and the distribution of digital products.
The HackerNoon Newsletter: Heyo, AI Character - Stay Away from My Child; Get a Job (10/29/2024)
\ “It was the 24th of October
That day 21% of Upwork employees always remember, yes they will
'Cause that was the day that they lost their jobs”
\ The news about one-out-of-five layoffs at Upwork shook the remote work community to the core.
\
The exact scope of the layoff is unclear, but based on Upwork’s reported 800 employees at the end of 2023, the 21% cut will likely hit at least 160 workers.
\ Was it necessary? Could it have been avoided?
\
Upwork expects to save $60 million a year from the announced cost cuts.
\ The stock markets reacted almost immediately, in a matter of hours.
\
The gig-economy specialist's share price was up 22.6% as of 11 a.m. ET.
\ When you put it like this, you don’t get the full picture:
\
\ I asked this question on Reddit. My source was Backlinko:
\
\ The trouble with getting the exact number is related to freelancers who work on Upwork for Upwork.
\
\ I had to ask one more question.
\
WTF is GSV?!\
Indeed, an interesting market reaction, and an even more interesting graph:
\
\ I didn’t have to wait long for an answer:
\
\ OK. I get it. Moving on.
\
How Upwork Feels About All These Job Kills?\ I don’t know about you, but Upwork’s sense of humor on X, a day before the layoffs announcement was really something.
\
I didn’t get it then, and I don’t get it now. So, I decided to fix it for them:
\
As you might’ve expected, the official Upwork Community reacted, as well.
\
I had to fact-check this Upwork Community member, my fellow freelancer. This is what I found:
\ “The estimated Net Worth of Hayden Brown is at least $24.1 Million dollars as of 18 August 2024. Ms. Brown owns over 58,046 units of Upwork Inc stock worth over $11,243,016 and over the last 6 years she sold UPWK stock worth over $1,348,852. In addition, she makes $11,530,900 as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director at Upwork Inc.”
\
A “decent salary” and “a drop in the ocean.” Nuff said. Now, to our space-cowboy friend.
\
Dear Elon Musk, Let’s Make Upwork Your Next Takeover Task!\ From a space explorer to our planet’s savior. People don’t lack imagination in their propositions to Elon Musk to save this or that by buying all kinds of things and companies. I saw one tweet from a guy asking Elon to buy the umbrella company, which owns all dating apps, and save the dating market. I mean, of all the suggestions this one perfectly aligns with Elon’s plans to tackle the declining population problem. But, let’s get back to Upwork.
\ I thought to tweet my suggestion. Elon, buy Upwork, and make remote work great again. But, he already had other plans:
\
So, X is now a job search platform, officially. This is one of the latest new features. The app that does everything. Hmm, where did I see that? Let’s ask Wikipedia:
\ “WeChat has been described as China's "app for everything" and a super-app because of its wide range of functions.[10] WeChat provides text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, mobile payment, sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing.”
\
Shortly before buying Twitter, Musk wrote: “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
\ The everything app, indeed. And, Elon Musk is doing everything to elect the next President of the United States.
\ So, it seems that Upwork will have to wait because it’s definitely not on Elon Musk’s plate.
\