I don't understand why Carta or Opendoor should be affected by Coronavirus.

Carta: Offering stock options to your employees does not seem to be something short term enough that 2-3 months of slowed business cycle would impact sales.

Opendoor: Anecdotally, I know of multiple people who have sold houses above listing in my market, others buying at or above market, and realtors doing tours (both virtually and in person). And 35% is a drastic cut.

One theory is that this is reducing operating expenses to not have to raise funds this year.

> I don't understand why Carta or Opendoor should be affected by Coronavirus.

In the abstract, I'd guess the primary theory is that you never let a crisis go to waste. These exigent circumstances allow for making moves which otherwise would cause such a ruckus that it is avoided. Deprecating products which aren't viable. Eliminating groups / etc which aren't proving value.

We shall see.

Techcrunch wrote an article in May 2019 about Carta raising a Series E. They also reported an annual revenue run rate of 55 million with nearly 600 employees. That's less than 100k per employee. I'm not sure if Carta's profitable.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/carta-was-just-valued-at-1...

I have no doubt that they aren't profitable and will need to raise additional money.

May 2019 gives some grips to the timing though; A 2 year expansion runway on a raise is pretty standard, so while they will likely be talking to investors this year, if they limit expansion, they should presumably be safe through 2021. But how much will their business growth metric be impacted; restaurants and face to faces weren't their business, but technology companies, and most likely those near or over a year old who have raised a round.

* Groupon (44%) - https://www.chicagobusiness.com/john-pletz-technology/groupo...

Laid off != Fired

Bear in mind that different countries have different interpretations. I'm guessing you're all arguing about a US view. In the UK, "fired" would mean that you lost your job because you did something seriously wrong.

That is how I view it in the US as well. My fault? Fired. The company's fault (or "nobody's")? Laid off.

There's a distinction in HR. Colloquially, "fired" means "involuntary dismissal of any sort."

Edit: To be clear, by colloquially I mean how people tend to use the word in practice.

There is some difference. Fired with cause means no unemployment benefits. Laid off and you qualify to receive benefits.

This is not accurate. Getting fired versus laid-off are different; it's important to understand this. For one, if you're communicating with a professional and express that you were fired, they will make much different assumptions than if you were laid-off. Second, the distinction can affect your eligibility for employment insurance (or 'unemployment').

Fired - removed from your position "for cause" - can be performance, breaking company policy etc.

Laid off - company's business situation has changed and does not require your services anymore - no fault of yours.

My impression is that there is a legal issue in calling something a layoff, in that the position has to have been eliminated.

I believe you don't qualify for unemployment insurance if you are fired, as opposed to laid off.

Yeah that's the basic difference, but I believe there's also something accounting-ish or tax-y about it, too.

It's a pretty important distinction as it can decide whether you qualify for unemployment or not.

Dell (today) announced no raises for the year, no hiring, and for non-exempt, no overtime approval (without a lot of authorization).

Christie Digital (the makers of the digital movie projectors for AMC among people), is doing layoffs today... I haven't heard anything yet.

VSCO let go 30% staff today