Thread regarding VMware layoffs

Revenue tells the tale

Broadcom revenue is $23.9B annually. Broadcom has 15,000 employees, and the revenue per employee ratio is $1,592,533.
Twitter revenue is $3.7B annually. Twitter has 3,900 employees, and the revenue per employee ratio is $762,910.
VMware revenue is $10.8B annually. VMware has 41,000 employees, and the revenue per employee ratio is $418,741.

So why is the revenue per employee important? Because it is exactly the kind of stupid, shallow, easily-digestible factoid that executives make firing decisions over.

The simple fact is, that this simple fact will tell you the extent of layoffs. Executives are not creatures of nuance! Some exec, the great Hock Tan or some other suit will be handed the very simple calculation above. And their response will be "improve it by 50%".

And as much as I would love to herd these suits into their country club, set fire to it, and declare a worldwide celebration, they are right on this, I must admit. VMware's revenue per employee is dismal. They could cut us by half just to get us at the level of Twitter. And that is dismal.

If you think they won't cut 30% to 50% over the next two years, please tell me how given Broadcom's revenue expectations you can possibly avoid it.

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| 3461 views | | 11 replies (last October 10, 2022) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+1j7trHKJ

11 replies (most recent on top)

The $ per employee is a 100% useful metric and has been used to gauge how well a company is doing management wise. People that say it isn’t are typical low IQ individual contributors. It is one of many metrics used to gauge how good a company is managed. The most important metric to distill is actually profit per employee. This is the one Broadcom cares about. A lot of companies have decent revenue per employee but terrible profit per employee. Yes, software and hardware have different numbers but is general, software should be higher than hardware.

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Post ID: @1org+1j7trHKJ

Too many in denial. Octane runs it like a private equity firm. Employees are the biggest expense and he will cut until you have the bare minimum to do boring work. If I was a lvl 6 engineer or director or above I would stay and make millions in RSUs. Any lower than that do not bother.

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Post ID: @1ytw+1j7trHKJ

r $1.3m/1.6m the gap between VMware and Broadcom is HUGE. Also note profit margins are far greater on the software group compared to the rest of Broadcom, around 90%. These guys know how to make money.

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Post ID: @1mxm+1j7trHKJ

A couple things. 2021 revenue was $27.4B with 20,000 employees, so that's $1.3M per employee.

But hardware and software are two entirely separate markets with different expectations. I can't find the revenue/employee count for just Broadcom software, but we are on par with companies like SFDC and Adobe.

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Post ID: @1vzr+1j7trHKJ

Just want to re-emphasize what was discussed on the 1st Broadcom quarterly call (5/26) immediately after the acquisition was announced. Their goal was to have the VMWare software products have a HIGHER net profit than the existing Broadcom Software Group products. That guaranteed deep cuts.

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Post ID: @1edp+1j7trHKJ

OP is correct. Multiple rounds of layoff will occur after the 1st one (which will be biggest of all) and repeat after every 6 months. Cutting them all at the same time will disrupt the operations so wont do that.

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Post ID: @ere+1j7trHKJ

It seems evident that VMware is a failed culture. Complaints and cries for help are everywhere on this sub. Even a child can see it’s bad. What lingers now is likely leadership that is akin to the backwash found at the bottom of a pint. Sh!t.

If the need to contemplate departing is still with you; then careful navigating. I’ve never seen this many horrors posted about one company. Difficult not to believe most of it.

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Post ID: @ekp+1j7trHKJ

Welcome to three months ago

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Post ID: @czv+1j7trHKJ

It would be interesting to see how these numbers look only for the pool of leaders who lie.

We will never know if these calculations would have more appeal were it not for a toxic and dysfunctional chain.

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Post ID: @nph+1j7trHKJ

So true. Optics are, VMware is fat and irrelevant

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Post ID: @vfg+1j7trHKJ

You are right.

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Post ID: @rwi+1j7trHKJ

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