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Comment by tacos | Hacker News Reader

Ah, HN. Where BuzzFeed is considered an innovative company due to loose ties to the MIT Media Lab, but a nearly four billion dollar purchase of a company that averaged $400+ million dollars per release -- while being consistently ranked the top company to work for in a legendarily cutthroat town and industry -- gets this as top comment.

Sold at >50% premium to Tuesday's close of its publicly-traded stock price. This is not "wholesale." And the human assets remain very much a key part of the company's value and values.

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>Sold at >50% premium to Tuesday's close of its publicly-traded stock price.

And for less than half of what disney paid for pixar, despite having made more movies.

>And the human assets remain very much a key part of the company's value and values.

Illumination, who is taking the reigns, is the costco of animation. In the entire United States Illumination has 35 employees.

If you don't think there is a bloodbath coming, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Tech workers wish they had the union protections and job security of animators in Burbank/Glendale. Most of these people have already worked for Disney at one time or another. This isn't Yahoo. And talent remains in huge demand. You seem to think this is going to turn DreamWorks into Hanna-Barbera. That's not the revenue maximizing approach so I think you're being quite shortsighted.

>Tech workers wish they had the union protections and job security of animators in Burbank/Glendale

Are... Are you trolling me?

Dreamworks has already undergone several rounds of layoffs recently. http://bit.ly/1uzveR9

Animation/VFX is already heavily outsourced, and it's not getting better. Dreamworks has already said they are outsourcing future work to canada. http://bit.ly/1P8FKX8

Illumination already outsources all their work to other countries (France in particular). Government subsidies from non-US countries has already gutted US VFX/animation, and pretty much ensures nothing but executive level positions remain at big studios.

There is zero US job security, and those going into the industry only have three guarantee's : long hours, low pay, and frequent moves to keep steady work.

Worldwide appetite for Hollywood-branded animation increases. What's your point?

Tweening some crap Panda movie in Canada doesn't mean they laid off the entire city of Glendale.

"Nothing but executive level positions remain at big studios" -- Really? This is the cherry atop your preposterous, cherry-picked rant. Thousands of amazing animators bleed in the 91xxx zip codes daily.

EDIT: tons of open job listings (search various sub-categories like 'Animator' if this is too broad for you). http://www.indeed.com/q-Animation-l-Burbank,-CA-jobs.html

EDIT #2: http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Animator&l=Burbank%2C+CA

Those aren't exactly dying steel town numbers.

Edit: ^^^ Most of those are either temporary internships, or executive positions.

>Thousands of amazing animators bleed in the 91xxx zip codes daily.

You're right. They're bleeding because they can't find a steady job that pays them a living wage.

There can only be so many small boutique studios before the market is saturated, and I expect we are already there. We're at a point that even the best animators the US can produce struggle to find reliable employment. It's a goddamn shame.

> We're at a point that even the best animators the US can produce struggle to find reliable employment.

I know lots of great animators at ILM and Pixar who are doing very well for themselves.

There are only so many jobs to be had at ILM and Pixar, and its been a while since I've checked but I think ILM is mostly hiring for its studios in London, Vancouver and Singapore.

Are you saying DWA was innovative? I worked there 2 years, and they were the most resistant to change of any company I've worked for in my career.

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