Buffer Layoffs - <AUTHOR> https://open.buffer.com/layoffs-and-moving-forward/ <comment> compiler-guy This may be a little cynical but:

"With our culture of bringing our whole selves to work and seeing team as family, with shared values we live by,..."

In the American business world, you are an employee until you aren't. Confusing being an employee with being "family" is a mistake, both for the company and the employee.

When times get bad, companies do what it takes to survive, including throwing employees overboard. That's just a fact.

Buffer may have thought it was different, but that flow-chart of how they decided who to layoff was entirely about how an employee can help the company, not how the layoff would affect the employee. That's not how normal families make decisions.

I have no problem with any of that, but anyone who thinks that way has another thing coming.

All of this isn't to say that Buffer was thoughtless or callous in how they handled it. From the outside, it looks like one of the better handled layoffs I've seen.

But still. Don't confuse your job with your family. It's a business relationship that is only maintained as long as it is in both side's interest to do so.

<comment><USER4> I'd say no relationships, including family relationships, should be maintained if they aren't in the long-term self-interest of all parties.

In other words, every relationship is a trading relationship, and the currency of the realm isn't always, or even often, monetary in nature.

<comment><USER5> I really appreciate your further comments. I agree for most part that humans and other living things ultimately act out of self-interest.

However, there are circumstances when rationale breaks, like when member of your family develops a terminal decease. A purely rational decision would be to cut emotional and financial losses and abandon them, wouldn't it? Yet, luckily, we don't see that happen.

The length to which we go to keep family relationships is irrational, yet I suspect it's a huge component of how we managed to ensure reliance of a system and develop huge societies.

<comment><USER4> I'm glad you're enjoying this discussion. I'm enjoying it as well.

My view is a little different.

I don't think abandoning someone who has been a great value to me because they have developed a terminal disease would be consistent with acting in my self- interest. To do such a thing would be to betray the virtues that I hold dear, such as honesty, integrity, justice, pride, etc.

For example, consider honesty. If this person was a great value to me, we would have some kind of understanding that we don't just toss each other overboard in tough times. If they get sick and I do toss them overboard, I would be a liar, and that brings a ton of other negatives with it, such as undercutting my personal integrity.

There's also the issue of justice. If this person has treated me well, if we have fallen in love, would it be just to abandon them when they are in the fight of their life? That sounds like injustice to me, unless there was some kind of (weird) agreement covering this situation.

This reply is getting a bit long, so I'll stop here.

If I haven't explained this very well, please say so and I'll try to be clearer.

<comment><USER6> The thing is, once you find that the logic of how you decide what to do includes good actions being conditional on being virtuous, it becomes clear that the part about self interest is not essential, and your logic would be clearer if you refactored it to remove that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _> In short, this was all caused by the fact that we grew the team too big, too fast. We thought we were being mindful about balancing the pace of our hiring with our revenue growth. We weren't.

>Reflecting on it now, I see a lot of ego and pride reflected in that team size number.

> In many areas, we grew the team more than was truly necessary for the time, > more than was clearly validated._

I feel like we all experience this pull by vanity metrics, ego, etc. The level of honestly we've seen in this post will hopefully serve as a reality check for many of us.

 _> Both Leo and I have taken a salary cut of 40% until at least the end of the year. Savings: $94,000.

>Leo and I are committing $100k each in the form of a loan at the lowest possible interest rate, with repayment only when Buffer reaches a healthy financial position. Savings: $200,000._

This is an attitude and decision I saw made by the C-level during the financial crisis at a company with hundreds of employees. The C level took home $0 in pay and the staff took at 40% until they made it back to profitability, in order to avoid laying anyone off (this is Japan where reemployment would be incredibly difficult).

It shows maturity and commitment to the organization (i.e. your people) that is rarely seen these days in startup land. Much respect.

<comment><USER8> Was just going to post at a higher level, but your comment nails it. These guys are feeling the pain. It's clear. There is honesty going on here - I feel a lack of cynicism from the post, real soul searching, and for that, I can mitigate the otherwise knee-jerk negativity to the managers that I usually feel on layoff justification posts. Reality is hitting people. The market is slowing. Tough choices. No forgiveness for not having seen it, and for hurting the laid off people, but at least I see a genuine search for reasons and genuine empathy. Good post, under the circumstances.

Here's hoping that the wisdom on display will serve this company well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Two things jumped out at me.

1) They planned to spend 1/3 of their remaining cash on flying people around the world to meet f2f. Whoah! They need a CFO with some real power, because that is absurd.

2) Speaking of needing a CFO, one of the first things a CFO will probably point out to them is that their cash target is off by 100%. They're targeting hitting 50% of today's ARR sometime next year, yet they plan to grow ARR in 12-18 months by double. If they truly want 50% ARR on hand, they need to target $10M, not $4-5M.

I also have some questions about the graph -- I'm sure it's well-meaning but it looks fishy. The slope of the curve is noticeably better in the go-forward plan vs the status-quo plan, but there's no logic to support that in the post. I imagine there's a breakdown that makes this make sense, but it's not at all obvious, and the naive conclusion is that these people who were fired were actually slowing down sales somehow. Secondly, every time I see a graph where the next month is negative and then ... magic... and the slope goes positive, my spidey sense tingles pretty damn hard. That said, there are some obvious reasons this might happen, including the cost of the layoff being recognized next month, so that's less of an obvious red flag.

<comment><USER10> AFAIK the graph shows difference between monthly revenue and expenditure. Reduce the costs, and it will turn up (if the revenue stays).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> FWIW, here's their public spreadsheet of salaries and calculations. Not sure if it's been recently updated (on closer look, seems to reflect the founders' stated pay cuts, and new hires as recent as last month):

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l3bXAv8JE5RB9siMq36-...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l3bXAv8JE5RB9siMq36-Ogngks2MT6yQ5gt8YXhUyAg/edit#gid=1533208969)

edit: Adding links to their blog posts:

[https://open.buffer.com/transparent- salaries/](https://open.buffer.com/transparent-salaries/)

[https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at- buffer-...](https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer- including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/)

<comment><USER12> I admire Buffer for being so transparent with their salaries, but I don't think I would ever decide to work for a company that mandated it.

In my (admittedly limited) experience, mandating salary transparency tends to increase the salaries of low performers and reduce the salaries of high performers. It usually eliminates the potential for negotiating raises and poses difficult questions about paying some employees more than others in the same band.

Case in point: according to Buffer's salary calculator[1], a "master" (their highest rank) backend developer living in San Francisco and optimizing for salary over equity would earn about $155,000/year. I can't think of any definition of "master" developer that could be competitive for. Friends of mine at AmaGooBookSoft and even other startups have earned nearly double that for being merely "senior" (L5).

[1]: [https://buffer.com/salary?r=1&l=10&e=3&q=1](https://buffer.com/salary?r=1&l=10&e=3&q=1)

<comment><USER13> The $155k salary might be due to the transparency, but could it also be due to a simple inability to pay developers $300k+? That's well over double the CEO's salary. I think it's clear they simply don't have the revenue and cash reserves to pay developers that kind of money. I suspect you'll find this to be true at a lot of smaller startups that rely on actually making money instead of fundraising.

<comment><USER14> Also, Buffer is entirely remote. I bet many people are willing to take a big pay cut if they don't have to commute to an office building every day (and of course, other people like office life -- but remote positions are rare, so it's normal that they're more "expensive" for employees who really want them).

<comment><USER15> Also, if you're working remotely from a more affordable location you may not need as much salary in order to live a very comfortable life.

I think our expectations are skewed by the crippling cost of living in SF, New York, London, etc.

<comment><USER16> Buffer actually adjusts the salary based on location, so this is (at least partially) taken into account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As much as I want to dive into armchair management here, I greatly respect the fact that the buffer folks remained committed to the total open transparency thing, even when it didn't paint the business in a positive light. That takes a lot of balls

In a world where business failures are rarely documented, people ought to celebrate the fact that these guys are giving the world a recorded history of the lifecycle of their company, their thoughts when making business decisions etc. There is immense value to be gained for anyone in this industry

</comment><comment><USER18> >> We canceled our upcoming team retreat to Berlin. Savings: $400,000.

Compared to all their other costs that one stood out the most. 500k savings laying off 10% of your workforce compared to 400k for a team retreat in Berlin.

Is this typical?

<comment><USER19> That does seem astronomical. $4,000 per employee if they have ~100 employees like they say.

Anyone think their salaries are absurdly high for some locations and positions?

They've got Adnan working as an "Advanced Backend/Frontend Developer" in Sri Lanka, making only $65,104. This actually makes sense to me because Sri Lanka's cost of living is pretty low.

But they've got an Advanced "Happiness Hero" which I presume is an email support role making $77,397 in Kentucky. Last time I checked, $77,000 is an extraordinarily high salary in KY, especially for someone doing email support.

<comment><USER20> $4,000 would barely cover business-class airfare between SF<->Berlin for one employee. Not to mention accommodations, event space, meals and entertainment.

<comment><USER21> Are you saying it is customary to fly people business class in the Valley, rather than coach? Especially for a team retreat?

<comment><USER20> I cannot speak for Valley customs. But all of the (non-Valley) companies I'm familiar with extend business class to employees for international travel as a matter of policy.

<comment><USER22> I must work at the wrong places (non-Valley). Maybe that used to be common, but in recent years I don't see that for regular employees at all. Maybe for some layers of management.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> While Buffer's transparency is incredible, the financial calculations in the article fail to account for the possibility of an _employee exodus_ domino effect, especially after both knowing the financial state of the company, and relevant perks being cut.

<comment><USER24> I would actually think the opposite: if you're a buffer employee right now, you know a) the company will continue to exist b) that you're a valuable asset to the company and c) that your founders walk the walk when it comes to transparency and information sharing.

I'd assume a few people will leave for better offers in the next few weeks, but this seems to prove that the founders are dedicated to the company and can learn from mistakes - hardly the prompt for a mass exodus.

<comment><USER25> Not only that, but the founders themselves took a 40% pay cut each for the next year. That says to me that they value their employees enough that they chose that route rather than lay off an additional person. It's a strong gesture.

<comment><USER26> And the founders each loaned the company $100k out of their own pockets at "the lowest possible interest rate."

There's a lot of laudable humility and self-accountability in this post and the actions they've taken.

<comment><USER27> I read that as weasel word bullshit. The lowest possible rate would be 0.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I certainly appreciate their openness, and like to follow their progress, but...

...could anyone explain to this naive commenter how it takes 90 (80 for that matter) people to run essentially a 'cronjob as a service' business?

<comment><USER29> Let's do some simple estimation! I haven't really looked at their spreadsheet, so this is just guesswork.

The product is fairly simple technologically yes, but the value is provided by making it easy to use so the customer saves time (= money). To do that you need a few UX people plus some developers (especially with web and mobile apps), call that 15 engineers/designers total, plus another 5 for ops. Now you need a sales team since your real money will be in selling to enterprises - call that 15 people. And on top of that you need customer support, and call that another 20 people. Now that we're up to 55 people, we need another 10 people worth of HR and 5 bean counters, that takes us to 70. Now cap it off with 10 managers/executives and we're up to 80, and I'm sure there's some things I was off about or forgot.

It's easy to forget about all the non-engineering resources you need for a medium-sized business.

<comment><USER30> >Now that we're up to 55 people, we need another 10 people worth of HR

1 HR person per 5.5 employees? This is insanely high. A company that size need 2-3, tops.

<comment><USER31> You need more in HR (or more accurately, HR/finance) if you have lots of remote employees, especially international. That's a ton of extra administration to deal with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> _> Reflecting on it now, I see a lot of ego and pride reflected in that team size number._

This is one of the worse diseases I see in the tech world. I have friends who, when asked how their company is doing, respond with something like "great! We just hired a dozen more engineers."

I'm pretty sure a better answer is "great! We just got X customers," or "great! We're profitable now!". Not how big your fief is. (But, mentioning fiefs, I'm struck by the notion that a startup is just a business unit of a loosely-organized corporation and CxOs thereof just middle managers for an investor-class executive group.)

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady I'm curious as to why they had 94 employees. That seems like an insanely high number for a company that does something pretty basic (not dumping on the product, I like it and have used it in the past). What are all of those people doing?

<comment><USER33> As part of a company of less than 30 in a rural region, I get that feeling a lot. I'm sure I'm wrong but what do 57000 google employees do!? Am I really hitting an immense mechanical turk when I use google? Yet they can't spare a single person to spend a few weeks to convert the flash off of google finance?

<comment><USER34> Kind of, yes! You would not believe how much manual labor goes into maintaining and load balancing data centers and keeping deceptively simple- looking services up and running... There has been some recent press on the work done by legions of SREs that gets into a few of the details.

<comment><USER33> I dunno we are 3 software devs, 2 network admins (also playing the role of top tier level, on call support) and run our own bare metal servers in two geographically separated collocation data centers. We also have 2 device hardware/firmware guys and the CEO also does a bit of coding sometimes.

Our solutions are sometimes a bit clunky but our infrastructure is audited yearly by an outside firm and certified to carry banking data through the wireless device we designed and through our network. There is another 15-20 people doing financials, payroll, hr, tech support, sales, marketing, assembly, hardware testing, shipping etc..

We maintain multiple backend interfaces to a bunch of (sometimes old and archaic) bank networks and to our wireless devices as well as multiple front end portals for our users.

It's hard to imagine ever being able to make use of 57000 bodies, but I suppose that's a totally different context. We could use a few more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> They laid of 10 people, 11% of their workforce - which means they had ~90 employees.

Crunchbase tells me they have had almost 4M in investment since 2011 and Baremetrics puts them at 45M in lifetime revenues. So, call it a round $50M in capital.

50M/90 employees all in is around $135k/employee each year for the last two years. Subtract all the perks and those numbers get hard fast.

Just goes to show that, even with a lot of cash, a lot of people cost a lot. It ends up doing a disservice to each existing employee, with each new person your company brings on, if you can't scale revenue with the pace of hiring.

</comment><comment><USER36> _" We had just come out of a long experiment with self-management, where we fully leaned in to ..."_

What on earth does 'fully leaned in' mean? It's not the greatest of metaphors, I pictured someone falling on their face.

<comment><USER37> Love this comment. Because that's what happened. Maybe it's a cautionary tale supported by another meme -- never go full retard.

But they got up and seem to be dusting themselves off. So kudos for showing transparency when they mess up (which is when commitment to transparency actually means something).

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Company lays off 10,000 people: "restructuring"

This guy lays off 10: heart felt apologies and deep moment of reflection

Criticize away HN, while he still has his humanity.

</comment><comment><USER39> I have mixed emotions with Buffer's shtick. On the one hand there's something fresh and unique about it. On the other, I think: just put your heads down and get to work serving customers!

I'm guessing the main benefit of the open-ness is marketing. I doubt it helps the company much beyond that.

<comment><USER40> Well, except for hiring. When they get to that again.

Sometimes just vocalizing things came lead to new insight. I like their approach, minus the salary transparancy.

<comment><USER41> > When they get to that again.

Looks like they're still hiring: [https://buffer.com/journey/full-stack- developer](https://buffer.com/journey/full-stack-developer)

<comment><USER42> > Looks like they're still hiring: [https://buffer.com/journey/full-stack- > developer](https://buffer.com/journey/full-stack-developer)

Yeah that's what I was going to say, there's a link to the we're hiring page on the new salary formula spreadsheet:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l3bXAv8JE5RB9siMq36-...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l3bXAv8JE5RB9siMq36-Ogngks2MT6yQ5gt8YXhUyAg/edit#gid=1533208969)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> What is with capitalism's obsession with constant growth? Buffer is a great app, I use it every day, but how in the f*ck do they need 100 employees to maintain it?

My company is writing an entire smartwatch OS, including companion apps for iOS and Android, and we're less than 10 people. Buffer needs 100 people just to write one multiplatform app? What is going on here?

</comment><comment><USER44> I guess I'm nitpicking, and the guy probably just needs an editor, but the whole tone of this post seemed tiresomely self-congratulatory to me. "Look at how frank and empathetic and open I am! Look at me ruthlessly dissect my own mistakes! Isn't that refreshing?"

It also all seems a bit maudlin — being laid off is a terrible thing, but mistakes happen and employees are aware of risks going in (although as others have noted, this type of situation underscores how inappropriate the whole "we're a big family" idea is). It would seem more respectful to the laid-off employees not to go on and on in this manner.

</comment><comment><USER45> Good for them for being transparent even when the company is struggling, but if I was an employee at the company I would be worried. The chart they provide of Buffer bank balance over time seems overly optimistic. It looks like they assume that the employees they fire added no value to the company - <USER2> assume the company will generate the same revenue even after cutting 10% of their employees. This is wrong, and would worry me greatly that the founders don't seem to recognize this. Of course I would be worried anyway because laying people off at a start-up is a really bad sign, anyway you try to spin it.

</comment><comment><USER46> Damn, only Buffer could exploit the firing of 10 percent of their staff with a promotional post.

I don't know whether to be impressed or offended.

</comment><comment><USER47> This is a bit surprising. Buffers revenue has been solidly growing (up 23% in the last 6 months) with around 840K in MRR. I suppose having that many employees adds up quickly though. It's hard letting people go... But ultimately you have to do what is required to keep the company going.

Source of financials: [http://i.imgur.com/i3W5KC7.png](http://i.imgur.com/i3W5KC7.png)

</comment><comment><USER48> I really like the transparency and accountability.

Two questions: Why are the two loans necessary? And, how does a loan get counted as savings?

> Leo and I are committing $100k each in the form of a loan at the lowest > possible interest rate, with repayment only when Buffer reaches a healthy > financial position. Savings: $200,000.

<comment><USER49> It shows founder commitment -- a willingness to put their own personal savings at risk to help the company survive.

It's "savings" in the penny-saved, penny-earned sense.

<comment><USER50> A penny saved is not a liability, it is an asset.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This reminds me of Ben Horowitz' _The Hard Thing About Hard Things_ , where he talked about implementing a plan to lay off 90% of his company in complete secrecy, for fear of employee exodus and loss of customer confidence. But that was a very different situation than Buffer is in now, as it happened during the original dot-com era collapse.

Kudos to Buffer for their approach to transparency. I think it will actually serve them well here.

</comment><comment><USER52> It sounds like they handled this layoff both compassionately and professionally, although the founders have a lot to learn about balancing their spending.

But still, every company and employee needs to recognize that your coworkers and company are not your family - this only leads to misplaced expectations.

One of things that makes America so competitive, is the concept of at will employment - the company can fire or lay you off anytime and you can leave at any time too. This is a reality we must accept for capitalism to work at optimum efficiency. I realize this may seem heartless and cruel, but that's why you need to have work/life balance. Ideally work should not account for more than 10 to 20 hours of your life per week. Sadly, for most of us it's 40+ hours. It is outside of "work", where you can form relationships that mirror a family like structure - in volunteer groups (unpaid), friendship circles, hobby groups, book clubs, etc. More of our lives should be dedicated to such organizations for us to remain better balanced.

<comment><USER53> > Ideally work should not account for more than 10 to 20 hours of your life > per week.

Is this an opinion or is there some kind of rationale behind this? I don't mean to sound antagonistic, I'm just genuinely asking a question.

<comment><USER52> It's just an opinion. 20 hours (25% of the discretionary week, discretionary time is roughly 50% of 168 hours ~ 84 hours.) for me represents the maximum amount of time that could be considered sufficiently diversified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I appreciate the forthrightness in this blogpost. Not only have they owned up to mistakes, the thought process in dealing with it (whether you agree with it or not or not) is well documented.

To be transparent is quite a difficult thing. You expose yourself to so much scrutiny.

Godspeed Joel as you and your team bounce back from this slight setback. We all fall. how we get up is what matters.

</comment><comment><USER55> "We had just come out of a long experiment with self-management"

Why do startups do these huge management experiments? My company did the flat thing too and they spent a few months trying to get people to understand it. Probably burning up 5hr/wk for each person. Until they almost ran out of money. By then people were really confused. I think it almost killed the company due to the politics and red tape it created (strange, it was supposed to eliminate it).

My opinion is that it's hard enough to run a startup, let alone trying to invent a new management methodology. Best to go with what people already know. It may not be perfect, but at least there's some prior experience with it.

Just like how most would advise using the programming language and platform you know to build your initial product, rather than trying to to learn something that you think might be better.

</comment><comment><USER56> They have some pretty tough competition now.

[https://www.socialchamp.io/](https://www.socialchamp.io/) for example is one that is growing rapidly.

I can only imagine that it may become a commodotized space w/ little differentiation.

</comment><comment><USER57> we always talk about 3rd party platform risk for startups and to me Buffer is the prototypical example of one. If Twitter has a bad day they can cut off their API access and they'd be dead (ok they support Facebook and others but that's still 1/2 of your core)

So it seemed quite absurd they'd spend so much on things like retreats when they have so much risk.

</comment><comment><USER58> From a tweet cited in the article (not the author):

> _i think @dfjjosh 's rule of 50% of ARR to operate and invest without $$$ > stress is a really good one. use debt to hack it._

What's the point of taking on debt just to have more cash on hand? Is this a startup-y "growth über alles" type of mentality or is it found in the larger business world as well? I don't see how increasing your burn rate just to have more cash in the bank is a good business decision, especially when you'll pay a premium to have that cash in the form of interest or loan origination.

</comment><comment><USER59> "Although I know rationally that the size of the team is not something to celebrate, I feel that I slipped into that harmful mindset quite a bit over the last year. Not everyone is familiar with growth metrics like monthly recurring revenue, but team size is easy to understand. Sometimes it impressed people when I told them how big the company was, and I was proud to share it."

Correct. Headcount is a figure that represents a company's means. If you're tracking it as an end result, you end up having to make hard decisions or someone makes them for you.

The transparency is commendable. A couple other observations:

\- Affected employees had an average salary of $58.5k (assuming your metrics is net of benefits and payroll tax). If this is annualized, it appears you let go of non-engineers. Set goals and performance expectations for those who remain, especially those who build your product.

\- Stop publicly promising salary increases altogether. Promote people based on their ability, not an artificial loyalty policy. Some people deserve 10%+ raises, some you'll find are overpaid. Use a basic job ladder and put the burden on managers to justify comp changes.

\- If the policy of granting vacation bonuses was for recruiting purposes, you've successfully attracted people who want to be paid not to work. Again, implement a corporate bonus program and set goals for staff.

Best of luck.

<comment><USER60> \- Stop publicly promising salary increases altogether. Promote people based on their ability, not an artificial loyalty policy. Some people deserve 10%+ raises, some you'll find are overpaid. Use a basic job ladder and put the burden on managers to justify comp changes.

A guarantee of annual salary increases is problematic for three reasons:

a. An increase of 3-5% is going to increase salary costs rapidly as it compounds. He mentions that salary is 80% of cost, so it means that costs are going up for doing the _same thing_ by 3-5% every year. Employees aren't a fixed unit of production (particularly in a tech firm) but there's not unlimited new productivity either. It's fine if your prices are also growing at those rates ... but I don't think many people are in those situations at the moment.

b. It takes away the meritocracy Salaries have to keep up with inflation, but beyond should be a mark of performance.

c. It's going to suck when they have to change it Things happen, this is an example, and employee morale is a sensitive matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Appreciate the transparency, but they mention that they let people off on a "last in, first out" basis, and their flowchart seems to suggest that if they like an employee they'll move them to another role.

I don't blame them for doing housekeeping in that way - if you need to reduce headcount, start with people who don't fit the culture and business needs - but they shouldn't pretend that it's perfectly unbiased.

</comment><comment><USER62> People keep saying "admire the transparency", "appreciate the transparency", but really what's the point? Who is the "transparency" for?

I really couldn't care less about my salary being made public to the world, all I care about is working on something I believe in.

Extreme transparency has nothing to do with their business growth and it will probably come back to haunt them later, I don't know why they're going so far as to do all this.

Doing business is extremely hard on its own, why complicate matters and expose private details to the public, which can and probably will at some point be used against you? I mean even on this thread people nitpick and gossip about every single details. And it would be a lie to say they care 0% about these things. If they _do_ care, it just means less time worrying about their core business.

</comment><comment><USER63> On deciding to not raise funds from venture capitalists:

"This has some implications on the true growth rate we can expect, yet it has significant benefits we feel in terms of the freedom we have to experiment not only with innovation in products but also in the way we work."

I think this reflects an important, often over looked point. Many people want to start a business because they prefer to not have a boss, and be able to make their own decisions.

In many ways, raising capital from outsiders can just replace one boss with another. Now you have to make your investors happy, even when it leads to different decisions than what you might make otherwise.

<comment><USER64> I think the goal is to replace one boss (whether it is VCs, a customer, an employer, etc.) with one hundred bosses (ie. tons of customers, powerless investors, several different freelance employers) so you can tell whatever one is causing you significant stress to FO. Redundancy and autonomy is, or should be, the goal, as opposed to business size or power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Are we seeing these event more frequently than before or is it just a matter of perception?

Anyway, despite being a tough time for them; it's good to know they live in reality and not in a "unicorn-themed-chase-party".

</comment><comment><USER66> > Leo and I are committing $100k each in the form of a loan at the lowest > possible interest rate, with repayment only when Buffer reaches a healthy > financial position. Savings: $200,000.

Oops. This isn't savings. It's high-priority debt. Investors really want to invest in the future of the company, not the past. If these guys want to serve their company, they'll

(a) write this off their personal books, considering it an unrecoverable cost.

(b) convert it from debt to some kind of warrant giving them the right to recover it from profits at some point in the future.

Who's advising these guys?

<comment><USER67> People who know about tax law apparently.

<comment><USER68> I was wondering about that - they already took out $1M each in the last fundraising round at all - why draw a $200K+ salary and give half of it to taxes when you've already got plenty in the bank?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> "... seeing team as family, with shared values..."

Should have tried pay cut across the board and see if folks jumped ship. A good test to see if that culture held up.

(Just a thought. I know it is more nuanced)

</comment><comment><USER70> Why is this several hundred upvotes news? A startup grows from 30-something to 90-something it's too much it trims a little. That's entirely normal. What's the big news?

<comment><USER71> It trimmed the most recent employees, who decided to take the job after rejecting other job offers. Hiring 60 people in one year and then firing 10 of them in less than a year isn't nice and it doesn't feel nice. It's definitely a screw up in planning.

I understand why it can happen for sure, but still sucks.

<comment><USER72> Yeah, also I get the FIFO idea of firing, but for some people who have given up jobs recently. Or have come out of a startup which has failed and owed them salary it can be really tough. Especially when it can take a couple of months to find a new job if you're committed to the remote lifestyle. The share amount of applications that companies who operate remotely get means that it takes six weeks for them to even get to your CV, let alone go through the coding challenges, multiple interviews, paid trial, etc.

<comment><USER71> FIFO layoffs suck extra hard for the new people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> It boggles my mind why a company like buffer that has a relatively simple product and a pretty straight forward transactional sales model would ever need that many people.

</comment><comment><USER74> What does buffer do as a company?

<comment><USER75> Social media marketing automation

<comment><USER76> Socially Positioned Automated Marketing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Ouch. Never a pleasant thing to do.

I just hope they made the cut deep enough. A common mistake is to cut enough to _just_ get back to break even, when what you really need in that situation is to get back to a decent level of profitability. The number of times I've seen a second round of layoffs because people got that wrong...

From the looks of their projections, they've done the right thing, back to profitability and growth.

</comment><comment><USER78> Holy smokes... they put all new hires through a 45 day trial, then only keep 7 out of 10! I can't imagine getting the boot after a month and a half... by then you'd have made emotional connections. I guess it would work for those who are contractors thinking about getting a full time gig, but for those leaving other positions... wow.

</comment><comment><USER79> 22% of their stuff are happiness heroes [0] !!! WTF !!!!!!

[0] [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l3bXAv8JE5RB9siMq36-...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l3bXAv8JE5RB9siMq36-Ogngks2MT6yQ5gt8YXhUyAg/edit#gid=1533208969)

<comment><USER80> WTF because of the name or WTF because of the number?

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> "when we had to tell 10 talented teammates that their journey with us was over" \- Gavin Belson

</comment><comment><USER82> Interesting as just yesterday I was praising the company how successful it is in this niche. It was posted on a thread yesterday which went like 'Successful companies which YC rejected".

And here the layoffs. The upper management were banking 250,000 the last time I read their details.

</comment><comment><USER83> "We made 10 layoffs in order to recover to a healthier financial position. Savings: $585,000"

so these people cost the company $58,500 apiece (this is incl. their benefits, insurance, etc). Meaning their salaries were, what? $40k?

wow?

<comment><USER84> If you read further, they clarify that's 585k through the end of the year. So factor in a termination package for them and the 585k is less than half of their yearly salary, so they were likely at or above 100k/yr each. Makes a bit more sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Buffer overflow. Oops!

</comment><comment><USER86> Have they written about their experience with Holacracy?

</comment><comment><USER87> I realise it's a significant (11%) proportion of their (former) staff - <USER3> "we've made 10 layoffs" sounds incredibly personal.

</comment><comment><USER88> Leadership has to stay under one roof. Team can be distributed but the leadership not. Everyone in the mother tipi.

</comment><comment><USER89> The comments so far all seem focused on the language Joel uses (family, etc). While that may be fair, if you simply change those terms into whatever you think is more accurate, this is a very, very good piece of insight into the perils of growing too quickly, as well as an (as usual) extremely transparent look into how a company that is reasonably successful adapts.

</comment><comment><USER90> I'm sorry if I haven't read all the comments, but this post basically tells me that the company should remove both founders and have a real CEO to do the right decisions from the beginning of the growing, 34 to 94 it's 3 times the size and having retreats and perks like those mentioned are not worth it specially for such a small/young companies

<comment><USER91> They're doing something very different from the run-of-the-mill kind of startup, funding, salary management and various other things.

I'm sure thousands of people have been thrilled with Buffer growing and thriving and see it as a breath of fresh air in a climate filled with bean counter CEOs who think anything and everything boils down to a number that can be turned like a set of knobs to change outcomes (and of course, most of them fail and jump to another job with a nice golden parachute). I personally think the executive compensation disparities that traditional CEOs bring in and how they deal with things are very damaging to all the humans who work with them. As a society, it doesn't forebode well at all to continue with the traditional model.

Regardless of how Buffer ends up faring in the next year or so, it will always be remembered for being different and doing things differently than most other companies. I feel bad for all the Buffer employees that they had to face this - letting go of a significant percentage of the workforce in a small company (or even a small division in a large company) can be really upsetting for everyone involved. The best that they can do, which they seem to be doing, is making sure that these people who're laid off get a decent enough job elsewhere. One can't really hope for that in many other companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> For a revenue-generating business like this, is 90 employees with $10M ARR normal?

Admire the transparency.

</comment><comment><USER93> In Silicon Valley, Buffer overflows you!

</comment><comment><USER94> What does this company even do?!

</comment><comment><USER95> Layoff is : to get rid of someone as soon as he has finished his work

</comment><comment><USER96> OT: I stopped using Buffer since they've imposed limits on the free accounts. Any suggestions for alternatives?

<comment><USER97> Is this for a non-profit or a personal project? Or social marketing for something that can make money?</comment></comment>


How To Research The Next Big App - <AUTHOR> http://jaysonfeltner.com/iphone-app.html After developing a top performing app, learn how I researched the idea to create a sure fire winner in the app store. <comment><USER2> From the article..."Create an alternative", "...Find another way to give people a similar experience."

Maybe PhoneGap...balsamiq...plus there are lots of apps for prototyping using an iPad.

The article also advises to find your niche...be careful of going too specialized - there are thousands of apps around and getting too specialized could be detrimental since so many other apps might cover your niche plus many others (like teaching only addition when other math educational apps teach other operations in addition to addition)</comment>


Is This What It's Like For Women At Every Conference? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/grace-hopper-2013/17d1a8607199

<comment><USER2> Hmm. All of this sounds a lot more like things he knows he should say, than things someone would actually think.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's pretty cynical.

Look, if you're building a product that is designed to be used by everybody, it should be built by a representative group. Just like the Supreme Court should be representative, and Congress should be representative.

The point is, you don't need to hire people just because they're women to make some representative quota, but that you can hire women without sacrificing quality, because there are thousands of eminently qualified candidates.

You should go, it's really eye-opening.

<comment><USER3> > Just like the Supreme Court should be representative, and Congress should be > representative.

in that case people who have not studied law would be on supreme court bench along with people who did. and people who have not won the election would be representing people with people who have won the election.

> that you can hire X without sacrificing quality, because there are thousands > of eminently qualified candidates.

generalizing women with X above, implies there are equal number of qualified people in all groups, no matter whatever the ratio of the groups are.</comment></comment></comment>


AMP pages will now show original URL in Chrome's address bar - <AUTHOR> http://hackernoon.com/optimising-your-application-bundle-size-with-webpack-e85b00bab579 <comment><USER2> Headline<>article mismatch

<comment><USER3> yes its editorialized title

HN guidelines apply

<comment><USER2> I thought it was an error. There's a bunch of pages matching the title but not on hackernoon. For ex [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=AMP+pages+will+now+show+original+U...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=AMP+pages+will+now+show+original+URL+in+Chrome%27s+address+bar)</comment></comment></comment>


Statistically Controlling for Confounding Constructs Is Harder Than You Think - <AUTHOR> http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0152719 <comment><USER3> This is really interesting. Trying to summarize the idea of the paper using their example: If people swim more on days when ice cream sales are high, one might conclude that ice cream causes swimming. But if you have information about the temperature, you can fit a statistical model that predicts swimming. The model will learn that temperature predicts swimming perfectly, and the feature of ice cream isn't used at all. So you could say after controlling for temperature, ice cream no longer correlates with swimming.

But what if your temperature estimate is noisy or imprecise? For example, if you only have information if the temperature was hotter than 75 degrees, but not exactly what it was. Then this trick no longer works. The temperature variable predicts swimming a lot, but not completely. So ice cream sales are still useful, and so still correlate with swimming after controlling for temperature.

I wonder if the way to solve this is using bayes nets. You could test a model where the variables "swimming", "ice cream sales", and "observed temperature", are all caused by some unobserved third variable. This model should fit the data better than alternative models, like ones where "ice cream sales" cause swimming and temperature. But simple linear models can't represent dependencies like this.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps you know it, but there's another classic example involving ice cream. It was thought in the 1940's (by the public, by doctors, and by scientists) that ice cream consumption caused children to contract polio. More ice cream is consumed in the summer, there are more polio cases in the summer: [https://theglyptodon.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/polio- caused-b...](https://theglyptodon.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/polio-caused-by- ice-cream/)

<comment><USER5> My personal favorite:

[http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=1597](http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=1597)

US spending on science, space, and technology

       correlates with

Suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I always wondered what exactly people mean when they say "controlling for ..." as if somehow they can tell apart cause A and cause B for the effect C.

It turns out if you can measure A and B without noise, the whole "controlling for..." business is legit, but if you only have noisy estimates A' and B' of the actual A and B, then the "controlling for..." technique used by many researchers does not work very well at all.

interesting quotes:

> _The present results demonstrate that, for a very common class of > incremental validity arguments, such a strategy runs a high risk of failure. > The scope of the problem is considerable: literally hundreds of thousands of > studies spanning numerous fields of science have historically relied on > measurement-level incremental validity arguments to support strong > conclusions about the relationships between theoretical constructs._

> _We conclude that many previous findings in the social sciences are at high > risk of having concluded that two constructs are distinct when they may not > in fact be so._

Note how polite the authors are. They don't say it straight up that many (most?) multiple regression results are bullshit, they just say "at high risk of being wrong."

<comment><USER5> I think that as long as one remember that a lot of words used in statistics have very different meanings from how one would use them in normal life one should be fine. "Controlling for" is one such term, "explains" is another.

Of course, especially once study result make it into mass media all statistical meaning of the words used is completely lost and reinterpreted from the point of view of normal-life usage.

<comment><USER7> Could you say how "explains" is different in statistics and normal-life? I know what it means in statistics, but they're actually pretty close, so I'm not sure how it could lead to a non-trivial misunderstanding.

<comment><USER5> Statistical "explains" is just that. It is based purely on the model _and numbers_. Try this: Create statistical "explanations" for things like Newton's laws, or for everyday explanations like why the uncle didn't go on vacation this year.

When you get a statistical "explanation", for example in a linear model, factor X explains 50% of the observed variation, you never know if that is actually the factor - or if it's random, or if it's confounded by an unknown.

"explains" in statistics is meant to be used within the context of your model equations and numbers.

Even if you get causation by experimenting and controlling the variables and don't just have correlation, who would be satisfied with a statistical "explanation"? You still won't know if there isn't a common factor that you just don't know about yet.

Same with statistical significance: It is useless unless someone who actually knows the field checks how/if the model you have relates to the real world. It's not enough to show that everything works fine within your model - <USER2> have to know if you have the right model, which requires knowledge outside of statistics. It's just a tool (statistics), by itself it means as much as naked numbers.

<comment><USER5> ...or in other words (can't edit what I wrote any more):

Statistics can tell you _that_ there is a connection. It can't tell you _how_ (it works).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Please evaluate my weekend project - tweets archival service - <AUTHOR>

As you might know, the tweets you can find out today might be not available tomorrow or few days later, so I am building a service to archive tweets for you, as best as I can.
After one year, I still like this idea. So I will implement it this weekend.
Original tweet: https://twitter.com/wanghq/status/267842185167253505 Mockup: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A7eRDF8CMAAoVqa.png:large <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable links: Original tweet: [https://twitter.com/wanghq/status/267842185167253505](https://twitter.com/wanghq/status/267842185167253505) Mockup: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A7eRDF8CMAAoVqa.png:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A7eRDF8CMAAoVqa.png:large)

<comment><USER2> topsy.com does that already isn't it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not sure how it works. Searching 'railsrumble' returns nothing from topsy.com.

[http://topsy.com/s?q=railsrumble&type=tweet](http://topsy.com/s?q=railsrumble&type=tweet)</comment></comment></comment>


A Step-by-Step Guide to Name Your Product - <AUTHOR> https://www.nickkolenda.com/brand-names/ <comment><AUTHOR> In this massive guide, you'll learn how to construct a brand name that simply "feels right" for your product or business.

Pretty comprehensive and in-depth.</comment>


Anarchists Who Took the Commuter Train - <AUTHOR> https://longreads.com/2019/04/16/the-anarchists-who-took-the-commuter-train/ <comment> false-mirror This was a really well written piece. I was expecting a typical caricature of anarchism, but was pleasantly surprised. It is interesting how much history is forgotten in the US left

<comment><USER2> why snipe the left when your statement broadly applies?

<comment><USER3> I would interpret left here in opposition to liberals, which have been much stronger since Clinton came to power. See: Century of the Self.

<comment><USER2> It's a mistake to conflate leftism and liberalism. The parent poster should have made themselves clearer and avoided cheap shots.

My point stands. The case that history has been forgotten by the left, in particular, is not made by false-mirror nor the article in question. It is implied that the left has some unique amnesia.

For what purpose, we are left to speculate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _> The closer I got to New York, stands of pine trees gave way to warehouses, vast troughs of commerce where tractor-trailers lined up to feed. A few miles past the Joyce Kilmer Service Area..._

Either God or the state of New Jersey appears to have a pretty dark sense of humor.

<comment><USER5> Resident of New Jersey. I can confirm the answer is both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm conservative politically, but there's a lot to be said, I think, about the written work of the smarter anarchists and those of a similar philosophy on the continental old Left. I'm thinking of, say, Debord and Castoriadis.

</comment><comment><USER7> _"...Steltonites didn't hide their radicalism, raising a red fag on the water tower (which angry locals climbed up and tore down)..."_

I... assume this is a typo? I had to reread a few times.

<comment><USER8> and... why not a black flag anyway?

<comment><USER9> Anarchists used the socialist red flag most of the time. They switched to black flags when red flags became forbidden in protests e.g. in France after the repression of the Commune. They used a loophole there: they said that this was not a political symbol but a sign of sorrow and commemoration.

Later on, communists and anarchists would part ways, mostly during the Russian revolutions even though some diverged earlier.

But make no mistake, there is very little ambiguity in most historical anarchist movements: their ideals are socialists. The reason why a lot of them they rejected communism was not because of their socialist ideals, but because of the policies they implemented in practice, that were very authoritarian. Anarchists were very early considered political opponents by USSR. Censorship for instance is totally incompatible with anarchism.

<comment><USER10> Adding further detail in agreement.

While many people are aware of the anarchist influence and success leading to the Spanish Civil War, much less well known is the large anarchist region established in southern Ukraine fifteen years earlier, between 1917 - 1922.

This was centered around the figure of Nestor Makhno.[1] The armed forces defending this area had great success defeating various White armies and were allied with the Bolsheviks. Unfortunately, the Bolsheviks ultimately betrayed and destroyed the Makhnovshchina.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestor_Makhno](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestor_Makhno)

<comment><USER11> In the Spanish civil war, weren't the anarchists (and other pro-republican groups) also betrayed by the communists?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Anarchism" is a completely useless term. On the surface level, it would appear to mean "the absence of a state," and therefore effectively take the form of anarcho-capitalism. In practice, however, most people that actually identify as anarchist are far left authoritarian socialists who cannot help but dance around whatever conception of a state they've described as being anything but.

The utility of the term "anarchy" to mean "a nonexistent state" is actually an incredibly useful label, as the next closest approximation to that definition is probably the equally loaded "libertarian," so it's very unfortunate that it's effectively made to be synonymous with "radical socialism" in practice. We already have a descriptor for that: radical socialism. Why can't anarchy just mean the absence of a collective mandate?

<comment><USER13> "Anarchy" as a word for what social anarchists mean (collective means of production, abolition of capital) is what it originally meant - so did "libertarian". Even Rothbard admits that the term was co-opted by "anarcho"capitalists, and it does not mean anarchy at all for them.

Anarchy means "without rule", not merely "without the state". Please read up on the history of anarchism. Further, it's worth learning how capitalism without the state cannot exist in any meaningful sense. There are plenty of anarchist authors you can read on this point.

<comment><USER14> I don't think the "abolition of capital" is something that many anarchists would find desirable, outside of anarcho-primitivism. The computer or device you're using to post this comment _is_ capital. And the thing about anarcho- primitivism is that it's at least a _consistent_ approach to having "collective means of production" and the like, because collective, informal decision making (without any "ruler"-like figures) only scales to groups as large as a forager band or tribe, the largest of which are about 150 members. Any larger than that, and you start to get powerful chieftains and "big men" engaging in recognizable forms of politics to manage and expand their power.

<comment><USER13> That's wrong. Anarchists would argue that a computer, for instance, only _becomes_ capital under the conditions which capital in general tends to subsume things which can increase its value. Capital arises in the process of circulation only, and circulation is inextricably linked with production (as Marx proved by refuting Say in the first book of the Grundrisse). For instance, non-scarce goods (like digital goods or books) only became capital with the advent of copyright law. The computer I'm writing this on, as Marx would say, is only potentially capital. I don't buy the idea that Dunbar's number of 150 makes very much sense when we can also talk about federation and the idea of communes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>