October 05, 2023

#86 - Leading Through A Layoff // feat. Mike Fisher - Former CTO @ Etsy

43 minutes

Leading Through A LayOff: How to downsize nicely

Is there a nice way to downsize? Mike Fisher, former CTO of Etsy, shares what he learned when the company downscaled by 27% in 2 rounds of layoffs right before he joined. Find out how you can help your team navigate this sensitive period - both pre- and post-layoff.

How much time⏳ you lose in a layoff (the productivity cost of layoff)

Why you can’t expect to cut costs ✂️ AND grow

Why Availability 🟢 needs to be prioritised as you downsize

Layoffing off Generalists vs. Specialists 🧑‍🔬

How they migrated to the cloud ☁️

Listen here

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TIMESTAMPS:

(0:00:00) - Intro

(0:02:43) - West Point to General Electric to Etsy

(0:08:11) - Downsizing's Impact on Employee Morale

(0:09:11) - Knowledge Transfer

(0:10:13) - Post Layoff Attrition

(0:11:40) - How Being a Monolith Helped

(0:13:30) - Cloud Migration

(0:15:28) - Lift and Shift vs. Kubernetes

(0:18:33) - How a new project helped heal

(0:19:30) - The Time Costs of LayOffs

(0:22:05) - You can't expect to cut costs and grow

(0:24:35) - Impact of where the team was cut

(0:26:30) - Advice for CTOs about to lay off

(0:27:02) - Transparency During Downsizing

(0:28:00) - NB: Watch out for Availability

(0:31:12) - Layoffs and Stock Prices

(0:33:00) - Short Term and Long Term Planning

(0:33:40) - 3X Framework and Product Lifecycle Phases

(0:35:00) - Laying Off R & D: Specialists vs. Generalists

(0:36:24) - The Dedicated FinOps Team

(40:02:58) - Keeping up your Knowledge Network

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By Tobias Schlottke - alphalist CTO Podcast

66 ratings