
Ancestry lays off 6% of staff - prostoalex
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/05/ancestry-lays-off-6-of-staff-as-consumer-genetic-testing-market-continues-to-decline/
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suresk
Lots of layoffs in Utah tech companies lately. Instructure just let go of 10%,
other layoffs related to WeWork, and a bunch of other small companies.

Still seems like there is a shortage of developers here and most people should
find new work pretty easily, but it is always a little unsettling to have a
bunch of layoffs in quick sequence.

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sky_rw
Every-time a PR comes out like this I see this sort of comment. Is there any
evidence that layoffs are engineering based? I always assume the first to go
are marketing/admin/etc rather than developers.

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julius_set
Yes it was I’m one of the ones affected. I’ve done mobile engineering both iOS
and Android for around ~5 years.

If anyone’s looking :)

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awb
I'm hiring remote mobile developers. Send me an email and I can send you some
details.

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grumple
Companies seem to have a really difficult time taking a moment to acknowledge
or thank the workers being laid off. Would be nice to see that change in these
corporate layoff announcements. This came close, but it's almost like pr and
executives are allergic to expressing actual gratitude.

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nkrisc
My last company had a couple rounds of layoffs last year (including me
eventually), everyone in the executive leadership kept referring to it in such
a roundabout way. They'd always call it, "the reorg" and the people laid off
were people, "impacted" by it.

So you had to fire a bunch of people for no fault of their own. I get it,
that's business sometimes when the times aren't good. But just say it. I do
believe our CEO is genuinely a good person and did not feel good about doing
it, so maybe there's a component of protecting one's own emotions in there as
well by speaking around it.

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kalium_xyz
Is it a shock to anyone when a company whos business model does not allow for
return customers suddenly find themselves less in demand?

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j88439h84
> business model does not allow for return customers

How's that?

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blaser-waffle
You map out your ancestry. That's great: records found, tree built, work
complete. Business relationship over.

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pixelbath
But it's not over, because the Ancestry.com UI is the only place most of that
information is usable and navigable. This necessitates an ongoing subscription
for access.

In addition, there's almost no "records found, tree built, work complete."
It's always pulling additional "leaves" as more records are digitized.

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lolcat5e
The core info can be downloaded in GED format into a free genealogy program
such as gramps. There will be some extra proprietary extensions but the basics
will be there. Their selling point is that it indexes everyone's tree and it
will offer hints when it spots overlap. Can be very time saving, but also
misleading. Check everything against official BMD records if possible.

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vikinghckr
Everyone should read "The End of the Beginning" by Ben Thompson [1].

[1] [https://stratechery.com/2020/the-end-of-the-
beginning/](https://stratechery.com/2020/the-end-of-the-beginning/)

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AlexCoventry
That was great, but I don't see the connection to Ancestry's recent layoffs.

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ErikAugust
I hear they are trying to make it more of a family business.

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anon176
My wife subscribes to their service. I can say, you pay a lot for what you
get.

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thrower123
It's always seemed really expensive for what it is. I've looked up some family
members, and all they really have is badly digitized scans of public documents
that some library made available.

How little of this type of thing exists in any searchable format other than
driving to a library and finding somebody who knows how microfiche works is
very frustrating.

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CerealFounder
Incomplete. Its all the DNA business.

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ilaksh
I suspect some of the recent layoffs may be related to the overall economy.

For example the global debt crisis Dalio talks about.

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craftyguy
What did they expect? They don't really offer a valuable service besides a
one-off test + results. At some point you're going to hit everyone who wants
to use the service, they'll use it exactly once, and you'll have no more
market.

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Kiro
They have subscriptions. It's not just about the one-offs since your family
tree expands all the time and in order to access that you need to keep paying.

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craftyguy
Obviously the value of their subscription service is not compelling enough for
their business to sustain itself.

