[HDThoreaun]

Over hiring in the face of uncertain macro conditions and consumption changes is probably the right choice. If your market expands as you believe it might you're ready to step in and grow. If it doesn't grow you can just lay people off and you're back where you started. The important thing here though is that it's hard to catch up to competitors that have lapped you but it's easy to slow down when you're ahead. If you think there's just a 10% chance that covid causes e-commerce to 10x in size it makes sense to prepare as though it will and then shrink the workforce if things go back to normal.

[ryukafalz]

> If it doesn't grow you can just lay people off and you're back where you started.

"Back where you started" with a now highly demotivated team isn't quite back where you started.

[ethanbond]

Usually when there are layoffs the environment outside the company is not so great either

[jq-r]

If the company didn't do a round of layoffs I'm sure the workers would appreciate that, despite what's going on outside of the company. So even if the company hits a rough patch they'll stick with it, instead of abandoning ship. Or as they say, respect is a two way street.

[Timon3]

You will still lose your best people.

[morkalork]

Shopify already had a reputation for over hiring and firing those that didn't perform exceptionally.

[amrocha]

First time I hear that and I worked there

[tomnipotent]

Can you point to one example?

[m-ee]

Severance costs money as well