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

alphalist.CTO Podcast - For CTOs and Technical Leaders

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 BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Storyblok and WorkGenius

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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