Another one bites the layoff dust. On Monday morning, Twilio announced its plans to cut close to 1,500 employees – about 17% of its workforce. According to a blog post shared on the company’s website, this is the second major layoff Twilio finds itself in, with its first workforce cut having happened last September.
In an email sent out to all Twilio employees, CEO Jeff Lawson explains why the “tough decision” had to be made. “As we’ve refined our strategy over the past several months, it’s become apparent we need significant structural changes to better execute our strategy. This is because the two parts of our business – communications and software – are at different lifecycle stages and have different operating needs.”
The two business units to help the company spend less and become more efficient are Twilio Data & Applications, led by Elena Donio, and Twilio Communications, led by Khozema Shipchandler.
Lawson further states that the company has clearly “gotten too big, especially in Communications.” He further states that this cut is “necessary to get our two businesses into the right shape to succeed.”
Twilio is just one of the more than 120 large U.S. companies having conducted major layoffs in the last few months. The largest corporate cut was Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, cutting close to 11,000 employees in November.
Lawson closes his email acknowledging that “these changes hurt,” but that he believes these actions will put us on the right path for executing strategy and creating even stronger, more efficient, and more effective Twilio.
Watch Patrick Bet-David and the Vault’s home team respond to massive layoffs:
Add comment