Thread regarding SAS Institute layoffs

@1js In the specific case of front-end components, JG was correct: we had enough expertise to do that job.

This problem is not that hard. It’s not like designing an architecture to handle Big Data. It’s just a component library. And we had gifted UX designers and UI developers — enough to design and build what was needed.

Yet we failed to deliver a competitive user experience in a competitive timeframe.

This is an example of SAS’s complacent, entitled, slow-moving culture. We don’t make decisions for the best technical reasons. We don’t promote people based on technical expertise. And employees only have to work 35 hours per week, because we have no competition.

That business model worked fine for 30 years. It does not now.

@1jd JG has always had the mindset of "We're a software company, why should we buy something when we can write it ourselves?" which, of course, assumes that the company had experts on everything.

@1jd There was a financial analysis, but as you suggest, it was driven by short-term thinking.

Both Dojo and SAP's OpenUI5 were cheap/free licenses. More modern, more robust libraries would have cost more upfront.

These were old technologies. So we had to pay the price of rolling our own components to supplement and modernize them. Over the years, this path was much more expensive and time-consuming.

Like many technical decisions, these were made by managers who were a) not particularly technical and b) not listening to employees who could have helped them.

"So don’t hold your breath on SAS ever becoming a public company. Then again, SAS is starting to consider life after Goodnight"

Agree that an IPO with JG and JS at the helm seems less and less likely. Neither man has the stomach to see their baby being captained by anyone but themself.

An evolving scenario is that nothing will change significantly while JG and JS are alive. The term "IPO readiness" might be better termed as "heir readiness". SHTF comes into play quickly once the heirs have control.

@1g9
Here's an explanation for you.

If I remember correctly, there were several discussions about purchasing a vendor's prepackaged HTML5 libraries for the conversion. Negotiations dragged on for some time, and then fizzled out for some reason. Then SAS chose to develop the SAP Open UI5 stuff, and spent YEARS modifying it to fit needs and getting it to work correctly.

How much in salary in benefits were paid out over that time period, versus just buying the technologies from a vendor? As someone watching this, I felt like a parent frustrated by a dawdling child -- "quit sc--wing around, make a decision, and move forward!"

I would have loved to have seen the financial analysis that informed that decision. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't think there was one.

I'll never understand why the organization had to constantly "roll its own" instead of just purchasing or licensing technology and moving forward with that. I'd seen several instances where someone mentioned licensing COTS technology to solve a problem. The answer was always the same - no, we are going to roll our own, no matter how long it takes, no matter how poorly we do it, no matter what it costs. I'll never understand that mindset.

@1g9 Agreed, committing to Flash was a mistake that many companies made. HTML5 would win, but “they couldn't have seen that coming”.

Once HTML5 won, SAS chose libraries to help with the conversion, including Dojo and OpenUI5. Those were poor, outdated choices, and some of us said so at the time.

@1fs+1jz5y3e48 describes “the time wasted on moving from Flash to HTML5”. If you disagreed with the decisions, you could indeed be made to feel like you were “the one who was crazy.”

For good software engineers, this was a simple — albeit huge — refactoring. It was a level playing field: our competitors had to make the same conversion.

SAS just managed it badly, and converted more slowly than others.

@1fs+1jz5y3e48
I don't understand comments like this. HTML5 wasn't "fully baked" until VA 6.3 or something like that. It isn't a failure for developers to adopt the best available technology at the time for user interactive elements, which was Flash (arguably). And Flash was years away from the death sentence Apple imposed on it and that ultimately ki-led it as a technology, so they couldn't have seen that coming either.

The time wasted on moving from Flash to HTML5 was ridiculous! It's like money and time weren't an option. And I left there being made to feel like I was the one who was crazy.

Pre-Viya VA long had a bloated mid-tier that took ~10 years to achieve anything approaching performant/scalable cloud deployments, not to mention its initial FLASH UI implementation framework [and ensuing politics] prior to HTML5. IMO, tens of person development years were wasted on that cr-p and surrounding arguments.

In keeping with its statistical heritage, didn’t SAS also chose to imbue VA with more advanced analytical features than Tableau and other interactive tools as a product differentiator? This changed the scope of a VA design that might have competed more successfully against such “consumer grade” products.

Customers subscribing to Viya is like buying Boeing 777 for a trip across town.

In my 30 years at SAS, I never saw any product miss the make so badly. Is there anything that has performed more poorly than Viya from an ROI point of view?

@19c Agreed. Price, due to integration with Viya, was certainly an obstacle.

A stand-alone VA might have succeeded. JMP handles billions of rows; for many customers, that's enough.

@171

resulting in cool but not very useful features backed by expensive, big data infrastructure

@15j
There was too much infighting to build a "Tableau Ki-ler". Ooops! It was too little, too late.

@15b

A sale at that point would have been preferable to building Viya. That might be the best answer to the "what could have been" question.

@15b Originally, SAS VA was intended to be the "Tableau Ki-ler".

If we had built something better than Tableau, that surely would have been a winner.

@11e+1jz5y3e48

Given what we know about the history of SAS’ management culture, insularity, general mediocrity, and lack of ability to hire anyone approaching modern A-list abilities, what could have been built in its place?

@11r+1jz5y3e48

Now he has another tall, slender sycophant in that role.

Which "tall, slender sycophant" are we referring to? The CTO, the COO, the preacher, or one of the several replacements-in-waiting?

Schabenbugger was the son JG wished for. You can't stop that messed-up dynamic. Now he has another tall, slender sycophant in that role.

What might have been? If no Viya:

1. SAS would have way more money in the bank.
2. There would be way fewer angry V9 customers.
3. Retention of V9 customers would be improved.
4. All the hiring for the Viya craze would not have happened, hence fewer layoffs.
5. Sale/IPO price likely no worse.
6. Heirs would have less of a mess to deal with.
7. Less negative chatter on this site!

No one in the Art Department, which is safe, is running for the door.

You have a point that “voluntary” retirement is not truly voluntary for people worried about job security. It may simply be the best option.

Hundreds of us did resign voluntarily, though, when the pandemic stimulus flooded the market. Money was loose, venture capital was flowing, so it was easy to get jobs elsewhere.

I say “hundreds” because when headcount is down ~2,500, that can’t be all VRBPs and layoffs. It’s most probable that there were hundreds of VRBPs, layoffs, and voluntary resignations. But I think you are correct that VRBPs and layoffs explain most of the shrinkage.

I also agree that “There is not a mass here of people running for the doors”. Some don’t want to leave, they want to make their situation work, and hats off to them. The job market is also much tighter than it was a few years ago.

@110+1jz5y3e48 SAS shrinking is a good thing. But I still contend that the shrinkage is primary involuntary. And yes I include voluntary retirement in that even though it is technically voluntary.

There is not a mass here of people running for the doors. People on here talk like that. But for the most part it seems like all talk.

“The conversation was about the assertion that most 45 and unders want to leave.”


No one asserted that. One person applied it to their friends; they didn't apply it to the whole company.

“The great resignation caused turnover on a macro scale. Saying that it did not cause shrinkage on a micro scale is incorrect.”

When an employee resigns, that does not cause shrinkage; the employer can backfill the position. If the employer chooses not to, of course that causes shrinkage.

The Great Resignation peaked in 2021. SAS is still shrinking. This may owe more to revenues than to any external phenomenon.

Viya was the largest and most recent not listening to customers mistake SAS has ever made. They literally bet the company on it(heck if I know why) and lost big time. Adding insult to injury, SAS seems unwilling or unable to pivot away from the Viya mistake.

Oliver should have been punted years sooner while the SAS ship still had a chance of staying afloat.

“ SAS has reduced headcount by ~2,500 from its peak — through layoffs, buyouts, and attrition. There were hundreds of employees in each category.



The Great Resignation caused turnover, not shrinkage. But SAS decided to shrink, by not backfilling these positions.

Of course, this shrinkage is specific to SAS. Other companies are growing. But SAS must reduce its expenses in line with its revenues”

The conversation was about the assertion tha most 45 and unders want to leave. And yet there has NOT been a mass VOLUNTARY exodus of that demographic.

The great resignation caused turnover on a macro scale. Saying that it did not cause shrinkage on a micro scale is incorrect. SAS chose to use that great resignation to shrink ranks by not filling the positions

But again the leaving was an industry wide phenomenon not a SAS one. And it was far from mass exodus in any case.

The bulk of departures have been involuntary or voluntary retirements.

“Other companies are growing”

That couldn’t be any more nebulous. Sure other companies are growing. Also other companies are shrinking. Also other companies are maintaining status quo…

@103
Yep! It was bad.

I should have been smarter and gotten out earlier. Instead, I believed all the cradle-to-grave, Utopia bullsh-t.

“SAS has reduced headcount by ~2,500 from its peak — through layoffs, buyouts, and attrition. There were hundreds of employees in each category.



The Great Resignation caused turnover, not shrinkage. But SAS decided to shrink, by not backfilling these positions.

Of course, this shrinkage is specific to SAS. Other companies are growing. But SAS must reduce its expenses in line with its revenues.”

The conversation was about 45 years olds wanting to leave resulting in a mass VOLUNTARY exodus.

What you are referring to is something different entirely.

“trying to force small and medium sized companies to [Viya] when SAS 9 was working great only alienated them. They don’t want to go to the Cloud and Kubernetes.”



Wasn’t this predictable before the customers complained? And wasn’t it predictable that customers wanted compatibility, or at least a simple migration path?



These issues were known in SAS R&D. It was well understood that we were building two incompatible products. 

Leadership was not only not listening to customers. They were not listening to employees either.

That was my experience throughout my SAS career. Viya is the largest, most prominent example, so the Big German gets blamed. But that attitude of suppressing discussion, of stifling ideas, of management always being right, not listening to customers or employees, has been in place for decades.

SAS has reduced headcount by ~2,500 from its peak — through layoffs, buyouts, and attrition. There were hundreds of employees in each category.



The Great Resignation caused turnover, not shrinkage. But SAS decided to shrink, by not backfilling these positions.

Of course, this shrinkage is specific to SAS. Other companies are growing. But SAS must reduce its expenses in line with its revenues.

“We did see a voluntary mass exodus, in 2020-21.

Hundreds of people left.”

Hundreds…

And that was called the great resignation. Not a SAS thing.

Still a shitload of under 45 year olds at SAS

@qq well said. We stopped listening to our customers especially when they said they don’t want/need Viya. SAS leadership and therefore marketing didn’t heed or understand the axiom of not putting all your eggs in one basket.

I’ve interacted with some large customers where Viya works well in their situation. However, Viya is not suitable for all customers and trying to force small and medium sized companies to it when SAS 9 was working great only alienated them. They don’t what to go to the cloud and kubernetes. Running things in house is perfectly acceptable to them.

I’ve also heard of sales reps (who are incentivized to sell Viya) withholding SAS 9 invoices trying to force them to Viya. I’ve known a few good sales reps but they seem to be the exception.

“We did see a voluntary mass exodus, in 2020-21.”

Hundreds :)

The great resignation was not somehow specific to SAS. and was not a “mass” exodus at SAS by any stretch.

If so many people under 45 feel that way then why are they still there?

“We did see a voluntary mass exodus, in 2020-21.

Hundreds of people left.”

Speaking just for myself (2021 VRBP participant), the departure was only semi-voluntary. I’d have preferred on some levels to keep working, but the offer was too good to pass up and I had become concerned about job security. Note: SAS still hasn’t filled my old position.

@vg We did see a voluntary mass exodus, in 2020-21.

Hundreds of people left.

That’s one reason headcount is ~2,500 below its peak.

“says that most of their friends 45 or younger are looking to leave. That’s not true at all companies;”

Oh well if someone on anonymous says that most of their 45 and younger friends are looking to leave then that must be true. They could have no friends for all you know.

And I can find someone at most tech companies to say the same thing. Doesn’t make it true or false there either.

If true then why haven’t we seen a voluntary mass exodus of 45 and younger??

“How did SAS fall so quickly from greatness to below average?”

It is far from below average. You need to get out more.

Employees will cease being engaged when their voices are no longer heard. Same can be said for customers. My job at SAS was customer facing and their complaints about not being heard got more frequent during the fiasco known as the Viya rollout.

How did SAS fall so quickly from greatness to below average?

It is indeed a 2-way street.

@kx The groups are similar but not exactly the same.

@km+1jz5y3e48’s says that most of their friends 45 or younger are looking to leave. That’s not true at all companies; and not all companies are doing layoffs and buyouts.

Their last point is significant: that talent has been incentivized to leave, without backfilling key roles.

@km
Aren’t those the same four employee groups that exist at every company?

1. Satisfied
2. Frustrated
3. Wondering
4. Eager

The percentage in each group differs from place to place, but the spectrum covers the attitudes responsible for all possible outcomes. To think this is unique to SAS reflects more than was likely intended.

Before I left SAS, there were four general groups of employees:

1. Staying with SAS for the duration of their careers regardless of sale, IPO, alien invasion, etc. Happy where they were in their career. Not looking externally. May take a VRBP.

2. Fed up with SAS’s BS. Actively applying elsewhere. Looking for an exit ASAP and willing to take a pay cut to improve career trajectory over the next 10-15 years. Most who leave are surprised to receive a pay increase with significant equity compensation.

3. Maintaining and campaigning. Actively looking but selective over the jobs they’ll jump ship for. Looking to leave in the near term but not immediately.

4. New hires. Positive, upbeat, enthusiastic until they realize performance is not rewarded.

The trend: 4 moves to 3 or 2. 3 moves to 1, 2, or leaves SAS. 2 moves to 1 or leaves SAS. 1 will never leave SAS unless retiring or paid to do so.

Most of my friends 45 years and younger at SAS are in 2 or 3.

In the AI race, the rapid brain drain of talent leaving SAS from 2020-2025 without backfilling key roles told us everything we needed to know.

@jw well said.