Soundcloud Layoff

[TechFanboy]

Original Article: https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/12/soundshroud/

 

"A tense scene unfolded yesterday as user-generated, music-streaming service SoundCloud held an all-hands meeting to explain to employees why it suddenly had to lay off 40 percent of its staff last week."

Exiting team members wanted to know why they weren’t warned, while those who survived the cuts wanted assurance that the cost reductions would keep the company afloat for the long-run.

 

Basically Soundcloud Has laid off 40% of it's employees, though the reason behind this is unclear or rather they (Soundcloud) did not give a statement regarding this issue. It seems to me that the company is struggling. I think they can still survived if they implemented unique features for their users and focus on what their strengths are. I hope they don't compete with spotify or any other music streaming services as "Soundcloud" for me is like a big recording company, record label or so that can host your Music. 

 

What do you think? if they don't survive, i bet Facebook or Google or Some Big company will take advantage of it.

 

Want to hear your comments below.

 

[Billy_Mays]

Some big company maybe Spotify will take it because two platforms that they can market off will be good for Spotify because double income 

[NinJake]

Old news.

 

Biggest point here is why do you need so many people for such a "small" website?

[themctipers]

6 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Old news.

 

Biggest point here is why do you need so many people for such a "small" website?

lots of people use it, copyright music is there all the fucking time.

[NinJake]

Just now, themctipers said:

lots of people use it, copyright music is there all the fucking time.

You don't need half a thousand employees to do what soundcloud is attempting to do. 20-30 would be a more reasonable number.

[themctipers]

Just now, NinJake said:

You don't need half a thousand employees to do what soundcloud is attempting to do. 20-30 would be a more reasonable number.

500 sounds like a reasonable number to me, but not a digital company.. 

100-150 for a digital company maybe.] 

16 minutes ago, TechFanboy said:

Basically Soundcloud Has laid off 40% of it's employees, though the reason behind this is unclear or rather they (Soundcloud) did not give a statement regarding this issue. It seems to me that the company is struggling. I think they can still survived if they implemented unique features for their users and focus on what their strengths are. I hope they don't compete with spotify or any other music streaming services as "Soundcloud" for me is like a big recording company, record label or so that can host your Music. 

 

the reason is because you're not going to get people to pay money to listen to 128kbps music. they'll get me if they got a 'well you'll get 320kps streaming if you pay, for any song that has been uploaded in 320kbps' not only pop songs. if i wanted to listen to pop songs at high bitrate, spotify. nobody is going to soundcloud to listen to actual music, it's there for indie artists and people who cant afford spotify/whatever.

[RollinLower]

to be honest i like where this is going. Soundcloud has bee nusing the same crappy systems for copyright protection for years and frankly it's just outdated. the problem is that they don't want to change.

the music industry has changed tough, and at this point you have to move with it or you'll see you company sink like SoundCloud is currently.

[NinJake]

Yep, never been a fan of soundcloud to be honest. I've used it here and there but there are so many alternatives.

[tlink]

maybe an investor pulled out hence why they didn't announce to employees earlier or something.

[suicidalfranco]

then just go on jamendo...

[Taf the Ghost]

18 hours ago, NinJake said:

Old news.

 

Biggest point here is why do you need so many people for such a "small" website?

On the bigger point about staff sizes, it's been a topic that's come up recently, and since we're entering the age of crowd-funded ventures in new ways, it's a large discussion point in a few spheres. (See Minds.com ICO for what type of money some of these things are pulling in that area.)

 

The answer seems to be a double-stacked problem: VCs force the hiring of "friends" (or, more accurately, children of people they want influence with). Once that happens, they get put into HR, generally speaking, because they are hiring a lot of people of limited competence and need somewhere to put them. Those of limited competence surround themselves with those like them. Once you start hiring for reasons not of direct need, you run into problems real fast. However, in a company running on VC money, what difference does it make? Your Income Source is keeping the VCs happy, not putting out a good product or making sure your customers are happy.

 

Now, if your company goes massive, no one cares and the deadweight you've hired ends up becoming other VCs and think their good at the job. (<--- there is where a lot of Silicon Valley is at the moment; it goes through waves.) If your company runs into problems, you also really can't fire the deadweight because they are there for Influence reasons, not competence to your interests as a going-concern. This is normally why the best engineers are, invariably, the people that get fired first. They're the most expensive to keep, yet, for the business model a VC-funded company operates on, the most expendable. 

 

It's really a clash of the actual Economic Interests of the company. Realistically it's due to a bad business model, as most VC ventures seem to have "making money" as their last objective. (There is a place for Tech companies that wholly expect to be bought up, but the founders & VCs go in knowing that. Their model is to produce a valuable IP.)