Planning and Managing Layoffs
Different point of view: I was a Founder and CEO during the dot com era. The company survived and became successful ($2B revenues today).<p>It may be unpopular, but I will give you a different view, the one from a Founder&#x2F;CEO.<p>After the dot com crash no VC could figure out the good from the bad in their portfolio companies. I was starting to get conflicting opinions from my board (4 VC’s and me, the Founder). “Become a BtoB company, a BtoBtoC company,etc,...”.<p>Some VC’s offered a bridge (and declined at the last minute), others claimed they were running of money, others did not know.<p>A white knight came in the form of a bottom feeder. Those kinds of sharks are circling around your company right now. Vc’s are just happy to unload their portfolio companies to them, so they can save the face, some employees, and maybe the company.<p>Anyway, the deal came with a caveat: I had to fire 40% of the staff and I had to quit after that to make room for “professional management”.As a Founder I had hired every single engineer, every single marketing rep. This was a very difficult one to swallow, but I had no choice.<p>The night before I did not sleep. I was up at 5 and drove early to the office. I stopped multiple times as I was sobbing and could not drive (I wear glasses).<p>Mid morning I called an all hands meeting. Got up the steps to talk to everybody. There was silence, as everybody sort of knew by then that something was brewing.<p>As I was reading to talk, I started crying. Everybody was watching me in silence.<p>As I was getting myself together I explained the situation, that we had a way out but that 40% of them had to go. One engineer raised his hand and said “I’ll stay with no pay”.<p>Then a second one.<p>I started crying again. Folks would come to me and say “we’ll be all right” and I would reply “thank you”. When asked what the structure would be, I said I did not know. I knew that after the layoffs I would be silently asked to leave.<p>A lot of people moved on, did well, got better jobs over the years.<p>So, be kind to your Founders, and all the early employees who worked for months and years with no pay because they believe so much in what they were working on.<p>In the past 5-10 years, we have seen a lot of excesses, super expensive office spaces, unbelievable perks and salaries, $30K conference room tables and unlimited money printed by VC’s and later stage investors. Well, maybe this is it. If you get laid off don’t be angry, don’t blame others, and move on. Don’t take that personally.<p>As for me, I never fully recovered from the worst day of my life, and that was 19 years ago. :-(