D&D General WotC Founder Peter Adkison On Hasbro's Layoffs

Peter Adkison, who owned Wizards of the Coast until it was sold to Hasbro in 1999, oversaw the relaunch of Dungeons & Dragons with D&D 3rd Edition. Today, he commented on this week's round of Hasbro layoffs, which have ripped through WotC. Adkison left WotC in 2000 and currently runs a production company called Hostile Work Environment.

Like many of you, I'm saddened to learn about the layoffs at Hasbro.

Caveat: I have no idea of what’s happening behind the scenes at WotC. If you’re asking who’s at fault, or to what extent it was or was not justified, that’s outside the scope of my knowledge. This post is about my own reflections.

When I read about the layoffs at Hasbro my immediate feeling was shame. Shame for when I did the same thing, at the same company (WotC, before we sold it to Hasbro).

I have made lots of mistakes, tons of them, more than I can even remember. And while I regret those mistakes, and I’m sad for those hurt, I realize it’s part of learning and it’s part of being human.

But layoffs, when handed poorly, or when they are unnecessary, aren’t just mistakes. They are failings of character. Those times when I had a failure of character, those are the moments that haunt me.

 

[occam]

I've worked at two companies where A CIO got some crazy idea in his head about how we were going to modernize everthing and they knew it could be done for XXX dollars because they were IT savvy. Both projects started with laying off all the old unnecessary legacy people, hiring new young people with "SKILLS" and then a few million dollars over budget, not even a year later, trying to hire back all the stupid people with legacy skills because it turned out they actually knew what they were doing when they tried to stop the madness the morons were starting.

The worst thing for IT about the GOOGLE age is everyone thinks they are IT savvy enough to do anything. If you want to go bankrupt try to more efficiently create an entire system from scratch because you know you can do it better than someone else who screwed it up.

I wanted to triple thumbs-up this, but there's no way to do that here.

Oh, wait:

 

[nevin]

Hasbro was apparently offering some sweetheart early retirement program to incentivize some senior personnel to let their roles be sunset, and based on LinkedIn at least Liz Schu appears to have been one of the people to take up the retirement offer.

well that means they let go more than the lay off numbers. Retirements don't usually get added to those layoff numbers.

 

[occam]

I think someday humanity will look back at the idea of publicly traded companies, and wonder what moron came up with that idea that running a company with a bunch of greedy vultures sitting on the CEO's shoulder second guessing every thing he or she does was a good idea.

I mean, it's a reasonable idea in concept:

"Hi, everyone. We all agree that this is a good business concept, but none of us has the money to get it going. What if we all pitch in, and each of us will own a portion of the business?"
"Great idea!"
"Okay, but who's actually going to run the business day-to-day?"
<Future CEO raising hand> "I guess I could."
"All right! Now, since you'll be managing this company with our money, we'll of course want to make sure that you're managing it responsibly. So we'll set up a... board, of, um.. directors to help keep an eye on things. And we'll want you to report how you're doing, say, every 3 months. And if we feel that things aren't going well, we'll talk about options, or look for someone else to run things."

And thus the quarterly profit-driven mindset of publicly held corporations began.

 

[Parmandur]

well that means they let go more than the lay off numbers. Retirements don't usually get added to those layoff numbers.

Per their formal announcement the voluntary early retirements are part of the reported numbers.

 

[haakon1]

Of course, do you know how to price stock options?

Yes.

My post was simply that stock options are (nearly alway) granted at FMV. The poster I was responding to thought they were discounted, possibly confusing options with RSU’s or ESPP, which is why I mentioned those. I’ve even seen financial advisors call RSU’s “options”, presumably because they think their customers don’t know the difference.

 

[haakon1]

I think someday humanity will look back at the idea of publicly traded companies, and wonder what moron came up with that idea

Early modern European merchants trying to share risk in maritime trade invented stock. So, it should probably be a newfangled idea in Waterdeep.

 

[Zardnaar]

Early modern European merchants trying to share risk in maritime trade invented stock. So, it should probably be a newfangled idea in Waterdeep.

Don't think Waterdeeo is quite there yet but they're coming close 100-200 years.

 

[nevin]

I mean, it's a reasonable idea in concept:

"Hi, everyone. We all agree that this is a good business concept, but none of us has the money to get it going. What if we all pitch in, and each of us will own a portion of the business?"
"Great idea!"
"Okay, but who's actually going to run the business day-to-day?"
<Future CEO raising hand> "I guess I could."
"All right! Now, since you'll be managing this company with our money, we'll of course want to make sure that you're managing it responsibly. So we'll set up a... board, of, um.. directors to help keep an eye on things. And we'll want you to report how you're doing, say, every 3 months. And if we feel that things aren't going well, we'll talk about options, or look for someone else to run things."

And thus the quarterly profit-driven mindset of publicly held corporations began.

No I get it. the idea of a group of people who have a vested interest in the company being able to all sit down and approve reasonable actions and changes seems so simple. And I'm sure it seemed the "owners" of the stock would have the biggest interest in making things reasonable. Maybe it even worked that way back in the 50's but now with the tax rules that allow stock owners to avoid taxes till they cash in the stocks the stock market is an independent money making machine that is partially disconnected from the idea that companies actually make things and provide services. For example When viacom spun off blockbuster the cost to escape the overlord was more than the company was worth. All the major voting share holders got more money than their stock was worth, blockbuster bought it's freedom for value of the company +20%. And everyone that voted to pay that bill was a stockholder that was getting a check.

Stockholder's for the most part in today's reality don't care a damn about the company. This unfortunately includes the executives running the company these days. Public companies these days are just ATM machines for rich people.

 

[haakon1]

But far too many people don't pay attention and then they are those people screaming about well Whatever they decide to scream about.

Hey, that cuts close to home on this site.

You mean we should have been worried about the global economy, not martial versus arcane balance across the editions? <shock!>

 

[nevin]

Early modern European merchants trying to share risk in maritime trade invented stock. So, it should probably be a newfangled idea in Waterdeep.

but back then they weren't trying to game the non existant stockmarket to boost prices that quarter so they could sell thier stock for a 40% premium . though thier were historical analogies like the great tulip Bubble from 1636 to 1637.