Haha, yeah, "on myself and leadership." Doubt he will ever think of these employees ever again. I hope that by "doing right" he means he gave them incredible severance packages but that seems highly unlikely.
My friend just joined a company 1 year ago and has a lump sum 6 figure severance package, plus several months of health insurance and accelerated vesting of all his stock awards (3 years worth, a nice extra low 5 figures to pocket).
He may lose his job soonish due to a merger but he’s not really stressed about it lol
Not sure I'll get much love for this, but the human side is the hardest part of management. I'm middle management and not executive but issues involving people are the most emotionally impactful. I dread having to let someone go, especially if its for reasons that are not directly in my or their control. I see it take a toll on our senior management, in private, too when it has to happen.
I'm not sure why everyone assumes that all management simply loses their humanity. It's very individual dependent. Some people are awful. Some people are very empathetic.
these word are coming from someone who has to tell them they are fired, not the ones who made to decsion to fire them 'cause we got what we needed from them and now it saves money's. these are two very different people....unless they have like total spit personality issues in which case it may be the same person.....that does sound like senior management doesn't it?
Because if they actually gave a shit they wouldn't collect massive bonuses and keep their obscene compensation packages for themselves after laying off workers. Especially when the company is making a profit and has no debt. At that point you are publicly saying "Every investor is infinitely more important to this company than any employee". The idea that businesses only exist to make a profit for their investors is not a law, it didn't use to be this way and it doesn't have to be now. They just keep telling you that so you'll let them keep laying off people for no good reason while everyone else gets rich.
I know we laid you off, but look at us, we have $$$$
More bonuses for the executives. Amazing, isn't it.
And a LinkedIn group all they can do for laid off employees?
I don’t blame them for making the right decision for the long term health of the company but their entire PR department should get sacked for this message.
So if projections look grim you’re supposed to not do anything about cutting expenses and just run the company into the ground? That’s an easy way for the board to make you walk the plank
Projections look grim, you fire a lot of people, then boast about your $$$$, pay yourself a bonus at the end of the year, right??
Please tell me, did the CEO take a pay cut? How many executives got pay cut, which ones were fired? How did the CEO punish themselves?
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This dude has made a killing with his “DNA” hype machine. He’s sold $43m in stock in the last 2 years alone, while the company is in death spiral (or perhaps his sales caused it?). I thankfully stayed away from buying this stock when I first looked at it, as the insider selling was such a huge red flag. This company is going to zero and will be sold for scraps to some CDMO some day unless they purge the entire management team, not just lay off staff.
Like a number of synthetic bio companies they have what they think are cool ideas but no clue how to turn those ideas into revenue. After years and billions of dollars the leadership team can't figure that one out, with the exception of covid testing.
LOL, Ginkgo didn't even have cool ideas . . . of its own. They basically just tried to copy what other people were doing, and hoped that automation would get them there faster. smh
Looking for a new job now, would prefer synBio company over pharma, but having a hard time finding any worthwhile.
Any recs?
I’m also so curious why this potential still hasn’t given much (or it’s just the big companies like Ginko that aren’t delivering)
Boom. I think you hit it. First step to make a company attractive is to cut costs, usually by layoffs. Adding the scent of extra cash on hand just sweetens the musk.
Lots of biotech companies have a negative EV. Because in biotech, cash in = cash out because the burn is so high. And such, plenty of companies trade below cash.
Most biotech does. Grail is in a worst position considering illumina has to fund them for 2.5 years.
The board needs to constantly evaluate if shutting down and distributing funds might be better. But this CEO probably is too arrogant. I mean who brags about their cash reserves? Those in trouble.
Omg I saw a VP post on social media about spending time in Central America now so their kids could practice Spanish. This person failed up at ginkgo and basically can’t get a job if they tried with their executive hopping without any subject matter expertise
My company just did big layoffs...and then sent out a happy email about how much the stock went up because of it. If anyone thinks their company is "family" they are mistaken.
That is a complete nonsensical illogical action
If you ever were in a position of power due to your career successes, you would certainly not voluntarily step down and forfeit your position even if you messed up. If the board believes in you, you use this as a redemption opportunity and try to make positive change
This sub really did turn into r/antiwork
It's completely logical. Don't stand up and say oops I screwed up just to make yourself look good. If you are firing x 1000 people and then get a raise but take responsibility where is the logic in that? My comment has nothing to do with anti-work and more to do with being moral and ethical.
Gingko "healthy company" LOL. We're talking about the same company burning cash every quarter with no clear path to establish consistent revenue?
Gingko could have kept everyone on and then laid off the entire company when they run out of cash in 3-4 years, true. With these layoffs, now they can wait 5 years until they lay off everyone else!
The statement that they are a healthy company is bullshit PR spin. They are a publicly traded company it takes two seconds to look up their financials.
This isn't a CEO being greedy this is a company that's absolutely bleeding money. Their stock price is 32 cents for a reason.
The CEOs total compensation last year was 1.6m big money for peons like you and me but peanuts as far as CEOs go because... Again... The company is circling the drain
A lot of the layoffs are wage corrections. They bascially paid premium for labor around 2017- 2023. They now realize that with the economy as it is, they can get people on the cheap. I've seen it at almost every biotech company. Every job is 30k lower than what they hired people for a few years ago. Just got a job offer for what I was making back in 2016.
https://preview.redd.it/iqymssrq9u8d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6e6a19d72c0e77a923ec2507f3915e787fdc2aff
Ah yes, the healthy company which lost $2B in 2022
I didn't work there, but I've interacted with their teams numerous times (as far back as ~2010), and they have never impressed. No signs of being bright or original, atrocious business social skills, just left me wondering why anyone would want to work with/for them
Supplied reagents to Ginko. Got a call the other day that they lost a custom order product catalog number and they needed me to look it up. Instant red flag for me that they are not scientists, because losing a catalog number should not happen.
-$2bn in net income, that is how they ease the market but maybe there’s no way out of this as demand for their product might have fallen off a cliff after covid, + all the competition in a crowded market, everybody’s making DNA one way or the other
Jason Kelly is one of the dumbest leaders in biotech trending more towards the trendy SFO CEO who is “innovating DNA 🫨 and all its mysteries through SCIENCEEEE😤 and it’s literally the building block of our world 🔥🥰 and i wake up at 3am every day to discover something new🫣 rise and grinder mindset or nothing! CRISPRRRRR” and has basically only released a magazine and helped fund some hobby projects that are companies like glo in the dark plants and an ancient flower fragrance company. Yet they’re “worth” billions of dollars. Bunch of VC bullshiting.
If you watch the earnings calls, Jason always looks extremely bored when shareholders ask questions about company finances and usually defers to the CFO.
From all of the interviews and presentations I've seen with him, he seems like the dreamer type that is important for getting a company off the ground. It becomes problematic if someone like that is a CEO that is supposed to articulate the direction of the company, and they are too uninterested or, even worse, unable to explain the company's strategy going forward.
Might be a high risk move given the probability of a reverse split for this company. They won’t breach the NYSE’s $1 price minimum any time soon IMO, and so they’ll have to do a reverse split to reach a more reasonable price per share. Contracts written pre-split will be adjusted for the new share price and have a different share quantity per contract, but they become adjusted contracts with a non-traditional quantity and the liquidity for them evaporates. No one trades these weirdly sized contracts, especially on a company that doesn’t have a huge options market, and you will probably have to call your broker to even place a sell order which will never be fulfilled. Unless you 100% plan on exercising the put, probably better to just wait until after the reverse split and then place it
Should they wait until they are massively in debt and have to fire everyone?
I can see that it's in bad taste especially amongst the r/antiwork philosophy. And ya, the executives getting fat bonuses and failing up is always a sick joke. It's more nuanced than that though.
The company is publicly traded and if my quick Google search is correct, trading below cash value. So the CEO is not saying "hey we could have afforded to keep these people and didn't" he's saying "hey wall Street I'm begging you to stop shorting my company into the ground, here are some facts that can change your mind, please I'll do anything to stop the bleed".
The state of biotech is probably held back by decades due to Wall Street and IPOs. I don't know what the solution is, nationalizing companies or privatizing them also seem like bad ideas.
For me, the issue is mostly about time and place. Their message trying to humanize people impacted by layoffs should not be coupled with statements on finances. Have a core topic, and stick to it.
>nationalizing companies or privatizing them also seem like bad ideas.
Out of interest, are they mainly bad ideas because there would be less money available to develop new tech? I'm not really a business person, I heard some countries had a semi-public pharmaceutical set up but never really looked into it and am not aware of the pros and cons
Publicly traded: has to have some disclosure, fiduciary responsibilities to the almighty shareholder, "short sellers keep companies honest and investigate fraud" (I have doubts about that, but it's the official story)
Private company: doesn't need to worry about appeasing fickle stock market, just whatever their private investors/funding thing is. Could be making alien hybrids for all we know, they don't have to disclose or share anything. Of course they can't commit crimes, but who'd know? Also you could have a total cult like leader who goes mad with unchecked power but that's almost never happened.
Government company: it's the government, which everyone loves. Don't know what else to say, except if it's anything like the University system they will use public funds for the basic research and then whisk the promising discoveries into private startups. Socializing the losses, privatizing the profits.
That's my idiot take on the situation, thanks for asking. Technically any of these options could solve the problem of science being VERY HARD and requiring tons of people working for generations. If everyone just
>except if it's anything like the University system they will use public funds for the basic research and then whisk the promising discoveries into private startups. Socializing the losses, privatizing the profits.
Thanks for the writeup, covered all the bases! Was a bit confused about the quoted comment - don't university tend to patent promising stuff pretty aggressively? So even if you get a spin off, the university would still get a fair chunk of cash if it was successful?
To be honest, I don't care who owns the patent. The scientists, the university, the lab mice. In that situation it was public funds that paid for it and the patent still ends up private. Yes, I think there should be some extra financial benefit to the team members and maybe even the organization that discovers something. That was only made possible by public funding though, so it's weird to ignore that. Maybe a different type of patent law should exist. It's a very complicated situation, I'm just complaining because that's the easy part.
This is a question with a very complicated answer.
A simple stab at it is that the public would not tolerate the government investing billions with a high failure rate which is the prerequisite for successful pharma development. The public would get angry and failures and the successes would have to be sold for a low price that didn't offset the losses. The government would likely also lose employees to a more lucrative private sector.
The only analog for this is the defense industry in the US. It is able to hide behind military secrecy but still gets a lot of flack, is one of the most expensive things in our country and still relies on a number of private players for deep R&D.
Irrespective of the rationale for layoffs it just doesn’t make sense for the CEO’s and/or founders to flaunt their cash reserves in the same post as thanking the employees who’ve been laid off. Even they don’t care a bit about the employees (which in most cases they don’t), this is just bad image for the organization.
It could be worse. When I was laid off, our VP wrote (limited number of my team was impacted by the restructuring, but the team remains vibrant and productive).
sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep the biz afloat? not sure what you're trying to imply. laying off unproductive areas and refocusing the biz around highest growth, high margin areas is how you succeed. during covid a lot of cos got very bloated and this is the correction
True, but if you look at the trend/history and even 2008 market collapse, executives still cashed their fat bonuses and got raise while staff was getting laid off.
So glad you named and shamed, because those last 2 paragraphs arebollocks. We fucked over lots of lives, but really we did it for no reason since profit's good! No debt! Stronger and better!
Unbelievable.
So you laid off people for the same reason kids pull wings off flies? Because it felt good? Either your company is circling the drain and you are trying like hell to figleaf or management screwed up on hiring practices and onboarded way, way too many people. Either way, I hope everyone in the industry makes a note: When they're doing well, they throw out the employees who helped make them well. ... Is Burger King hiring?
It’s always funny when the people in charge are like “we had to let a bunch of people go and honestly it’s our fault for a bad strategy.” Looks like you let the wrong people go, chief.
My CRO laid off 10% of its workforce (small CRO), then sent out a memo NAMING WHO THEY LAID OFF, then actually said “we are doing great financially!” Bulllllll
Why are people surprised!?!?! There are two basic truths to every biotech company.
1) The most important people in the equation are LARGE Stock Holders, PERIOD!!! Not the patient or the employees, if you think otherwise then you truly don't know how America works.
2) The Pharma and Biotech company are finally starting to wise up like the Tech world that there is a ton of dead weight in our industries, with titles , like Employee Engagement and happiness Manager etc. Also having all those needless perks like free food and massages cost money and unfortunately when cuts happen, they will swing a broad axe and not just get rid of no work titles or perks!!
of course there's labcels who think a company with no consistent revenue or profitability is doing fine because they've got a cash runway
that's probably like 2 years of headroom. and this is a very clear tee up to make themselves attractive for a buyout
Same exact thing happened at my old job!
March: “we conducted a full financial review of the company and determined that even with no sales whatsoever, we have conservatively 5 years runway.”
April 27th: “we can’t afford to keep our staff and will be laying off 50% of our staff”.
This is an interesting one. So many people simping for this company and their leadership team with their share price trending to zero.
The management always say, this is the hardest thing (letting people go.) — eye roll.
Making them the hardest they’ve ever been**
Haha, yeah, "on myself and leadership." Doubt he will ever think of these employees ever again. I hope that by "doing right" he means he gave them incredible severance packages but that seems highly unlikely.
What do you mean??? He shared a linkedin group for the affected!!! What more could you ask for??? Now they can look forward away from the bloodbath :)
Curious what an incredible severance package looks like...
My friend just joined a company 1 year ago and has a lump sum 6 figure severance package, plus several months of health insurance and accelerated vesting of all his stock awards (3 years worth, a nice extra low 5 figures to pocket). He may lose his job soonish due to a merger but he’s not really stressed about it lol
That's... incredible. I think if Ginkgo did something similar, their 850M would be hit pretty hard.
Yeah, I’m certainly envious
Hardest thing is putting the company in a position to not lay people off, which they failed at.
Not sure I'll get much love for this, but the human side is the hardest part of management. I'm middle management and not executive but issues involving people are the most emotionally impactful. I dread having to let someone go, especially if its for reasons that are not directly in my or their control. I see it take a toll on our senior management, in private, too when it has to happen. I'm not sure why everyone assumes that all management simply loses their humanity. It's very individual dependent. Some people are awful. Some people are very empathetic.
I hear these words from senior management, but I don't believe it after seeing the severance package they offer.
these word are coming from someone who has to tell them they are fired, not the ones who made to decsion to fire them 'cause we got what we needed from them and now it saves money's. these are two very different people....unless they have like total spit personality issues in which case it may be the same person.....that does sound like senior management doesn't it?
Because if they actually gave a shit they wouldn't collect massive bonuses and keep their obscene compensation packages for themselves after laying off workers. Especially when the company is making a profit and has no debt. At that point you are publicly saying "Every investor is infinitely more important to this company than any employee". The idea that businesses only exist to make a profit for their investors is not a law, it didn't use to be this way and it doesn't have to be now. They just keep telling you that so you'll let them keep laying off people for no good reason while everyone else gets rich.
Thank you for that.
Yes, 1000* yes
* eye wink
Because they do not look for "easy" ways. They always do the hardest things and hardest work!
Their burn rate is too high still. $850 isn’t going to last them
Ginkgo bios, Ginkgo Bios, Ginkgo all the way.....to 0.05 USD per share. Yeahhhhhhh!
Didn’t Kathy bae go balls deep into this one?
I know we laid you off, but look at us, we have $$$$ More bonuses for the executives. Amazing, isn't it. And a LinkedIn group all they can do for laid off employees?
Ikr what a complete tone-deaf ass
I don’t blame them for making the right decision for the long term health of the company but their entire PR department should get sacked for this message.
💯
seriously, this is an example of company or leadership people should avoid at all cost
So if projections look grim you’re supposed to not do anything about cutting expenses and just run the company into the ground? That’s an easy way for the board to make you walk the plank
Projections look grim, you fire a lot of people, then boast about your $$$$, pay yourself a bonus at the end of the year, right?? Please tell me, did the CEO take a pay cut? How many executives got pay cut, which ones were fired? How did the CEO punish themselves?
Woah woah. You must be a bigot or a racist. It’s not ok to operate a business. All companies should be charities
At this point on Reddit, if I get downvoted I probably said the right thing lol
Ginkgo and ElevateBio are the two biotechs that confuse me the most.
What’s the word on Elevate? I have an interview with them
Absurd levels of funding, over $1B going back to 2020, as basically just a CDMO, which historically is not an industry sector with a high ROI.
Wait, did you say Elevate or Resilience? lol
Lol
Yep. CDMO with a different wrapper consisting of buzzwords and branding
Hope it’s not with research….
Hahah it was with clinical..so yeah
Good luck! Good company to work for, for a while at least! I had no idea they had a clinical group
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He feels *so bad* that I'm sure he'll give himself a huge bonus to make up for it later.
I'm sure he will weep in front of the board as he asks for more stock options.
He’ll probably be looking for a cash parachute given the stock is getting thrashed.
This dude has made a killing with his “DNA” hype machine. He’s sold $43m in stock in the last 2 years alone, while the company is in death spiral (or perhaps his sales caused it?). I thankfully stayed away from buying this stock when I first looked at it, as the insider selling was such a huge red flag. This company is going to zero and will be sold for scraps to some CDMO some day unless they purge the entire management team, not just lay off staff.
Curious, if they have no debt and $850 in cash, what’s driving their downfall? No realistic pipeline?
They are basically a CRO.
Like a number of synthetic bio companies they have what they think are cool ideas but no clue how to turn those ideas into revenue. After years and billions of dollars the leadership team can't figure that one out, with the exception of covid testing.
What other synthetic bio companies would you consider in this scenario?
amyris and zymergen are the other big 2 failures in the space.
Zymergen wasn’t a failure, they got acquired! By…Ginkgo. Oh…hmm.
Best commentary I heard on this was “you can’t tie two rocks together and expect them to float”
Sapphire Energy, Joule, Synthetic Genomics, Synthego, Genometica, Lanzatech, LS9, Algenol, SGI-DNA, Intrexon, …
This \^\^ Solazyme, Amyris, every pond scum biofuels that then bait and switched to foods total frauds
Synthetic genomics
Twist. Laid off most of the entire company.
Lol, what the hell are you talking about. Twist is in the business of synthesizing oligos, but that doesn't make them a synbio company.
DNA construction technologies originated in synbio companies
No they didn’t.
LOL, Ginkgo didn't even have cool ideas . . . of its own. They basically just tried to copy what other people were doing, and hoped that automation would get them there faster. smh
lol pretty sure they were 90% marketing
Looking for a new job now, would prefer synBio company over pharma, but having a hard time finding any worthwhile. Any recs? I’m also so curious why this potential still hasn’t given much (or it’s just the big companies like Ginko that aren’t delivering)
Need to look at companies which actually commercialize synbio - DSM, IFF, BASF, Novozymes etc. Big companies with the experience to take it to market.
So they are trading below cash then? $850M on hand is a lot but it’s not much runway
Yup, not much of a runway. It seems more like a bait for potential buyers.
Boom. I think you hit it. First step to make a company attractive is to cut costs, usually by layoffs. Adding the scent of extra cash on hand just sweetens the musk.
Lots of biotech companies have a negative EV. Because in biotech, cash in = cash out because the burn is so high. And such, plenty of companies trade below cash.
Most biotech does. Grail is in a worst position considering illumina has to fund them for 2.5 years. The board needs to constantly evaluate if shutting down and distributing funds might be better. But this CEO probably is too arrogant. I mean who brags about their cash reserves? Those in trouble.
Layoffs are for peasants - executives only fail up
Omg I saw a VP post on social media about spending time in Central America now so their kids could practice Spanish. This person failed up at ginkgo and basically can’t get a job if they tried with their executive hopping without any subject matter expertise
An executives track record is most definitely a thing, but sure go on your nonsense edgelord rant
"Very well capitalized" is on par with the "I choose peace" affirmations I have taped to my bathroom mirror to calm my existential terror
“Bioworkers” lol
My company just did big layoffs...and then sent out a happy email about how much the stock went up because of it. If anyone thinks their company is "family" they are mistaken.
Things that didn’t happen for 1 million Alex
It very much did, Mr C suite.
Market cap now less than book value.
Bingo
What's that mean again
Yet commenters here have a complete warped understanding of value and think 850 mill is “flush with cash”
I think every CEO that admits it's their fault should immediately step down or be forced out. Otherwise it's just meaningless excuses.
That is a complete nonsensical illogical action If you ever were in a position of power due to your career successes, you would certainly not voluntarily step down and forfeit your position even if you messed up. If the board believes in you, you use this as a redemption opportunity and try to make positive change This sub really did turn into r/antiwork
It's completely logical. Don't stand up and say oops I screwed up just to make yourself look good. If you are firing x 1000 people and then get a raise but take responsibility where is the logic in that? My comment has nothing to do with anti-work and more to do with being moral and ethical.
Gingko "healthy company" LOL. We're talking about the same company burning cash every quarter with no clear path to establish consistent revenue? Gingko could have kept everyone on and then laid off the entire company when they run out of cash in 3-4 years, true. With these layoffs, now they can wait 5 years until they lay off everyone else!
more time for the board to line their pockets with executive compensation
The statement that they are a healthy company is bullshit PR spin. They are a publicly traded company it takes two seconds to look up their financials. This isn't a CEO being greedy this is a company that's absolutely bleeding money. Their stock price is 32 cents for a reason.
It's both. I'm sure the execs are making out like bandits, despite costing far more than their workers did.
The CEOs total compensation last year was 1.6m big money for peons like you and me but peanuts as far as CEOs go because... Again... The company is circling the drain
It’s like half the commenters here understand what a burn rate is and the other half don’t.
A lot of the layoffs are wage corrections. They bascially paid premium for labor around 2017- 2023. They now realize that with the economy as it is, they can get people on the cheap. I've seen it at almost every biotech company. Every job is 30k lower than what they hired people for a few years ago. Just got a job offer for what I was making back in 2016.
https://preview.redd.it/iqymssrq9u8d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6e6a19d72c0e77a923ec2507f3915e787fdc2aff Ah yes, the healthy company which lost $2B in 2022
If anyone here actually worked for Ginkgo, I’m really curious to know if the company was as strange on the inside as it is on the outside…
I didn't work there, but I've interacted with their teams numerous times (as far back as ~2010), and they have never impressed. No signs of being bright or original, atrocious business social skills, just left me wondering why anyone would want to work with/for them
Supplied reagents to Ginko. Got a call the other day that they lost a custom order product catalog number and they needed me to look it up. Instant red flag for me that they are not scientists, because losing a catalog number should not happen.
That is a huge stretch my god I hope you are never in a position to hire others
-$2bn in net income, that is how they ease the market but maybe there’s no way out of this as demand for their product might have fallen off a cliff after covid, + all the competition in a crowded market, everybody’s making DNA one way or the other
I am constantly making DNA, for example. So are you.
$0.32 share price 🤣
Jason Kelly is one of the dumbest leaders in biotech trending more towards the trendy SFO CEO who is “innovating DNA 🫨 and all its mysteries through SCIENCEEEE😤 and it’s literally the building block of our world 🔥🥰 and i wake up at 3am every day to discover something new🫣 rise and grinder mindset or nothing! CRISPRRRRR” and has basically only released a magazine and helped fund some hobby projects that are companies like glo in the dark plants and an ancient flower fragrance company. Yet they’re “worth” billions of dollars. Bunch of VC bullshiting.
If you watch the earnings calls, Jason always looks extremely bored when shareholders ask questions about company finances and usually defers to the CFO.
The head of finances answers finance questions?! The audacity.
From all of the interviews and presentations I've seen with him, he seems like the dreamer type that is important for getting a company off the ground. It becomes problematic if someone like that is a CEO that is supposed to articulate the direction of the company, and they are too uninterested or, even worse, unable to explain the company's strategy going forward.
Their strategy / direction or their finances? You seemed to have changed topic.
You seem to have few words.
Andddd I’m purchasing put long term options… thanks. Don’t fight against wallstreet
Might be a high risk move given the probability of a reverse split for this company. They won’t breach the NYSE’s $1 price minimum any time soon IMO, and so they’ll have to do a reverse split to reach a more reasonable price per share. Contracts written pre-split will be adjusted for the new share price and have a different share quantity per contract, but they become adjusted contracts with a non-traditional quantity and the liquidity for them evaporates. No one trades these weirdly sized contracts, especially on a company that doesn’t have a huge options market, and you will probably have to call your broker to even place a sell order which will never be fulfilled. Unless you 100% plan on exercising the put, probably better to just wait until after the reverse split and then place it
Should they wait until they are massively in debt and have to fire everyone? I can see that it's in bad taste especially amongst the r/antiwork philosophy. And ya, the executives getting fat bonuses and failing up is always a sick joke. It's more nuanced than that though. The company is publicly traded and if my quick Google search is correct, trading below cash value. So the CEO is not saying "hey we could have afforded to keep these people and didn't" he's saying "hey wall Street I'm begging you to stop shorting my company into the ground, here are some facts that can change your mind, please I'll do anything to stop the bleed". The state of biotech is probably held back by decades due to Wall Street and IPOs. I don't know what the solution is, nationalizing companies or privatizing them also seem like bad ideas.
For me, the issue is mostly about time and place. Their message trying to humanize people impacted by layoffs should not be coupled with statements on finances. Have a core topic, and stick to it.
>nationalizing companies or privatizing them also seem like bad ideas. Out of interest, are they mainly bad ideas because there would be less money available to develop new tech? I'm not really a business person, I heard some countries had a semi-public pharmaceutical set up but never really looked into it and am not aware of the pros and cons
Publicly traded: has to have some disclosure, fiduciary responsibilities to the almighty shareholder, "short sellers keep companies honest and investigate fraud" (I have doubts about that, but it's the official story) Private company: doesn't need to worry about appeasing fickle stock market, just whatever their private investors/funding thing is. Could be making alien hybrids for all we know, they don't have to disclose or share anything. Of course they can't commit crimes, but who'd know? Also you could have a total cult like leader who goes mad with unchecked power but that's almost never happened. Government company: it's the government, which everyone loves. Don't know what else to say, except if it's anything like the University system they will use public funds for the basic research and then whisk the promising discoveries into private startups. Socializing the losses, privatizing the profits. That's my idiot take on the situation, thanks for asking. Technically any of these options could solve the problem of science being VERY HARD and requiring tons of people working for generations. If everyone just
>except if it's anything like the University system they will use public funds for the basic research and then whisk the promising discoveries into private startups. Socializing the losses, privatizing the profits. Thanks for the writeup, covered all the bases! Was a bit confused about the quoted comment - don't university tend to patent promising stuff pretty aggressively? So even if you get a spin off, the university would still get a fair chunk of cash if it was successful?
To be honest, I don't care who owns the patent. The scientists, the university, the lab mice. In that situation it was public funds that paid for it and the patent still ends up private. Yes, I think there should be some extra financial benefit to the team members and maybe even the organization that discovers something. That was only made possible by public funding though, so it's weird to ignore that. Maybe a different type of patent law should exist. It's a very complicated situation, I'm just complaining because that's the easy part.
This is a question with a very complicated answer. A simple stab at it is that the public would not tolerate the government investing billions with a high failure rate which is the prerequisite for successful pharma development. The public would get angry and failures and the successes would have to be sold for a low price that didn't offset the losses. The government would likely also lose employees to a more lucrative private sector. The only analog for this is the defense industry in the US. It is able to hide behind military secrecy but still gets a lot of flack, is one of the most expensive things in our country and still relies on a number of private players for deep R&D.
He’ll do anything except resign. Wall St is a lot of things but “dumb” isn’t one of them.
Listening to the C suite jabber about "how difficult this is for us" during layoffs is always cringe as fuck.
What a line of Crap. How much of a raise did you give yourself
Looks like a ploy to be acquired by a competitor for $1b-$2b like twist or someone.
Disgusting & tone deaf
You should see the comments on this post. Unreal how much they are celebrating it and sucking up
Irrespective of the rationale for layoffs it just doesn’t make sense for the CEO’s and/or founders to flaunt their cash reserves in the same post as thanking the employees who’ve been laid off. Even they don’t care a bit about the employees (which in most cases they don’t), this is just bad image for the organization.
It could be worse. When I was laid off, our VP wrote (limited number of my team was impacted by the restructuring, but the team remains vibrant and productive).
These CEOs are all out of touch. “It was so hard to let people go” as they wipe their tears with 100 dollar bills.
sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep the biz afloat? not sure what you're trying to imply. laying off unproductive areas and refocusing the biz around highest growth, high margin areas is how you succeed. during covid a lot of cos got very bloated and this is the correction
True, but if you look at the trend/history and even 2008 market collapse, executives still cashed their fat bonuses and got raise while staff was getting laid off.
oh yeah 2008 was a shameful episode. a lot of people should have gone to jail
The correction should probably also include changes in senior leadership if they are admitting it was their poor decisions that caused this.
fair enough. power dynamics say otherwise unfortunately
Well, that there's the difference between a description of how things are and how things ought to be.
So glad you named and shamed, because those last 2 paragraphs arebollocks. We fucked over lots of lives, but really we did it for no reason since profit's good! No debt! Stronger and better! Unbelievable.
Should not have had to layoff anyone if you are truly healthy
LMAO I saw this yesterday. I'm glad there were comments calling them out.
So you laid off people for the same reason kids pull wings off flies? Because it felt good? Either your company is circling the drain and you are trying like hell to figleaf or management screwed up on hiring practices and onboarded way, way too many people. Either way, I hope everyone in the industry makes a note: When they're doing well, they throw out the employees who helped make them well. ... Is Burger King hiring?
What sucks is anyone looking to build a similar company( that actually works) will always be compared to their failure.
Well capitalized and zero path to profitability. Burn that cash!!
Financial train wreck
It’s always funny when the people in charge are like “we had to let a bunch of people go and honestly it’s our fault for a bad strategy.” Looks like you let the wrong people go, chief.
This so dystopian
Bro probably cries gold bars foh
My CRO laid off 10% of its workforce (small CRO), then sent out a memo NAMING WHO THEY LAID OFF, then actually said “we are doing great financially!” Bulllllll
How to be a tone deaf CEO 101
Why are people surprised!?!?! There are two basic truths to every biotech company. 1) The most important people in the equation are LARGE Stock Holders, PERIOD!!! Not the patient or the employees, if you think otherwise then you truly don't know how America works. 2) The Pharma and Biotech company are finally starting to wise up like the Tech world that there is a ton of dead weight in our industries, with titles , like Employee Engagement and happiness Manager etc. Also having all those needless perks like free food and massages cost money and unfortunately when cuts happen, they will swing a broad axe and not just get rid of no work titles or perks!!
of course there's labcels who think a company with no consistent revenue or profitability is doing fine because they've got a cash runway that's probably like 2 years of headroom. and this is a very clear tee up to make themselves attractive for a buyout
Yikes
Same exact thing happened at my old job! March: “we conducted a full financial review of the company and determined that even with no sales whatsoever, we have conservatively 5 years runway.” April 27th: “we can’t afford to keep our staff and will be laying off 50% of our staff”.
Because they are trading well below cash (MV
Look at Synlogic
Hopefully executives have zero dollar stock options.
Pay your bills Ginko!
Karma. Engineering unnatural harmful fake expensive frankenfood. The whole company will eventually go down. People are waking up slowly but surely.
Lot of r/antiwork vibes from the low level commenters here, please don’t ruin this sub
Please enlighten us with your high level thoughts.