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Comment by PaulHoule | Hacker News Reader

How does a company like Sonos employ 1000+ people? What do they all do? Are they making all their hardware in the U.S. or something?

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Why do people always ask "What do they do?" when layoffs are announced? You want access to their Jira boards? Is everyone who ask this a shareholder demanding information about the company finances?

This is something that irks me. For sure "why do they need all those people" is not the first question that pops to my mind when a company announces a layoff.

Apparently the people running the place asked the same question.

I'd say the first question in their minds is "Why do we spend so much money in staff?"

1800+.

Seems like they overhired during the pandemic like many other companies.

I'm also a bit puzzled by that number, I've got to admit.

They seem to do their manufacturing in China and Malaysia.

I can’t imagine that there is anything too special in Sonos speakers, I mean there isn’t much point in using an OS that isn’t Linux or some off-the-shelf commercial OS. Bottom of the barrel ARM chips from Mediatek and the like will be good enough. I’m somewhat familiar with the competitive HEOS speakers from Denon and I can say that even pricey home theater receivers have underwhelming electronics inside.

They also have iOS and Android apps, maybe a web app too. Their apps do a lot of integrations with various streaming services which probably has a decent staff to maintain as well.

That’s just tech jobs. They also have markering, design, logistics, distribution, accounting, HR…..

Their supposed secret sauce is the low-latency audio synchronization between rooms. But that isn't so secret/hard anymore.

Maybe they need 1000+ patent lawyers to protect it?

probably have them make all those ads that keep popping up in the app about buying more hardware...

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