[stratosgear]

What a bummer and a complete disregard of the current engineering team. You do not fire them to rehire other people in their place. If you respect them as much as you claim, you allow them to grow into the requirements that you need. It feels like there is zero trust that people can perform outside the well defined boxes that you think they operate. They are not engine oil to be replaced, so you machine will run better. Bummer!!!

[viraptor]

Something that wasn't mentioned in the video (or did I miss it?) is whether people were offered a choice. As far as I can tell we don't know if it was an immediate firing of 36 people, or for example 36 out of 50 people preferred the exit package rather than a move to a new team doing X.

[scelerat]

It was an immediate firing. Early Monday morning, a previously-unscheduled fifteen minute "all-hands" zoom meeting appeared on everyone's calendars for 10 AM. Jack started with an abbreviated version of the "Some Tough News to Share" speech you saw at the link above, before he handed off to the new CPO who started in January, who explained that in order for the company to move forward following massive growth, profitable quarter, a juicy funding round, and despite Jack's insistence to his employees in prior all-hands meetings, "you did this; you are responsible for Patreon's success," that the 36 people being laid off were "not the right fit."

Employees were told that those who were being laid off would have their access suspended by the end of the meeting, while the remainder would regroup with a second meeting later in the morning. As soon as that was announced, people started posting goodbyes and non-work contact in slack channels, though not everyone could get off their missives before access was suspended.

Entire groups were eliminated in the "reorganization." This was not an individual-by-individual layoff. Many fine people were let go, including those who had made major positive impacts in the short time (some less than six months) they were there. There were some among the layoff who had been hired literally less than a month before.

[SpelingBeeChamp]

It sounds like you have personal knowledge of Patreon. Would you share your thoughts on a few questions?

1. What are the most significant challenges and obstacles Patreon is facing?

2. What is your take on Jack Conte as a leader and CEO?

For context, the comments on this post prompted that question: https://www.patreoncommunity.com/t/apply-for-jacks-creator-c...

3. Why are so many of the core tools on Patreon either broken, or stuck in the past, and why is Patreon so unresponsive to user feedback?

Examples:

-Patreon asks you to identify yourself, select whether you are a patron or creator, and solve a CAPTCHA in order to create a support ticket — even when you are logged in.

-Patreon's implementation of 2FA doesn't allow for trusted devices, doesn't allow for hardware keys, and is the only service I use whose text message 2FA code is sent in a format that my iPhone can't recognize as a 2FA code and autofill.

-Formatting of posts is awful. Off the top of my head, the options available are: bold, italics, hyperlink, quote, and 'bulleted list that will mess up your line spacing.' And you can't preview posts.

-Notifications and messaging have been broken for years.

-When I receive an email notification informing me that someone has commented on a post, it doesn't identify the post they have commented on and clicking the link in the email takes me to their comment only... so I still have no idea what post it's in response to. I also can't respond to their comment by responding to the email.

-There is no comment threading. If someone comments on a post and I respond, there is no way for anyone to reply to that response.

Hoping to hear an insider's perspective on this. Thank you.

[imbnwa]

I swear if I here the word "the right fit"/"culture fit"/any use of "fit" again in SWE labor relations discussions

[viraptor]

Thank you for the details. It definitely helps understanding what happened and the discussion. Not even checking if the affected people would be likely to transition is a weird move.

[Kye]

I've seen a few people post details like this. Did employees talk about it already?

[mgkimsal]

"you allow them to grow into the requirements that you need. "

If one of your requirements is "pay out 30% of what we were paying before"... not many existing employees will want to grow in to those requirements. It's just a hunch, but I suspect many of these people will be replaced with "better fits" that happen to cost a lot less.

[5560675260]

> grow into the requirements that you need

My guess is that main requirements in this case are living in a cheap location and willingness to work for 1/4 of the pay.