Got to know today that VP's were notified with getting the list of people with 10% reduction target across each verticals of streaming.
These layoff would be announced by late November or Early December.
Also layoff would be global regardless of location.
Never seen so many upper level titles in a company, and many with zero to 2 or 3 reports. Its nuts and overinflated with more managers than ICs in certain areas. You even have Directors and above leading teams in areas they arent very familiar with. So after layoffs, its going to be real interesting to see how they reorganize teams.
@12q dunno if you read the whole thread, but people here doesn’t seem to understand what Director or VP means today after so many years of inflation. They still seem to think VPs are gods like the year is 2005.
The one thing that I’m questioning with this post is that usually VPs don’t get the list or tasked with deciding. In the department I’m in, it was the SVP who was tasked with all of that last year and our VPs weren’t clued in until maybe the day before or day of. One VP I know didn’t even know that someone from their team was affected until layoffs happened.
@12b interactive/games. Not animation
Looking on LinkedIn it appears Skydance animation team already began layoffs last Friday…
@xr I believe OP is in streaming and so is referencing that but layoffs would be company-wide.
What does this mean exactly? Target each verticals of streaming. Like, streaming only? Please be nice. ◡̈
February
@ra yeah sure… Feel free to DM me if you think you know who I am.
@r7 you realize that with the amount of txt and context you’ve already posted here that you can be 100% identified right? Just stop already… Go for a walk. Touch some grass.
@r4 do I and my worry about my job not included in “us”? Oh right because I’m the director. This board should probably say “entry for below director level only”. Because apparently all 5000 directors or whatever the number is - all have info about layoffs and they themselves cannot be laid off. It’s only the poor peasants who are allowed to worry or complain.
Nobody cares about how justified someone feels about their titles or compensation or how someone else feels about the titles of others. None of that really matters. Most of us minds our own business. We only care if we have jobs or not and whether we can pay our bills or not.
@qr sooooo whens the layoff date? This site is called the layoff. Not the pick fights with random people and argue about petty stuff that doesn’t matter from faceless anonymous trolls. So I’ll say it again…. When’s the layoff date? You have the layoff date for us? Can you share the layoff date? No? Then byeeeeee.
@qe would you shut up if you were told that you do not deserve your pay and that you have to leave? No I’m not going to shut up. I’m working tirelessly trying to increase the revenue, and I’m having to work against the grain - most of the times, I have to work around these directors and VPs and SVPs who are in their position due to the same broken title inflation system that put me in director position as well, but unlike me they are dinosaurs who are actively destroying this company. The person said to me that all directors, VPs and SVPs have to go. When in the history of civilization these kinds of generalizations led to good outcomes? Was it, maybe, in racial profilings? So, no, I’m not going to shut up. I’ll stand my ground. Anyone have any problem with that?
@qc just…. shut up already. Since you’re so powerful do us all a favor and tell us what date the layoffs are.
@pc in a heat of the moment, it wasn’t the best choice of words. No, I cannot dock someone’s salary. I also have no way of knowing who is the person that I was responding to. No, but what I can do is to tank company’s revenue so hard into the ground that the chances of anyone getting paid around here ever again will be close to zero. Obviously I’m not an id--t and I am not doing that. I would end up in jail if I did something like this. It wasn’t a flex or anything - my opponent and I were trying to determine what’s my “scope” and what “scope” means. I was wondering if that qualifies for it in their book, that’s all.
@n8 Feel free to share here if you'd like.
@pc my favorite was the “do you know who you’re talking to rn??? You’d fall out of your chair if you knew who you were talking to” 🤣 ok bro
Sidestepping the pi----g match that took place in here... (my favorite part was the one where flexed their ability to dock someone's salary)
Any hard dates known?
@nc well I can promise you - I’m not that insufferable in the real life (I hope). This is anonymous forum and after what I just heard addressed to me - I lost my sh-t for a minute there. Not proud. But not sorry either.
Thanks and good luck to you too.
@nb at least you do something unlike some of the other directors here but you still sound insufferable. Good luck to you and to us all 🫡
@na yeah and to be honest - I feel like a 6yo after what I just had to say to defend myself. Not great. But what choice did I have? I’m trying to understand - for the work that I do, I fetch competitive pay. Meaning that for equivalent job (by the job itself, not director title) I got multiple competing offers and Paramount matched them slightly below the mark but in the ballpark. I still decided to take it because these other competitors are already successful. Paramount is yet to build success in the area that I am good at, which I characterize as better opportunity and in general just less boring. Why some people here now telling me that I either have to go or that I have to be paid less, just because I do not have direct reports? How did I deserve to be personally attacked like this? How does it makes sense to focus on me rather than on the broken system that had to make me a director just to be able to give me competitive market pay? I’ll tell you why. Because I’m a person, so I can be an enemy in this “us versus them” game. I can be labeled as some mythical high payed elite class - because that’s the enemy everyone understands and universally hates. Fixing the system? Nah that’s too hard for the small brains.
All these entitled high paid ego raging lunatics here acting like 6 year olds are pure entertainment 🍿
@n7 who decided was I talking about effort or scope? How do you define scope, exactly? I’d tell you what would happen to YOUR salary if I press a few keystrokes on MY keyboard right now, but I do not want to identify myself here. Just trust me bro. Enough scope. It’s a shame that some people would rather see me go and join the competitor (which I had an offer from) than to agree that the band at Paramount is broken and that maybe not every director here is a dinosaur and maybe not even a director out of their own will. People who think that “scope” is defined by the number of direct reports under a person is exactly why Paramount is not Netflix. People who think that the only career growth is to get direct reports and become a manager - that’s the true dinosaurs here.
@n4 I can assure you, you’d fall out of your chair if you knew who you are fu--ing speaking to right now.
@n5 Nobody here is denying someone who works hard, @mg said as much: effort isn't scope. Sympathy for someone who's overloaded is fair, but it doesn't change the structural point. If a director has no reports and no support, the answer is to fix the IC band or re-level the role, not to say the title and package should stay as they are. And the "execs are the ones who get replaced by AI" angle cuts the other way: senior roles without clear scope are the easiest to cut first.
Consider:
Being at Netflix doesn’t make you a genius. They have a monopoly by being an early entrant to streaming and only a few savvy early execs can take credit.
Studios failed by licensing to them and can’t afford to break the addiction. Netflix content is mostly subpar. If Sony and everyone else stopped licensing they would die
If you put mu---r she wrote on Netflix now it would be in the top 10 (being sarcastic but probably not by much)
Wb folks make way more than paramount and have luxuries like support staff. That ain’t gonna last long
Netflix fires lots of people every year just not in big enough numbers to be reported. They only make a big deal about it to press when they need the stock to go up. They have lots of misses and some of the experts they hire for non tech things leave the industry baffled (thinking bela and others) as they are not proven commodities.
Netflix ceos are irresponsibly overpaid — and why have 2 of them?
Not sure why anyone wants to go after a poor director in this chain with lots of work and no help. Entertainment is one of those business where the execs take advantage of your love of the industry. Future is execs using ai to replace minions wherever they can. We should have some sympathy
@kj I can assure you, you don’t do “Netflix- level work”, maybe you have a high volume of work but that sounds delusional- you’re at Paramount, not Netflix or another top tech company where it’s highly competitive within the company itself and there are actual performance rankings.
@n0 @kj You opened by calling someone "buddy," then told @mg they're probably the assistant who makes the coffee. That's not a rebuttal, it's a tantrum. You said the title doesn't fit your work, that you have no reports, and that you want Netflix pay anyway. That's the "senior title, no senior scope" problem @mg described, in your own words. "I do Netflix-level work" is your opinion of yourself, not evidence. If the bands are broken, say so and make the case for IC pay without insulting the people who pointed out what your situation looks like. This is exactly why these SVP, VP and Directors should be at the top of the list.
@mw yeah. I’m pretty disappointed and disillusioned. I feel leadership will do the same things and yield the same repeat results - does not matter if it’s WB or legacy Paramount - same hamster wheel, same issues, same results. This place will be run into the ground and sold for parts.
@mz buddy - a director position at Paramount has lower band and bonus target than an average equivalent position at Netflix by the kind and level of the actual job I do. Directors at Netflix by the way earn less, not more. Paramount band is upside down comparatively to the stated (by DE) rival. If anything - I am an example of the problem that to get a fair market pay, I had to become a director at Paramount. I don’t want that title nor did I asked for it. I asked to match my pay to the offers I got on the open market. Title came with the bump and now you’re implying that I am the problem?! How dare was I to ask for a market level compensation.
@mx You've described a director-level title, band, bonus target, and travel policy attached to an IC role with no reports. That's exactly the mismatch this thread is about. If the work is really Netflix-level, the case to make is for an IC band that pays for it, not that the director package should stay while the title doesn't fit. Until then, you're an example of the problem, not a rebuttal to it.
@mg I think you misread me or misunderstood me. You seem to think that what I said was that I do not deserve my pay as a director. Read other people who replied before and after you. The pay at paramount is not that great. I think I am fairly compensated for the kind of work I do, probably even below fair, I am definitely not getting paid more than I deserve, ok? What I said was the title does not match the work. Qualitative characterization, not qualitative. If IC doing more important job and earning more than a VP does not fit in your overtone window, it is a you-problem and you probably are not very qualified for your own title unless you’re like maybe assistant and your job is to make coffee.
@mm Agree there’s plenty of bloat, and 360-degree reviews would go a long way toward reducing it, while also helping to elevate the true high performers. Mid-year and year-end reviews are basically a checkbox exercise to see if you can use an LLM.
Nobody wants to hear they’re a bad manager, especially the further up the chain you go. And moving from IC to people manager is currently the only reliable way to earn more and climb the ladder (see the poorly compensated ICs mentioned in this thread). I’d guess most of those middle managers never wanted the job and took it for the money.
To @mj’s point, if we fixed compensation for high-performing ICs, we’d also fix a lot of the managerial bloat and apathy.
@f9 IDK, a lot of people like DE. Someone on my floor is collecting signatures for a 'Thank You for Your Leadership' card that they're planning to send to DE for Thanksgiving.
@mj agree with you completely. Seen VP level and above with 1-2 direct reports only, spiralling, not being able to string a sentence together, not having enough work, and engaging in power/ domination tactics with colleagues far more junior for an ego boost. This doesn’t apply to every single leader but it is bloated, there is no calibration or performance measurement system, and no 360-degree feedback process - resulting in poor management and the current situation we are in. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to start identifying and addressing these issues - but hey, here we are.
@kj @mf Agreed on the bands, and that's how a lot of these titles happen. But I've never seen this many layers of management anywhere, and at Paramount's scale the cause doesn't change the cost. Senior titles without senior scope mean slower decisions, unclear ownership, and a lot of leaders who aren't good managers. Fix the bands so senior ICs can be paid well without a director label, then cut the layers that don't carry real scope and hold the people who manage accountable for how they do it.
@kj Let's walk through your own post. You're a director with no direct reports. You say you don't feel like a director. You say the title shouldn't be yours. Then you ask to be paid like one anyway, and compare yourself to Netflix, which pays top of market because its people carry top-of-market scope. Effort isn't scope. Everyone works hard, including the people who got laid off.
You said it's not your fault the company put a director label on what you do. Fair, but it's also not the company's fault that you're happy to collect the pay that comes with it. You can't call the title wrong when it's a problem and right when it's your salary.
The generalization you're upset about isn't about you being a bad person. It's that your situation is exactly what people mean when they say the layer is bloated: senior title, senior band, no senior scope. You didn't rebut that. You supplied the evidence.
If you're as good as you say, you'll be fine. Strong ICs get recognized and re-leveled to fit the work. But 'I deserve it because I try hard' is the argument every overleveled person makes, and it's why this conversation keeps happening.
@kj 100% title inflation as a result of inadequate compensation for true IC roles. Plenty of examples of Director and above (even up to SVP) with limited to no directs/team, but still operating at a high level as an IC. Otherwise they would have left because the salary bands aren’t great at true IC roles.
At least at WBD it appears from previous job postings I saw the bands are much wider, and higher. We all know the actual target salary is towards the middle, or even lower third of these published salary ranges, but at least there’s the perceived possibility of moving up the band without having to get a promotion to feel adequately compensated. Meanwhile promotions over the last couple of years at Paramount have been hard to come by. Here’s a 3% raise, thanks, try again next year.
@kh I disagree. There’s bad apples in every layer. I could name like 50 people below director level right now who qualify for a dinosaur label easily. Also there’s crazy title inflation. I’m a director myself, but I bust my a-s off and I do not have any direct reports. I do not feel like a director and I do not think that my title should be a director, but I deserve my position and my pay. More if anything, not less. I do Netflix level work here and I deserve Netflix pay. It is not my fault that the company put a director label on what I do. So the generalization you just made - I feel is unfair that you apply it to me just because I am a director.