Mountain View, California-based Elastic, a provider of computer search and security solutions, has announced a cost-cutting initiative that will see the closure of some offices and a reduction in the company's workforce.
The personnel adjustment will impact approximately 13% of the company's workforce, or around 450 employees, with the layoffs and office closures set to conclude by July 2023.
From CEO Ash Kulkarni's email to Elastic employees...
Today, I have the sad responsibility to announce we are reducing our team by about 13%.
I didn't take this decision lightly. Since becoming CEO, I have had the opportunity to spend time with Elasticians around the globe. It's been an honor getting to know so many of you. Your passion and commitment humble me.
I have also had the privilege of meeting with hundreds of our customers. We are fortunate that security, observability, and search are mission-critical to our customers. However, it has become clear that the global macroeconomic environment is forcing our customers to tighten budgets and review investments more closely. This is especially true in certain segments of the market like small and medium businesses where the current appetite to spend in uncertain times is limited.
In order to help our customers through this clearly difficult environment, it is more important than ever before for us to stay close to them and to help them realize the value of consolidating onto a single platform for multiple business-critical use cases. That also requires us to be more focused on our coverage, our sales plays, our product investments, and our internal support as we drive greater operational excellence.
In short, this means increasing our focus on those areas of the business that are most critical to our future and finding more efficient ways to service some parts of our business. This will enable us to navigate through this business climate and emerge even stronger in the future.
I know that this decision is the right decision for our organization. But that doesn't make it any less painful and humbling. I promise you that we will treat our departing Elasticians with empathy as we have always treated each other. I also promise you that we will come out of this stronger and better prepared to grow our market share.
In addition to reducing headcount, we are also reducing cost in other areas. For instance, we are optimizing our global real estate footprint.
I am confident we have the right strategy. We will continue to focus on developing the best cloud experiences for our customers and driving profitable growth.
Today is a sad day. We are saying goodbye to friends and colleagues.
As hard as this is for all of us, our future is bright. I look forward to working with you to propel Elastic into that future as we make Elastic a generational brand.
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?
