AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT PINTEREST

San Francisco, California-based Pinterest, the iconic image-sharing and social media service, has announced continuing organizational changes and another round of layoffs following its December 2022 reduction in force.

The changes will impact 150 employees.

According to a company spokesperson, "The company is making organizational changes to further set us up to deliver against our company priorities and our long-term strategy. Our employees are the heart of how we’re able to serve our Pinners around the world. All of the employees who were impacted contributed to Pinterest and as they transition, we’re committed to supporting them with separation packages, benefits, and other services.”

It is likely that these changes are being driven by activist investor Elliott Management, famous for driving leadership changes, divestment of underperforming assets, deep personnel reductions, stock buybacks, upstreamed dividends, and sometimes the sale or merger of the company.

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT PARLEMENT TECHNOLOGIES / PARLER

Nashville, Tennessee-based Parlement Technologies, and parent of free-speech social media platform Parler appears to be in financial difficulty.

Starting in November 2023, the company has laid off approximately 75% of its staff, executives included, and is operating today with an estimated 20 employees at the parent and subsidiaries.

Parler, on the way to a successful launch in a politically-charged nation, was laid low by a conspiracy of politicized progressive actors who advocated for de-platforming Parler from its service provider, Amazon Web Services, and the removal of the Parler app from Apple and Google stores.

Recovering from this company-crippling sequence of events, Parler limped back to life and now faces an uncertain future.

The attempted acquisition of the company by Kanye West was canceled after his anti-Semitic rants saw him de-platformed as a promoter of hate speech. “Parlement Technologies has confirmed that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler. This decision was made in the interest of both parties mid-November.”

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT SNAP (02/04/24)

FEBRUARY 6, 2024 — 10% REDUCTION IN FORCE

The company has announced plans to lay off 10% of its workforce, impacting 528 employees.

According to a company spokesperson, "In order to best position our business to execute on our highest priorities, and to ensure we have the capacity to invest incrementally to support our growth over time, we have made the difficult decision to restructure our team."

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023 — 170 EMPLOYEES TARGETED

The company has announced plans to shut down its AR (augmented reality) business unit, noting the development of generative artificial intelligence “made it harder for us to differentiate our offering” as the company focuses on its “core advertising business.” 170 employees are targeted in the second cut of 2023.

JANUARY 6, 2023 — SNAP SHUTS DOWN SNAP APP FOR MACs AND PCs

The company has announced that it is shutting down its Snap Camera, the program that let you apply silly filters to your face while you were on Zoom or other video conference calls, on the MACs and PCs on January 25, 2023.

Employees associated witb the development, maintenance, and promotion of the product are likely targeted for reassignment or layoff.

SEPTEMBER 14, 2022 — Original post…

Santa Monica, California-based Snap, a software development company offering a digital camera application and the operator of the multimedia instant messaging app Snapchat, has announced its plans to execute a reduction in force.

The reduction in force will impact approximately 20% of the workforce or about 1,300 employees in both hardware and software development teams, including employees at the social mapping app Zenly which Snap bought in 2017, and those working in Snap’s hardware division which just killed off the Pixy selfie drone.

From the company's Quarter 2 statement, “While the continued growth of our community increases the long-term opportunity for our business, our financial results for Q2 do not reflect our ambition," said Evan Spiegel, CEO. "We are evolving our business and strategy to reaccelerate revenue growth, including innovating on our products, investing heavily in our direct response advertising business, and cultivating new sources of revenue to help diversify our topline growth."

"While we are excited about the progress we have made in terms of community growth and engagement, demand growth on our advertising platform has slowed significantly. The combination of macroeconomic headwinds, platform policy changes, and increased competition have limited the growth of campaign budgets. In some cases, advertisers have lowered their bids per action to reflect their current willingness to pay."

Snap continues to reiterate that it primarily a camera company and that's where its future lies. "Snap Inc. is a camera company. We believe that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. We contribute to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together."

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?