Lay-offs hit news

[WilliamL 654]

https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/27/bending-spoons-lays-off-129-evernote-staffers/amp/?guccounter=1
 

Covers recent lay offs though I think there was many prior as Ian and others were gone before then. 

Few thoughts - 

1 - interesting they can get a quote from BS considering they can’t be bothered communicating with users…
 

2 - Claims that EN has been unprofitable for years - this directly contradicts articles Ian had written which state they were making a profit and last year it was record breaking if I recall right. 
 

Either way, the lack of communication and now a public narrative of cost cutting and unprofitability, these are not happy days for EN users which is a real shame considering how positive things were starting to get. 

[Sayre Ambrosio 520]

While I hate to see anybody laid off, the minute I heard about the acquisition, I saw it coming. Maybe it's my perspective, but the number of community leaders that they have gone through over the years and the increase in swaps more recently showed that there were issues. It makes sense that a new company looking to make it profitable would make changes.

 

[PinkElephant 8,174]

2 observations: There was a mentioning in the 2022 blog from Ian of "the best year ever", which clearly depends on how the years before have been - and which metric you use to measure it. 

When I checked on LI, I found a lot of employees with a "manager" or "senior manager" job designation. I always wonder whom all this managers are running. I would assume a range of 5-10 reports per manager to be somewhat healthy. From what I have seen, I don't think this has been the case - there seem to have been a lot more managers around than needed for a company of the size of EN. If you have all chieftains, and no hunters, the buffalo will pass on untroubled. I am sorry for everybody who received his last pay cheque, but I think the streamlining is a necessary step.

Just curious what we will see next ...

[Paul A. 627]

47 minutes ago, WilliamL said:

2 - Claims that EN has been unprofitable for years - this directly contradicts articles Ian had written which state they were making a profit and last year it was record breaking if I recall right. 

Did Ian / Evernote claim this or did they claim something like "cash flow positive?" Being cash flow positive is a fairly meaningless term in isolation. Cash flow can be positive because the company took out loans, or sold assets, or raised money from investors, or had large depreciation expenses, all while losing significant money.

I did a quick search and saw a blog post where Small claimed Evernote had a "healthy and strong business", which is possible to say truthfully while still losing money. If you have a link to any other statements I'd be curious to see what they say.

[gazumped 11,699]

I'm not surprised Bending Spoons responded to a press inquiry from a reputable commentator - they want to stay in business,  and the press have a lot more clout than users,  regardless of whether they're subscribers. 

I still don't care whether we get any reassuring messages from the new owners - they could promise anything at this stage,  but we won't know whether this is a good thing or a bad one until  they start to deliver better services and/ or new features.  Best you can say so far - nothing has changed for customers.  Updates still get released,  syncs still go through (mostly...) and notes get saved.

I'm sorry for anyone who gets laid off - been there,  done that;  still have the ragged t-shirt.  Hopefully the market is strong enough and Evernote's reputation is still good enough to see them back in jobs sooner rather than later.  It is inevitable in any merger/ takeover though - both companies have tech departments, HR, Marketing and the rest.  It makes no sense at all to keep two complete teams going.

I'm still encouraged that we have someone who likes and uses the product in direct charge now - not saying the previous incumbent(s) had any sort of negative vibe for the company,  but lately it's seemed that (as quite a few people here say) people who work there don't seem to actually use the apps as part of the day job...

If Evernote has been drifting a bit lately,  this new blood should inject some urgency - and maybe even some fixes and new features that we can all enjoy.

[lost_gweedo 73]

"Contains forward looking statements" I think would have been the disclaimer under Small's statement on profitability had they been publicly traded...  🤣

But, the update pace has diminished and I'm waiting for the improvements to tasks that have been referred to (and the promised outlook integration).  Patience is a virtue, but my patience is being measured monthly now versus an annual subscription...

[BonskY 79]

I hope gbarry didn't from the layoff, without him Evernote can't upgrade...

[Paul A. 627]

20 minutes ago, BonskY said:

I hope gbarry didn't from the layoff, without him Evernote can't upgrade...

He was included, per his LinkedIn profile.  

[eric99 986]

21 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

2 observations: There was a mentioning in the 2022 blog from Ian of "the best year ever", which clearly depends on how the years before have been - and which metric you use to measure it. 

When I checked on LI, I found a lot of employees with a "manager" or "senior manager" job designation. I always wonder whom all this managers are running. I would assume a range of 5-10 reports per manager to be somewhat healthy. From what I have seen, I don't think this has been the case - there seem to have been a lot more managers around than needed for a company of the size of EN. If you have all chieftains, and no hunters, the buffalo will pass on untroubled. I am sorry for everybody who received his last pay cheque, but I think the streamlining is a necessary step.

Just curious what we will see next ...

Yeah, I always wondered how this heavy elephant could compete against these agile competitors with only a couple of employees like joplin (1 developer), obsidian (4)...

[Coffee First Thing 112]

I'm sorry for everyone who lost their job.

Lately, Evernote has been swift with updates. I wonder if we'll be seeing fewer app and desktop updates following these layoffs. 

[bwydoogh 71]

3 hours ago, Coffee First Thing said:

wonder if we'll be seeing fewer app and desktop updates following these layoffs.

It's already the case.

Latest stable is from February 8th; I am on a preview build (new sync) and nothing new since the beginning of January.

Evernote was a company; it became part of another company (building Evernote but also other apps)... sounds so strange for what was once such a great company.

[gazumped 11,699]

? It's difficult to pin updates to dates - living in the UK I seem to get them at least a couple of weeks behind some others,  unless I can be bothered to uninstall and reinstall.  I can't find anything specific on my system for when the last update was,  but one of the APK mirror sites shows the mobile release (or at least their version of it) as being 11 Feb,  and - you know - takeovers / layoffs / restructuring and such might take a little time.  I think it's a little early to panic...  

[bwydoogh 71]

3 minutes ago, gazumped said:

It's difficult to pin updates to dates

Not difficult at all; Evernote publishes the "official" dates on their website via https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058361833-Evernote-release-notes

[gazumped 11,699]

So Evernote - who have according to the history have had a "flexible" attitude to the interval between updates,  have gone 23 days since the last official one? 

See my comments above!