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Uber lays off hundreds more, this time from its engineering and product teams
Uber announced even more layoffs on Tuesday, following an earlier round in July. The ride-hailing company confirmed it's letting go of hundreds of employees in its engineering and product departments to "reset and improve how we work day to day." The total number of staff it laid off this time was 435 people, or about 8% of each department.
"We need to shift how we design our organizations: lean, exceptionally high-performing teams, with clear mandates and the ability to execute faster than our competitors," an Uber spokesman said in a statement. "Today, we're making some changes to get us back on track, which include reducing the size of some teams to ensure we are staffed appropriately against our top priorities."
The layoffs, first reported by TechCrunch, come during a rough period for Uber as it attempts to gain footing as a public company. After debuting on Wall Street in May, the company has seen plummeting stock prices, quarterly revenue loss and an exodus of high-level executives. Three of Uber's board members have stepped down since then, along with its chief operating officer and chief marketing officer.
[...] With this latest round of layoffs, the Uber spokesman said Khosrowshahi asked his management team if they were satisfied with the design of their organizations.
"After careful consideration, our engineering and product leaders concluded the answer to this question in many respects was no," the spokesman said. "Previously, to meet the demands of a hyper-growth startup, we hired rapidly and in a decentralized way." That worked in the past, the spokesman said, but it doesn't anymore.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 12 2019, @02:15PM
Who said they don't have an endless supply of drivers? There will always be another person desperate enough (or dumb enough) to trade in their asset's equity for short term money gains. (And the occasional smart person who might make the system work but live more humbly on the pure profit to them). I'm more interested in whether there is an unlimited supply of drivers who have vehicles in better conditions than your average cab; will they reach an equilibrium where the cars are better maintained and comfortable than cabs or does least-common-denominator mean that it will eventually reach that average with more desperate people entering Uber's workforce?
Obviously there have been investors who have either felt that Uber's model may reach profitability eventually or that they'll be able to unload their stock/VC money on a bigger sucker. The problem is that Amazon started a trend of "yeah we will be profitable someday, but not in the near term...." but investment in a new or unproven market requires one to go beyond the simple financial mechanics and try to figure out what the viability plan is. And somehow there are businesses out there that don't seem to need to prove what their viability will be and people still throw money at it.
That throwing-of-money, beyond just the usually boom-bubble-bust cyclic, is what I think might trigger depression. Too much loose capital in the hands of too many people who are eventually proven to not be smart with it causes a system collapse when the fails accumulate more than the wins produce new growth.
This sig for rent.