This site is often filled with responses from the jilted and jaded. Does anyone still believe the company has a viable path forward? Are the right people still in place to execute that turnaround, or is it time for employees to start planning their exit?
There is a lot of complacency abounds with people openly stating they are just hanging around for the paycheck. Does anyone have faith? I'm by no means the "Company Man", but I would like to still believe that there is a path forward.
@4st that was almost comprehensible. Almost.
Don’t remember anyone saying anything about a sh---y PE firm…
sounds like apples and oranges. if you're some sh---y PE firm with an enshittification model (buy evernote, meetup, etc., destroy the goose that lays the gold eggs by enshittification and constant upselling) you don't care about product or a long time horizon. you have to pay debt and if you ki-l a goose in 3 years it's ok. it's just enough to buy the next one. maybe a few of you think that is "serious". if you are a "quality" "blue chip" company, this is not the model or time horizon to be "serious" about.
"Don't feed the trolls."
@4rt I said 3 years is good…. Are you calling me no one? Ad hominem attack!!!
How many M&A deals have you participated in due diligence on? Ever watched a bank process for underwriting due diligence?
I have…
@4rk No one said fifty years is needed.
No one said for most companies, three years is good.
For stable companies, three years is good.
For shrinking companies, investors need to know when the shrinking started, and why.
@4r9 You literally just talked yourself in circles. So for most companies 3 years is good. But for SAS they need 10-50 years.
Got it. Your emotional bias is showing.
It depends on what is meant by "serious investor".
If it means someone who takes investing seriously, many people look only at recent numbers. When investing in a stable company, like Berkshire Hathaway or Johnson & Johnson, those few numbers are all they need.
If it means an investor with serious money, in a position to buy all or part of SAS, those people are not fooled by two or three years of pretty numbers. They know it's easy to increase profits by reducing headcount. They won't believe that the people who left were "dead weight".
They'll look at past history and see that the company is not "stable"; it is shrinking. They'll estimate how many more years SAS can survive, and how much money they can extract over those years, and thus derive a value for the company.
That's what private equity does. That's what Broadcom does. That's the type of company that will eventually acquire SAS.
An IPO may bring more money than a private sale, if it attracts enough retail investors who only look at recent numbers. But the big money will look at the big picture.
don't know about "serious investors" but longer data, longer pattern, seems to tell more of the story. seems like common sense. probably the same conclusions regardless.
@4ke Do yourself a favor and ask your AI of choice how much weight financial data from 10 years ago has in purchasing a company.
@4ke Wrong wrong wrong. Academic. I’m sure that you will shout “Ad Hominem Attack!!!!” upon reading this.
Virtually zero weight is given to financials from 10 years ago by a “serious investor”.
The previous 3 years of P&L with high focus on TTM are what matters most for financials.
The only thing that has weight from 10 years ago are the relationships and customers who have stuck around.
You talk about me not being a “serious investor” but I actually know what I’m talking about in the M&A space…. Wait do your insinuations that I’m not a serious investor count as ad hominem attacks. Either way I can take it because I already know that only one of us can be taken serious in this conversation.
"Academic" -- Another ad hominem argument, false as before.
"10 years ago" -- Any serious investor will see that around that time, SAS began supporting its profit margin by reducing headcount ~2-3% every year. When valuing the company, they'll say: this business is not stable; it is shrinking.
"Dead weight" -- So we all wish; but we know that at least some layoffs were based on salary, all buyouts were, and attrition is by people experienced enough to find jobs elsewhere. For the most part, SAS is not losing "dead weight" but experience.
If you want to believe that investors look only at recent data, and people leaving SAS are "dead weight", go thou and be happy. But no serious investor will believe that.
@4gv I ded wait. can I haz layoff?
@4gs Big whoop SAS just layed off 3%. They should lay off more of the dead weight.
Layoffs aren’t some smoking g-n that things are bad. Layoffs aren’t what healthy companies do also. You cant have a company of this size without laying people off unless you are foolish.
@4gs “ SAS revenues are a time series stretching 50 years. Of the 50 data points,”
Everything about that sentence screams that you are an academic and not someone who actually understands business finance.
Nobody cares what happened 50 years ago or even 10 years ago for that matter. You know what company valuations are typically based on? Sure you look at the history and the relationships built up over time. But the overall financial focus is very specifically on the past 3 years and hyperfocused on TTM.
Maybe I should rephrase from “Look at the numbers” to “Look at the numbers that matter”.
If you want to include data from 50 years ago then you have fun with your academics.
@4gj That is the problem. You're not looking at the numbers.
SAS revenues are a time series stretching 50 years. Of the 50 data points, you look at the last two, that suggest everything's fine (even though SAS just laid off ~3% of the company).
You're not "looking at the numbers". You're looking only at the numbers you like.
@4gh I just ran that through sentiment analysis. It had no idea what you were talking about either.
Just looks at the freaking numbers already…
@4gb Another ad hominem argument. The quality of reasoning here matches the quality of data analysis.
Ignore the numbers. Run it through text analytics sentiment analysis to see if it gives you a different answer.
Sound advice. If you are in an asylum.
@485 As a recent retiree, I am happy to hear that SAS is beginning to right the ship from decades of stagnation or marginal growth. Good news.
@4bb wow. You do the same.
Run the contents of those meetings through some text analytics to look at sentiment. See if the objective measures point to things looking up.
@485 lots of downvotes…
So do people disagree that last year and this year
Revenue is up
Margins are up
Expenses are down
I’m really curious. I base that on internal “state of the union” meetings from the CFO
If you disgree what do you base it on?
@47x “cut expenses as needed”. You could also likely just live exactly the way you were. I highly doubt you are a below inflation raise away from impacting your life style.
Revenue up
Net margin up
Expenses down
You be you
Of course, if my salary wasn't keeping up with inflation, I'd cut expenses.
But then my standard of living would be declining.
And I'd admit it was declining -- not pretend it was "stable".
@47e You keep moving the goalposts but ok….
If your salary wasn’t keeping up you would be in a worse spot. Of course you could also cut expenses as needed and be doing just fine.
I’m guessing your salary would still be the envy of 80+% of the world’s population….
Sounds horrible.
"Inflation… uncontrollable and applies to every businesss in the world. That same inflation applies to your personal financials."
If my wages were "stable" for the last 13 years, I'd be in seriously worse shape at year 13 than I was at year 1. While SAS can lay off employees to cut costs overall, acting like "stable" revenues for over a decade is not a sign of trouble is just silly.
@46b “ Every metric mentioned is declining. You can call the situation "stable", if you like.”
Incorrect. Not even close to right.
Revenue is stable+. Not dropping and actually increasing this year and last year.
Margins. Increasing
Expenses. Dropping
Inflation… uncontrollable and applies to every businesss in the world. That same inflation applies to your personal financials.
@468 "Revenue stable" -- only if you ignore inflation. But to any business, inflation matters.
Every metric mentioned is declining. You can call the situation "stable", if you like.
But calling it "stable" does not make it so.
@467 First it was any company that reduces headcount is in deline.
“ We can consider other metrics. Travel to conferences used to be more frequent. Computer workstations fully loaded used to be easier to get. SAS parties used to be fancier and more frequent.”
Now any company that reduces expenses other ways is in decline.
Revenue stable. Profitable. And at net margin higher than inflation…. Stable.
Numbers are numbers. Your emotions don’t change that.
Is SAS having to act more like most businesses to stay in that zone. Yes. Will it succeed longer term at remaining stable with fewer levers to pull? Time will tell.
@462 Those are two clear metrics: SAS revenues aren't keeping up with inflation, and SAS headcount is declining.
We can consider other metrics. Travel to conferences used to be more frequent. Computer workstations fully loaded used to be easier to get. SAS parties used to be fancier and more frequent.
You can call all these metrics "stable", if you like -- but in reality, they are all declining. Pretending otherwise doesn't help anyone.
@449 I wish I had put in a Vegas bet that the next comment would be “but inflation…”
@441 SAS revenues vs. inflation have also declined ~20%.
In both cases, a ~20% decline is not "stable"; it's a decline.
@43e That is a myopic view. Many companies reduce headcount for many reason regardless of whether they are growth, stable or decline.
Meta has also dropped close to 20% in the last 4 years. By your logic they are in decline.
@43d The company's headcount has declined ~20%.
That's not "stable"; it's a decline.
@41y But it isn't always some death knell either.
Look at Intel. He-l even IBM to a degree.
But there is a difference between stable and decline. We might be circling the decline plane of existence but not quite there. Stable isn't as se-y as growth. But no company is in growth stage forever.
@3yf I actively avoid using phrases on here that I think could dox me. “The grass is brown everywhere” is one of those phrases.
@3yf I tried to make the same point here: https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kxgjjj8s. All businesses reach a stage of "Renewal or Decline". All businesses eventually get mismanaged, fail to renew, and therefore decline.
We can have interesting discussions about how SAS got to this stage, and what people should do now. But I don't see any rational argument to deny which stage SAS is in.
I say this with fondness in my heart for what SAS used to be, as a product and as a company. It has been mismanaged into irrelevance.
Similar sentiments have been expressed on this site by employees of many other tech companies (such as Intel and Oracle). Take that with some salt but mismanagement, whether through greed or incompetence, abounds. The grass is brown all around.
I left several years ago. For most of my career, SAS was the #1 product for data analysis. We didn't promote our best leaders, but that didn't hurt us, because we had little competition.
Once we acquired strong competition, our revenue stopped growing, and our leaders did not know how to create new revenue streams.
"all in for a big chunk of my career. Now out of it and wish I left sooner."
You speak for many of us.
I left x months ago after being exposed to various levels of leadership for an extended period of time and realising that the ELT were incapable of making the tough decisions needed as DRG wouldn’t remove problem people. Too much protectionism and lack of accountability lead me to become disillusioned after being all in for a big chunk of my career. Now out of it and wish I left sooner. It was a good stepping stone for me but too many frustrations to ignore from leadership across the board to stay. Good luck! It could be so much better if there was competent leadership in place that were then allowed to make decisions.