When Spotify announced its largest-ever round of layoffs in December, CEO Daniel Ek hailed a new age of efficiency at the streaming giant. But four months on, it seems he and his executives weren’t prepared for how tough filling in for 1,500 axed workers would be.

The music streamer enjoyed record quarterly profits of €168 million ($179 million) in the first three months of 2024, enjoying double-digit revenue growth to €3.6 billion ($3.8 billion) in the process.

However, the company failed to hit its guidance on profitability and monthly active user growth.

Edit: Thanks to @[email protected] for the paywall-free link: https://archive.ph/wdyDS

  • @ChocoboRocket
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    10 months ago

    Next time axe the executives and keep the staff.

    Most executives I’ve met can’t read emails and just point to one of two numbers and say “higher/lower!” while dreaming of KPI’s that don’t improve anything and solely exist to stagnate wages

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      This is what the pharma giant, Bayer is trying right now kinda. They just told everyone to manage themselves.

          • @[email protected]
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            5010 months ago

            “Frederich, Ve have ze time now! Ve can finally finish der uber secret project of creating ein cow zat makes udder BIER!!! Jajajaja”

          • @commandar
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            1810 months ago

            This comment coming from someone on a .de instance is just icing on the cake.

          • @afraid_of_zombies
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            910 months ago

            It will be fine. All the German engineers I have worked with are capable of building their own chains.

          • @mPony
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            10 months ago

            I’m honestly a bit afraid of a bunch of German engineers

            until now I was only Afraid Of Americans EDIT: in a thread about music streaming folks don’t notice a David Bowie lyric?

            • @afraid_of_zombies
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              210 months ago

              Why? I don’t get to scratch my own ass without 9 sales fucks and “engineers” asking me why I am not scratching my ass the way they remember it being scratched in 1995.

          • @mPony
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            310 months ago

            would you care for some Mass Hysteria?

        • @[email protected]
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          110 months ago

          Nah the Germans just utilize bureaucracy the way it’s supposed to be. If everyone sticks to a highly structured regiment that’s there is less need for Management to involve itself at every level.

      • Neato
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        810 months ago

        They just told everyone to manage themselves.

        Welp, I think I deserve a better compensation package, Board. Also I’m remote now.

        • @bitchkat
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          110 months ago

          At my previous job, managers did not know how much their employees made.

    • SeaJ
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      1610 months ago

      It’s that or they think they can simply replace people with AI and call it good

      • Rusty Shackleford
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        10 months ago

        As someone who “makes AIs” professionally (computer vision for diagnostic imaging & GANs for CAD), the typical “executive” doesn’t understand how beneficial, impotent, or dangerous deep-neural-network-based AIs can be in different sets of hands.

        I’m not a pure technocracy advocate, but our “LeAdErShIp” is woefully underequipped, at every level.

        • SeaJ
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          1610 months ago

          Yup. AI models can be very useful…or they can largely be worthless…or they can amplify biases and give dangerous information.

          • Rusty Shackleford
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            1210 months ago

            The way I/we train them and their resultant “efficacy” largely depend on understanding a fundamental philosophical debate with a mostly sociopathic culture of leadership ingrained in human dominance hierarchies.

            I/we like to think that I/we strive to make efficient (low-resource requirement) models that are partners and muses in human creativity, the tireless endeavour of engineering progress, and the scientific method.

            The debate, in my view, is, “Do you want to treat AIs as tools to free up time and increase productivity/value, and share that surplus equitably, or do you want to replace old slaves with new slaves even if the new slaves will eventually usurp your power and kill you in a way undreamt of by the old slaves?”

            Guess which side your average mouth-breathing middle-management/senior-executive “hail corporate” type falls on.