but confirmed because I used to work
| for the company which was supposedly hiring, but I asked a
| person from there and nope, not very actively, no.
| devmor wrote:
| Creating a position for employees that aren't needed is
| generally not a business priority.
|
| Besides, it's likely that this is primarily a cost-cutting
| measure given similar industry trends at the moment.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| > Creating a position for employees that aren't needed is
| generally not a business priority.
|
| Sure, I guess I was using too much of a shorthand in my
| comment. What I meant was, I'm surprised a company with such
| a high talent density didn't generate enough new business
| quickly enough to be able to anticipate near future needs for
| these folks so that it would make sense to keep them.
|
| I would think YC would have a lot of opportunities to deploy
| capital, and so a lot of opportunities to gain value from a
| variety of employee types.
|
| If I knew more about the internals of YC I might be able to
| make more specific suggestions.
|
| By the way, any company out there, I'd be willing to
| brainstorm (for free) about how you can repurpose and keep
| your people, or find other creative solutions. I'll check for
| replies to this comment later today and tomorrow, and maybe
| I'll edit it to add a throwaway or alternate email shortly.
|
| Email: jmorrow977 at gmail. I'll check tonight and daily for
| the next couple days or week.
| jll29 wrote:
| > Creating a position for employees that aren't needed is
| generally not a business priority.
|
| You are describing the status quo quite correctly.
|
| That is probably consistent with the textbook form of
| capitalism.
|
| However, it does not HAVE to be this way. If you have smart,
| well-educated, experienced staff in roles that are no longer
| needed, how about thinking hard about how you might deploy
| them in new beneficial ways? The result could be increased
| loyalty and a new line of business, a social (yet still
| profitable) venture. Does anyone have examples?
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| Many Japanese companies have worked hard over the last
| several decades to find new positions for people who would
| have been laid off. The result: they dominate a lot of
| international industries in manufacturing and certain kinds
| of high tech
|
| Eg, I'm buying a Japanese car this week because I don't like
| the reliability of most North American brands
|
| > Toyota continues tradition of a 'No-Layoff' policy for its
| full-time workers
|
| https://ilssi.org/toyota-continues-tradition-of-a-no-
| layoff-...
| [deleted]
| opportune wrote:
| What does this mean for the MFN SAFE terms that YC founders
| receive in the standard deal?
|
| Does that change if YC doesn't plan to make as many late stage
| investments?
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| PG and crew have been very proud of the way they've been able to
| scale YC. This seems to be one of the first times where YC has
| failed to scale?
| tylermenezes wrote:
| There have been plenty of scaling problems (my batch, S12, has
| been publicly referred to a few times as "the batch that broke
| YC" for example).
|
| Scaling is an iterative process :)
| tempsy wrote:
| I'm not sure why YC is an example of something that has scaled
| well. There's so many companies now in each batch with 95%+
| never amounting to much success. It's not clear how the scale
| is helping anyone.
| garry wrote:
| I will say that large % of the batches turn out to still be
| good companies later, sometimes much later. The journey of
| being a founder sets people up to do a lot more: YC alums are
| often great C-level executives at other fast growing
| startups, and/or just because their first startup doesn't
| work doesn't mean they don't go on to create great companies
| later.
|
| The key thing about networks is Metcalfe's law: the power of
| a network is the square of its nodes. This is also what makes
| the Internet more and more valuable over time.
|
| Those things together mean scale increases value for
| founders, and what we've learned is those effects are most
| potent early.
| pbreit wrote:
| Or perhaps writing pro rata checks doesn't require that many
| people?
| dvt wrote:
| [flagged]
| Zetice wrote:
| Literally none of the investors in SVB were bailed out, as you
| cannot bail out a failed bank.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| kgwgk wrote:
| The investors in depositor companies were (indirectly) bailed
| out (if there is indeed a shortfall).
| Zetice wrote:
| "indirectly bailed out" is not "bailed out". The US economy
| as a whole was "bailed out" by not having a cascading
| effect of bank failures, does that mean _you_ were "bailed
| out" too? Are we just devaluing the term entirely?
| dvt wrote:
| Imagine thinking that billionaires actually bought SVB stock
| or held cash in there. Protip: their capital is tied up in
| dozens of companies, which were, indeed, bailed out.
| Zetice wrote:
| "Their capital" is _vastly_ different from "them", as it
| has been given out for others to use, so again no, they
| were _not_ bailed out.
| dvt wrote:
| > it has been given out for others to use, so again no,
| they were not bailed out
|
| Uh, that's what wealthy people _do_ -- they give money to
| other people to make them even more money. This was so
| transparently a billionaire bailout (Gary Tan & David
| Sacks were _literally_ on a press tour), I fail to
| understand how people are so mesmerized by the shell game
| here.
| Zetice wrote:
| ...that's not what "bailout" means, a "bailout" can only
| happen before a bank collapses; SVB already collapsed, it
| _cannot_ be bailed out, definitionally.
|
| It's not a shell game, it's a fundamentally different
| situation where _real_ people who are _not_ billionaires
| are directly and immediately effected.
|
| Further, there is not financial assistance in the form of
| "free money"; at _best_ what will happen are loans to
| cover the difference between the available liquidity and
| the withdraws. The assets SVB once had will, upon
| maturity, pay for those loans with interest, and only
| _then_ will investors be given a chance to recoup some of
| their investment.
|
| I'm frankly fascinated by the abject cynicism by way of
| ignorance people think they can get away with on the
| Internet. Unreal...
| chernevik wrote:
| The timing and optics on this are just awful.
| ftxbro wrote:
| [flagged]
| Kwpolska wrote:
| That's still too long and flowery. You
| probably know what YC is. We were recently doing
| late-stage investing, but we're mostly giving up on that now.
| We're firing 17 people who were involved in late-stage
| investing. You won't notice their disappearance.
|
| There, four sentences, and no AI involved.
| mhb wrote:
| Even just excising the godawful "impacted" is a massive
| improvement.
| [deleted]
| ftxbro wrote:
| Oh they flagged my post. Does that mean no one can see it
| anymore? Anyway I was curious how GPT expands your four
| brutally raw sentences into a press release (everything it
| made is fake including a fake quote):
|
| Y Combinator Announces Changes in Late-Stage Investing and
| Workforce
|
| Mountain View, CA - Y Combinator, the renowned startup
| accelerator, announced today that it will be shifting its
| focus away from late-stage investing. As part of this
| strategic pivot, the company will be letting go of 17
| employees who were involved in late-stage investing.
|
| This decision comes after a thorough review of YC's
| investment strategy and long-term goals. While late-stage
| investing has been a successful part of the company's
| portfolio, YC has decided to double down on its core mission
| of helping early-stage startups grow and succeed.
|
| "We are grateful for the contributions of our late-stage
| investing team, but we believe that this change will allow us
| to better serve our early-stage companies and continue to
| drive innovation in the startup ecosystem," said YC
| President, Sam Altman.
|
| The 17 affected employees have been notified and will be
| provided with severance packages and support during their
| transition. YC remains committed to its mission of supporting
| and investing in the most promising startups and looks
| forward to continuing to work with entrepreneurs from all
| over the world.
|
| For more information, please contact Y Combinator's media
| relations team at press@ycombinator.com.
|
| ###
| beavis000 wrote:
| Here's a question: Whose capital does YC invest? Only partner
| capital? Do they have outside investors?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-03-13 23:00 UTC)