<story><title>Tell HN: DigitalOcean is doing layoffs</title><text>I was let go this morning along with at least 4 others from team. Looks like a big company wide layoff is underway</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>jpgvm</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t really get the motivation for this beyond personal greed on behalf of executives that are only seeking to prop up the share price in the short term.&lt;p&gt;The market forces at work will force all technology companies down in valuation pretty much regardless, what is the difference of a few extra million market cap to handicap your ability to grow during the next expansion phase?&lt;p&gt;I can understand it if you have brought on a lot of fat and you want to lean out your team and need an excuse but outside of that rather narrow situation I really don&amp;#x27;t understand cutting stuff like technical writers etc during these periods.&lt;p&gt;Why handicap yourself in the future just to make one quarter look better? Surely if you have faith your stock options will be worth more if you play the longer game?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>reisse</author><text>&amp;gt; I can understand it if you have brought on a lot of fat and you want to lean out your team and need an excuse but outside of that rather narrow situation&lt;p&gt;This doesn&amp;#x27;t really seem to be a rather narrow situation. The tech companies were hiring like crazy for the past two years. Quick googling shows that DigitalOcean increased headcount by 31% last year.&lt;p&gt;And contrary to the popular opinion here, for me this does sound like the right move for the time. The logic, on the growing market, was &amp;quot;let&amp;#x27;s hire people now for 200k TC and give 50k raise after a year, because year later they&amp;#x27;ll be asking for 500k TC upfront&amp;quot;. Now it&amp;#x27;s clear the salaries won&amp;#x27;t be going to the moon in the nearest future, so it makes sense to cut the fat.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tell HN: DigitalOcean is doing layoffs</title><text>I was let go this morning along with at least 4 others from team. Looks like a big company wide layoff is underway</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>jpgvm</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t really get the motivation for this beyond personal greed on behalf of executives that are only seeking to prop up the share price in the short term.&lt;p&gt;The market forces at work will force all technology companies down in valuation pretty much regardless, what is the difference of a few extra million market cap to handicap your ability to grow during the next expansion phase?&lt;p&gt;I can understand it if you have brought on a lot of fat and you want to lean out your team and need an excuse but outside of that rather narrow situation I really don&amp;#x27;t understand cutting stuff like technical writers etc during these periods.&lt;p&gt;Why handicap yourself in the future just to make one quarter look better? Surely if you have faith your stock options will be worth more if you play the longer game?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>game_the0ry</author><text>&amp;gt; what is the difference of a few extra million market cap to handicap your ability to grow during the next expansion phase?&lt;p&gt;For an executive, it&amp;#x27;s a big difference in stock based bonus.&lt;p&gt;The executive level at corporate america tends to filter for status and financial obsessed sociopaths, so they make sociopathic decisions where they are content with making decisions that harm many (layoffs) but benefit themselves. That&amp;#x27;s how we got the enron, the great financial crisis of 2008, and many others.</text></comment>