Scobleizer - Latest Comments in The Well Funded Layoff

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

GeekMBA360 — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:21:02 -0000

I agree with Seth Godin.

You should never lay off talented employees if you still have a few millions dollars in the bank.

I don't know anyone who works at Seesmic. But, I want to ask: if those laid-off positions are outsourcable, why aren't outsourced at first place?

Silicon Valley companies (and American businesses in general) have the tendency to over hire when they have the money, and then lay people off when there is signs of down turn. It's like binge eating.

I miss the old HP, who rarely lay off people. It was a great culture. It'll tighten its belt during hard time. But, it treats its employees like that most important asset.

Very few company in the valley is like HP. It's sad. (By the way, I'm not one of those HP old-timers. I'm in my 30's. )

To help folks who are laid off, I have been writing like mad to offer some advice (from my previous layoff experience in 2001). Please go to www.GeekMBA360.com if you're interested.

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Edwin Duterte — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:41:48 -0000

Hey Robert.... we just set up www.PinkSlipMixers.com about two months ago. We are a bunch of unemployed professionals willing to network with each other. Yes.. we're commiserating together and trying to figure how to get through this.

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

ChangeForge | Ken Stewart — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:58:42 -0000

Robert, very insightful piece. I appreciate you bringing the human side to this business equation.

Re: you comment on your brother's bar... that's weird b/c we have seen a 15 point jump in alcohol consumption since the beginning of the "bail out" talks.

I think our local economy is pumping more into booz to ease their nerves - unfortunately?

Loic, tough decisions. I can relate to the heart-wrenching a layoff can be. It is a tough decision, but it is good that you found your way to a balanced reaction to tough times.

May peace be with you all,

Ken

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Nigel Eccles — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:45:33 -0000

Robert, you should really use Zemanta. I keep noticing that your auto-generated related news articles are always way off. Plug in Zemanta for lazy blogging goodness!

(Great post BTW - It's bleak out there but no reason to hide behind the sofa)

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Sean — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 04:10:34 -0000

Just a thought: when you use the device of starting a paragraph with "Translation:" (a technique whose primary purpose is to assure one's readers that you are smarter than they are), it's helpful if the sentence that follows is an actual variation of the preceeding sentence(s).

Cheers.

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Benjamin Wright — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:11:26 -0000

As employees are shown the door, an employer is wise to hang onto their e-mail records. --Ben http://legal-beagle.typepad.com/wrights_legal_beagle/2008/10/retain-e-mail-of-former-employees.html

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Nikolay Kolev — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:46:53 -0000

When everybody starts talking about something, then it becomes reality ("perception is reality" they say). Let's stop talking about Doomsday and as my friend John Le suggested above, let's move on with our lives, start working hard and stop talking loud! Putting to much emotion into it is not helping anybody... except the VCs that use the situation as a leverage point to buy cheap and cut cost, so, the blogosphere should stop making it easier for "those people". :-)

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

skeptical — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:40:35 -0000

read: don't really have plan to make money, so let's hunker down until google is buying companies again.

dead pool.

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

malatmals — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:40:19 -0000

"Sequoia Capital told its companies the same thing."

I'm sure they are - I'm no economist but banks need all the cash they can get right now to avoid being someone else's bait.

I dunno, the companies I've worked in for the most part have been very Dilbertesque - they waste money in obvious places where they could save it. I mean if you layoff a non-core person then contract out that job at 4x the rate and then loose any institutional memory you would have had at some point you are just shooting yourself in the foot. There has to be a balance.

Sometimes the non-essentials are what make life worth living. Is art essential? Is volunteering time and money essential? Friendship - its not essential. Posting on this blog - ask my wife - I bet its way down on the priority list!

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Jim Connolly — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:30:55 -0000

Robert,

A great post and I wish Loic and the remaining team all the best.

I believe the coming weeks / months will result in many of the over-hyped and over-funded 2.0 businesses being dumped by their investors. Over the past 18-months or so people seem to have started funding 2.0 businesses based exclusively on their ability to deliver 'eye-balls' - just like the bad old .bust days.

A business needs to have a way to generate revenue - otherwise it dies as soon as the VC money is pulled.

I love Twitter and am keen to see how the guys there are going to monetize it. I hope it works because the service is excellent!

Thanks for the post Robert,

Jim Connolly

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Thomas — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:20:37 -0000

Layoffs at new start-ups are a horrible idea. Your company will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Older start-ups that were experiencing trouble before the downturn are different story. They probably needed to rationalize before and are now admitting it. But for someone that just started and still believes in the fundamentals of their business plan, a downturn is just as good as a healthy environment and maybe even more so. The companies that grow during difficult times become dominant in good times.

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Loic Le Meur — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 10:38:03 -0000

Martin just posted great comments in video on how he did the same at Fon a while ago, cutting 40 jobs.

http://seesmic.com/video/CZ...

and my two cents about how investors helped me in this situation

http://seesmic.com/video/aw...

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

seth godin — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:21:06 -0000

Layoffs are like surgery. It's hard to imagine doing one without an emergency.

If you've got people who are underperforming, who aren't as good as you hoped and who you can't lead to better output, then you should fire them, not lay them off.

If you have great people, amazing people with vision, and you have venture money designed to help you grow, how dare you lay them off. Isn't that what the money was for? And when better to grow then right now, when everyone else is getting quiet and selfish?

I've been through a lot of ups and downs over 25 years and never once did a lay off. To do it with millions in the bank is a true shame.

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Martin Varsavsky — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:14:52 -0000

The thing is this. With Apple, Google, and many other amazing companies down 50% so far. With other types of well managed and profitable companies like Netgear down almost 70% start ups go back to the end of the line. I was investing in start ups but last week I went back into stocks with the high risk funds. Before Seesmic was one of my high risk investments, now Apple is, this is how things have changed. So money for start ups will dry up except for one absurd rule and that is that VCs can´t invest in public securities. So maybe VCs who by logic should be buying stock in the companies that used to buy start ups will continue investing in start ups because that is all they are allowed to do, but valuations should come down at least what public valuations are down to. Yes this maybe short lived. Yes Obama may become president and the recession may evaporate. All is possible, but you can´t run a company and believing in Santa. You have to analyze the data as it comes. Home sales collapse, car sales collapse, computer sales are next, and we are in a recession. What Loic did is sad but prudent. I did the same at Fon 4 months ago.

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Mattb4rd — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 06:27:20 -0000

Things aren't always what they seem. Perhaps seesmic doesn't have the financial fortitude that you think it does.

Healthy companies won't be laying anyone off.

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Christopher Coulter — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 06:23:17 -0000

Prediction: Beg to be purchased the way my current company is.

Fast Company/Inc. hot air, is just so ready for a deflation (again). The recipe: Layoffs, in "non-core", kill the offshoot webby-social networking brands, hug all around the magazines, glide for a bit, brag about affluent audiences, kick more smaller and smaller prospective partnerships, early-bird renewals 2 or 3 issues in, watch ad revenue drop off, put on a good front, tout good single copy sales and subscription increases, but delay payment to writers, cutting back seriously on expenses and curtailing perks, expenses running faster than revenue, logistical nightmares rock morale, ill-will all around, gets a bad smell, ad revenue drops, rebrand, dropping the Wired irrational exuberance copycatting, less tech focus, less design-happy focus, more Biz Week Mutual Fund Hawking, but ad revenue drops further, single sales drop, renewals don't renew, ad revenue drops further still. Snowball serious, and the "Conflicts of Interest King Mansueto" personal investment "miracle" brief-bump becomes a rathole headache. $35 million to lose more and more.

But he can go Congressified bailout package, infusing it eternally, turning off the 'investment' radar, so it can tread water. And the world can have landfills of start-up fake-buzz-spam on video, all throw-away, all a laughing-stock 3 to 4 months forward.

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Warren — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:22:15 -0000

I'm not close enough to the situation to judge, but before jumping on the bandwagon and arguing that those positions are core to the business it's important to know what specifically the positions were. "Designer" is broad, and "marketer" is extremely broad. Perhaps they were individuals that didn't make a big impact on the business. Otherwise, I'd imagine they wouldn't have been laid off(And probalby shouldn't be there anywyas). Either that or the CEO is a masochist, :-)

I wish Seesmic the best of luck!

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Christopher Coulter — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:00:32 -0000

Calling PR and Marketing and Design, "non-core" is brain-dead. This is all labor theory of value, Soviet flavored. You produce widgets that people want, you don't produce "core" widgets, just to produce widgets.

Cut taxes, get governmental easy loaners out of biz, and let gamblers that risk and lose, spin their heels, apply Chicago School 1983-84 economic solutions at every turn, with serious real cutbacks. Due for a correction anyways, easy dot.com eyeballs-era VC money, easy Web 2.0 pastel-colored widgets money, easy loans. Eventually, someone has to play grown-up. It's really just a return to fundamentals. Capitalism is not dead, it wasn't even applied. China won't take over the world, unless milk that kills is your idea of capitalism. Now we have taxpayer money fronting up bad loans, and bad banks. The arsonists, have been called in as the firemen. Good luck with that.

Puritan-Work-Ethic Midwestern Credit Unionish values win out (again).

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

John — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:01:31 -0000

It is human nature to overreact. First the pendulum swings to the far right and people/companies are overly optimistic and spend themselves into trouble. Now the pendulum swings the other way and everyone is putting money under their "mattresses". The pyschology is maddening. VCs propogate it...bloggers emphasize it...and consumers have to deal with it...

The market just needs to clean house and purge itself. I've worked with many of the street firms and have many colleagues who made and created this toxic mess. They weren't stupid people --just motivated by GREED. Now, main street feels the pain and wall street will resurrect its head in a couple of years and move past this point.

In the meantime, best thing to do is acknowledge what is happening and move on with our daily lives, but if we all spend our time watching the sky fall down we may miss out on the real opportunity.

Start-ups and mature businesses simply need to behave rationally and operate with fiscal responsibility. There's nothing revolutionary about that concept. People just forgot about it for the past few years as times were good.

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Robert Scoble — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 03:35:52 -0000

Taylor. No. Let's see. A car mechanic might be nice for me to have around, but he's not core to my business, but to an auto shop? He's very core. So, a designer might not be core at Seesmic, but would be very core at someplace like IDEO. Get it?

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Dave — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:21:16 -0000

Who's next? Any business that is depending borrowed money to make payroll and keep their business running. (which is a huge majority) There is no money to be loaned. If you have no cash in the bank, well, good luck staying in business.

But Charbax is right. Just hold out a few more weeks. Once the Obamunist is elected this will all magically disappear. Afterall, he's the Savior, right? (At least that's what I keep hearing)

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Christian — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:12:12 -0000

What are Seesmic revenues anyway ?
Splurge, downturn, whatever, I can't see how a firm with no revenue could be affected by the economic environment... sorry.

Quoting Loic from June 2008 (http://www.loiclemeur.com/e...
"Monetizing Seesmic won't occur in the next 12 months, we are focusing on the community and the platform. I believe video adsense like advertising will be huge and TV advertising dollars will finally shift online, but it will take 3 to 5 years, this is why we need funding to be there when it grows."

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Noble Acuff — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:46:45 -0000

Much as I hate to say it, it sounds like a smart strategy. Cut costs quickly without affecting your core competencies, and assume that you're going to be living off your current bank account for several quarters to come. In a micro sense this is a smart move for a single company, but to paraphrase Keynes' "paradox of thrift" what's good for a single company is really bad for the economy at large if everyone starts doing it.

The only shred of hope I see at the moment for a near-term market recovery is a well-coordinated global effort by the G7 to get credit markets "unfrozen", while some very intelligent financiers figure out how to unravel or nullify the credit default swap mess.

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

TaylorBarr — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:27:49 -0000

Robert,

I understand the gist of at what you trying to communicate with this post, although I feel there is some slight misdirection. You say Loic, "...cut jobs that aren’t core to the mission of Seesmic. Designers. Marketers. PR. He told me all those functions are outsourceable and aren’t core to what they do." then go on to say, "This is a smart strategy." I comprehend that the market is seeing a shallow deep and that funding (especially startups with business models that depend heavily on advertising revenues), should keep cash on hand and guard their long-term equities.

The thing I don't understand is the closing paragraph. You first start off by explaining that all the roles that are not directly related to the product are useless, then try to turn around and help them find jobs... huh? If use the market as a level playing field, won't those jobs, in your eyes, be fluff for someones else's company? I understand your words are coming from compassion, but the market is going to be the same for all companies. Let us not mislead folks...

By the way, I am an avid Seesmic user and I haven't seen you on in awhile. Jump on and let's get to talking!

Regards,
TaylorBarr

Re: The Well Funded Layoff

Shawn Kelley — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:27:02 -0000

Interesting how less than 2 weeks ago when Calacanis sent out his email 'prediction' so many people thought it was ridiculous. Yet, what he thought would happen is happening and the advice you share here is very similar to what he shared. Great lessons to be learned.

Thanks for this post. As sad as it is to hear about layoffs like this starting, I think there is a great amount of hope that can yet be found as a result of what has been learned in the last 8 years (since the 'bubble').

Thanks too for your example of supporting those you care about. Hopefully we'll hear more stories of that happening as these tough decisions have to be made.