Patreon laying off 20% of staff

spwa4

What is it with companies doing mass-layoffs and stating no reasons whatsoever, in fact giving reasons why there's no need: > Second, Patreon’s core business is healthy and strong, and we’re going to be a rock for creators for decades to come. Hundreds of thousands of creators rely on Patreon for their livelihoods, businesses, ... > We’re reducing the size of our team by 20%, or ...

KomoD

I can never take such statements seriously.

powerpcmac

The rich get richer and the poor get more AI edited and toned condolence posting.

travisgriggs

I’m selling Enshitification Popcorn. It comes with extra strong spices so that you can watch and eat your popcorn without the odors getting to you. Please support my efforts through my Patreon account! /s

apical_dendrite

There are so many contradictions in this statement that either the person who wrote it is completely muddle-headed, or just a bad liar. > Nothing about our core business has changed – it remains strong and consistent a few paragraphs later > But our transformation is going to take time and the next paragraph > At the same time, the market in which we operate has undergone profound change over the last 6 months. We need to adjust our cost structure So is the business strong and consistent, or is it facing a rapidly-changing market, requiring that the business transform and adjust it's cost structure? > To be clear about the impact of AI on today’s decision: we are not making the above changes because we believe AI replaces humans. A few paragraphs later > AI has fundamentally transformed the tech industry, though, including how we work, how we build products, how we communicate, and more. That does have an impact on how we operate and organize. So do you think AI doesn't replace humans, or do you think that you'll need fewer humans because AI will be doing more of the work?

officialchicken

Bottom line: How do these layoffs increase the successful outcome of product launches on the platform in any way?

natbennett

Patreon just does this every few years. At least Jack Conte didn’t post a video of himself crying about it this time.

jcfrei

Upvoting this so more people see how cringey it's written.

cmiles8

Honestly the most interesting thing to me here is that to took nearly 500 people to run Patreon.

tamimio

>it was a hard decision It wasn’t, I bet executives were laughing reading that

sokoloff

> A $1,500 stipend to replace your company laptop. It seems like a wild choice to give a specific figure as additional cash rather than just letting them keep their (wiped) laptop. That additional cash will be taxed (as should a laptop that is left with the ex-employee, but the used laptop can be valued and taxed as a used laptop rather than a $1500 cash payment [and frankly would often be, um, overlooked...). It seems like it's better for Patreon (cheaper, less IT labor) and approximately as good for the ex-employee to make this be in the shape of the used laptop than a $1500 payment.

bflesch

I don't understand why this is problematic for some: They lay off 93 people so the total # employees before layoffs is 465 and it will be 372 employees remaining after layoffs. In same post they state there are 300k creators making money on their platform, so the ratio of employees to creators is 1:645 before layoffs and 1:800 after layoffs. It's a mature business and VC funding has significantly dried up for these kind of middlemen business models. Why wouldn't 372 people having thousands of meetings between them per week be enough to run such a company? Edit: If you downvote this without explanation I'd wager you never ran a company.

fourseventy

I watched this dudes youtube channel where he makes music for years before I ever knew he was the CEO of pateron. It was a bit of a wtf moment when I found out.

codegeek

The only possible positive thing out of this cringy article is that the severance is decent (for a US company). 4 months of pay and healthcare coverage through Year end. Everything else could have just been a couple of sentences. Companies need to stop doing this melodrama every time they decide to fire people. Everyone knows the goal is to make money and keep a company profitable for their shareholders. Why these melodramatic posts ? People would prefer honesty. Just say "We need to increase our profits or reduce costs or both and hence we have to lay people off. Here is what we are providing as a severance". That's it.

Shalomboy

How could Chapo do this? /s

trentor

No matter what, people who write articles about layoffs like this go straight onto my 'people to stay far away from' list. He is on it since the crying video of the last round of layoffs.

colechristensen

>Creators are earning billions of dollars each year on Patreon, and those earnings have continued to exhibit steady, strong growth. >Creators, members, revenue, and processing volume continue to show strong, consistent growth every month. lol strong consistent growth -> 20% layoff

chrisss395

I see others mentioning the severance package being decent for a US company. I'm glad they received something, but I'm sorry, can we stop calling this decent? It's markedly lopsided when a company can one day decide to lay off a large portion of their workforce and think 4 months is anywhere near acceptable. The average time to find a new job is significantly longer, especially depending on role and seniority. I'm tired of seeing American workers bear the brunt of the stupidity of the executive teams that have done their job so poorly as to suddenly need to lay off workers. If you are a leader and you are put in this situation, it is because you are a terrible at your job. It's not the market, it's not AI or some unforeseen disaster...it's because you had your head up your ass instead of actively running the business.

maxehmookau

> First, the people who work at Patreon are special, beautiful humans, through and through. If you're calling me "special" and "beautiful" and removing my ability to pay my mortgage in the same sentence through no fault of my own, you can absolutely get in the bin. Fundamentally weird behaviour.

jackb4040

My favorite part was when he clarified whether it is/isn't AI replacing jobs