PayPal Said to Cut as Many as 400 Jobs(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
PayPal Said to Cut as Many as 400 Jobs
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-12/paypal-said-to-be-cutting-as-many-as-400-jobs.html
54 comments
Reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of writing on software, which every developer should read, especially if they haven't worked at a large company before:
"How many Microsoft employees does it take to change a lightbulb?"
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2003/10/28/53298...
"How many Microsoft employees does it take to change a lightbulb?"
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2003/10/28/53298...
Kind of disappointing how stagnant PayPal has become. I know innovators dilemma and all, but it seems like their peak was the ability to properly deal with fraud & security (a sort of a right of passage for all companies that deal with real money). Since then, it just feels like eBay has been milking the cash cow. Shame.
Good luck to Stripe and co, they are doing what PayPal should have been doing all along: iterating the platform.
Good luck to Stripe and co, they are doing what PayPal should have been doing all along: iterating the platform.
They've expanded into new countries, into mobile with both apps and Square-style card readers, into POS with at-register integrations in store chains, into identity management, into lending... if you think they're stagnant, maybe you haven't been paying attention to them.
https://www.x.com/products
They're also doing new vertical-oriented products for governments, banks and education.
https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/other-solutions-overview
https://www.x.com/products
They're also doing new vertical-oriented products for governments, banks and education.
https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/other-solutions-overview
Whenever I hear terms like "vertical-oriented", I'm reminded of the managers at the big stagnant corporation I used to work at. Those terms sound just like "value proposition", "leveraging assets", and so on. They're not talking to developers or users, which are the people they need to focus on.
Case in point: I wanted to use PayPal to let users buy my apps, went through the x.com site, and quickly dropped it. Way too complex. Now Stripe on the other hand, that's something I'd really like to integrate with my apps.
I'm not saying PayPal can't possibly improve the situation, but they need to start talking to their customers in plain, simple language. What they're doing now is a red flag to me that I've seen in several other places, right before they were obsoleted and fizzled.
Case in point: I wanted to use PayPal to let users buy my apps, went through the x.com site, and quickly dropped it. Way too complex. Now Stripe on the other hand, that's something I'd really like to integrate with my apps.
I'm not saying PayPal can't possibly improve the situation, but they need to start talking to their customers in plain, simple language. What they're doing now is a red flag to me that I've seen in several other places, right before they were obsoleted and fizzled.
Just because they're not iterating in the dev-oriented U.S.-centric C2B space, the least profitable and easiest to solve payment spaces, doesn't mean they aren't innovating. To put things in perspective JANA, arguably the largest payment platform in the world by users, is virtually unknown in Silicon Valley.
But to take one of your examples, they started offering Square style card readers after Square did. So at that point they're just catching up with the market.
Not stagnant, but definitely not innovative.
Not stagnant, but definitely not innovative.
For the average user & developer, PayPal is the same mess today as it was 5 years ago. That is the stagnation.
That's also called stability. It means that Paypal has been successful enough to still be around after 5 years.
You know what else is stable? Typewriters.
Have you tried purchasing a typewriter lately? The new market is almost nonexistent, and the used market is a mess! This is definitely a market due for disruption!
Probably that's the reason why keyboards today are almost of the same layout.
So many alternatives have been proposed but they are no way even close to replacing the qwerty layout.
So many alternatives have been proposed but they are no way even close to replacing the qwerty layout.
touche'...it's not the critic that counts...
Paypal never learned how to deal with fraud or security. They simply avoid taking on the responsibility. Paypal decided long ago that it is far more profitable to refund the customer's money 100% of the time than it is to fight credit card fraud. There are pluses and minuses to this system. On one hand, honest buyers can be virtually guaranteed that they won't get ripped off. On the other hand, honest sellers can look forward to having some of their merchandise stolen at some point in the future.
In four years as a PayPal seller we have _not_ had one chargeback. So for us at least it seems that PayPal's fraud detecting system is working just fine.
s/Paypal/The credit card issuers/g
I'm a Paypal employee, so I'm biased, but when the credit card company decides to reverse a payment, Paypal really doesn't have a lot of options.
I'm a Paypal employee, so I'm biased, but when the credit card company decides to reverse a payment, Paypal really doesn't have a lot of options.
This would be acceptable
excuse if you stopped claiming to be a safe way to conduct online transactions when it's only safe for 1/2 of the people who use it.
>> iterating the platform.
Small companies with small user base predominantly dominated by power technology users can do that.
Its a little unfair to compare a start up with large corp in these issues. The right time will be when stripe will be as big as PayPal is now.
Small companies with small user base predominantly dominated by power technology users can do that.
Its a little unfair to compare a start up with large corp in these issues. The right time will be when stripe will be as big as PayPal is now.
Just copy-pasting this comment by cubicleslave from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-12/paypal-said-to-be-c... as it has some interesting perspective:
Pointy-haired management at its finest. It's a predictable ritual whenever a new CEO comes in that he will (a) cut jobs, because it plays well with Wall St. and immediately raises the value of his stock grants, and (b) micromanage and force a one-size-fits-all policy on everyone, imposing change for the sake of change, just to mark his territory like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant - in this case by making them work in bullpens. Of course CXO's are in meetings all day long and thrive on nonstop face-to-face interaction, and they can't imagine anyone working differently. They don't realize that when engineers are in meetings, they're not getting their work done. A year from now Marcus will be baffled why engineer productivity has plummeted since he took over.
Pointy-haired management at its finest. It's a predictable ritual whenever a new CEO comes in that he will (a) cut jobs, because it plays well with Wall St. and immediately raises the value of his stock grants, and (b) micromanage and force a one-size-fits-all policy on everyone, imposing change for the sake of change, just to mark his territory like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant - in this case by making them work in bullpens. Of course CXO's are in meetings all day long and thrive on nonstop face-to-face interaction, and they can't imagine anyone working differently. They don't realize that when engineers are in meetings, they're not getting their work done. A year from now Marcus will be baffled why engineer productivity has plummeted since he took over.
I'm not being facetious here, at least not intentionally:
Is there any indication their engineering productivity in recent years, anyway? I've seen a few design refreshes..
Is there any indication their engineering productivity in recent years, anyway? I've seen a few design refreshes..
True, many APIs aren't not properly architected. For example, here is Agriya's take on their adaptive payments API http://blogs.agriya.com/paypal-adaptive-payments-an-open-let... I don't know why Agriya couldn't yet disrupt the payment gateways through their crowdfunding approach
Typical, maybe, but is it really true in this case?
Stripe is good for C2B payments. But they suck at marketplace payment processing.
The only company that can do international marketplace payment processing is PayPal and no one is even close to creating the infrastructure for this.
The only company that can do international marketplace payment processing is PayPal and no one is even close to creating the infrastructure for this.
"PayPal is eliminating jobs primarily in its product and technology groups"
Yikes - that kind of surprises me. Braintree and Stripe will be sending out the recruiters......
Yikes - that kind of surprises me. Braintree and Stripe will be sending out the recruiters......
I doubt that Stripe and Braintree will be interested in employees in the bottom 3% of PayPal.
What makes you think only the bottom 3% get shown the door in during lay offs?
In fact from my experience, the guys with most political contacts inside the companies generally get the most security.
In fact from my experience, the guys with most political contacts inside the companies generally get the most security.
Exactly. When shit hits the fan, expensive contractors go first. Then the executives that lost to other executives.
Low wage workers rarely get cut first.
Low wage workers rarely get cut first.
Indeed. Given how stagnant Paypal seems to be (at least from the outside), I suspect that many of the good employees interested in the problem space left for greener pastures a while ago.
I wouldn't be surprised if these are good employees in a bad BU. Specifically PayPal seems to have abandoned online payments for POS/B&M (which is exponentially larger - think Stripe's size vs Square) Thus why I imagined (guessed) who might be excited to get the talent.
[deleted]
"excessive meetings"
Based on that criteria we could probably cut some 15% of the total workforce. For many employees, that's all they do is attend meetings, all day long. We call these employees managers. :)
Startups where almost everyone is actually working (save VC chosen CEO's) and there's no room for corporate welfare I guess bigger companies might perceive them as "nimble".
Is that a euphemism for efficient?
Based on that criteria we could probably cut some 15% of the total workforce. For many employees, that's all they do is attend meetings, all day long. We call these employees managers. :)
Startups where almost everyone is actually working (save VC chosen CEO's) and there's no room for corporate welfare I guess bigger companies might perceive them as "nimble".
Is that a euphemism for efficient?
These numbers are always big mostly because it's a good occasion for big companies to let go bad employees even if they don't have strong public reasons. I.e. it's easier to say: "it's not you.. 399 other employees are leaving".
13,000 employees!!!???
The vast majority of the 13,000 are going to be CSRs and CSR support staff/management.
The actual development team will be small in comparison.
The actual development team will be small in comparison.
Microsoft has 90,000
Yes but Microsoft has Windows, Office, Xbox, Surface, Bing, Skype, etc. PayPal is a big business with many features, but 13,000 people is a lot for just that one thing. I can't believe even half of them are developers.
When you have a quarter billion users of a money transfer product with 24/7 support, you probably need a pretty big service staff. I'd imagine customer support, tech support and administrative staff outnumber developers.
Let's not forget their international presence. PayPal is classified as a bank in many countries.
You will be surprised how employees work on one thing called iPhone.
A large product like PayPal might have dozens of sub systems. Its difficult to imagine from the outside the dynamics of large companies and how they function.
A large product like PayPal might have dozens of sub systems. Its difficult to imagine from the outside the dynamics of large companies and how they function.
A big portion of that may be the call centers though.
It's crazy seeing this, after just reading this
http://www.quora.com/PayPal/What-strong-beliefs-on-culture-f...
http://www.quora.com/PayPal/What-strong-beliefs-on-culture-f...
I think every one missed the point. They are expanding out side US: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/PayPal...
Thought I feel sorry for the 400 people that might lose their jobs, I can't say the same of PayPal itself.
It's just another one of those companies that think profit is made with margins, and not with an actual product.
It's just another one of those companies that think profit is made with margins, and not with an actual product.
and not with an actual product.
It's more a service, but whatever it is, they do have an "actual" one.
PayPal has been a cornerstone of my income since around 2001. Nowadays, there are several other services I could (and might) practically switch to, but for a good 8 years or so, it was them or nothing in the sort of business I ran. I consider that an "actual" product or service since without it, I wouldn't be where I am now.
I am far from a PayPal evangelist and find a lot of the stories about their practices saddening, but the facts are clear to me, they've offered me one heck of a useful service over the years that no-one else was able to.
It's more a service, but whatever it is, they do have an "actual" one.
PayPal has been a cornerstone of my income since around 2001. Nowadays, there are several other services I could (and might) practically switch to, but for a good 8 years or so, it was them or nothing in the sort of business I ran. I consider that an "actual" product or service since without it, I wouldn't be where I am now.
I am far from a PayPal evangelist and find a lot of the stories about their practices saddening, but the facts are clear to me, they've offered me one heck of a useful service over the years that no-one else was able to.
And Stripe to hire 400 people over the next few weeks! I hope thats true.
the phrase "90% of everything is horseshit" really fits paypal - and that's alot of shit when you'r a juggernaut of that size
The key to that phrase is the word everything. Which means the replacements are not likely to be any better.
Large companies like PayPal have many sub systems, division and units that need to function to even keep the company alive. To give you a small example, say if you are running PayPal- For a company of that scale you can't really plan any thing on the business side unless you measure things, so suddenly you see a requirement for a system which will deal only with metrics and analytics. Once your user base grows out to a large size, suddenly you will find yourself running large data centers, service engineering teams and their operations. You will need dedicated sales teams to tackle those problems, product teams to ensure crap doesn't shipped out. You will need architects who can make a dozen systems work together, you will product managers decide the right technical course for the future. You will need program managers to ensure engineers hit the deadlines. You will need QE teams to break stuff what engineers overlook.
Yes you can argue that you may not need all that, but when you do that you will inevitably find somebody or the other in the organization doing those jobs, albeit the scenario will now be a lot more chaotic with no center of ownerships and responsibility.
It becomes difficult to move quickly in such places.