MessageBird lays off 31% of staff

It seems so gross, continuing to use their cute themed term for employees, &quot;Birds&quot; in a layoff message<p>I&#x27;m sure the people losing their jobs will find plenty of solace that they&#x27;re not &quot;fired,&quot; they&#x27;re just a Departing Bird™!

Why do random companies need to write blog posts?<p>Just fire your people that you no longer need and get on with your day.<p>Companies think that they are much more important than they are.<p>Stop writing blogs (hello Sequoia) and just try and provide a good service for your customers, especially if you are not a public company.<p>Robert Vis&#x27; virtue signalling here is so cringe and useless.

&quot;If you are part of the Birds being impacted you will receive a notification within 15 minutes to your MessageBird and private email.&quot;<p>Who the fuck <i>does</i> this?<p>Let&#x27;s announce a layoff on our fucking blog <i>before</i> we tell our employees that we have to let them go. It&#x27;s heartless, glib and mean.

<i>If you’ve ever ordered takeaway, returned a package, contacted customer service, or requested a login code, it’s almost guaranteed your interactions have been powered by MessageBird’s technology.</i><p>Wait, what? Is this for real? Why have I never heard of them?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;messagebird.com&#x2F;about?ref=blog" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;messagebird.com&#x2F;about?ref=blog</a>

Is every CEO trying to emulate Gavin Belson nowadays?<p>Also, if they&#x27;re laying off 31%, how come &quot;We&#x27;re hiring!&quot; is still next to their careers link in the footer?

I&#x27;m sorry, but I get irked whenever I see a CEO saying they take full responsibility but then accept no consequences. There is no impact on their compensation, their equity, or their life other than the &quot;emotional scar&quot; left behind of having to let people go. They will absolutely expect the remaining staff to pick up the game from the loss of such a big chunk of the company. It kind of feels like the letter is more or less &quot;we know you are hurt, but so am I and think about my feelings too&quot;<p>I know I&#x27;m being pessimistic, but the CEO isn&#x27;t the one having to spend the next few months trying to find a good job when everyone is on a hiring freeze.

&gt; Immigration support. We know that this situation is particularly tough for departing employees who currently work on a visa. We have made individual arrangements for you in order to accommodate better for your particular situation. Details will be outlined in individual documentation.<p>None of these blogs ever talk specifics or examples of what they&#x27;re offering in terms of immigration support.

Interesting that there are quite a few openings posted on their careers page

&gt; We live in unprecedented times and I am convinced that 2023 will see most of the global economy falling into recession<p>Doesn&#x27;t laying people off sort of contribute to a recession becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy?

They apparently did two rounds of layoffs adding up to 31% total - see <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;GergelyOrosz&#x2F;status&#x2F;1588127916306710531" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;GergelyOrosz&#x2F;status&#x2F;1588127916306710531</a> for the first one.

Their website still shows &quot;we&#x27;re hiring&quot; but when you click on it the vacancy counter says &quot;0&quot;.<p>Just for once I wanna see an honest company with a &quot;we&#x27;re FIRING&quot; badge.

Why is this a public blog post? This is disgusting.

They said they are a profitable business... Why lay people off?

<i>As of today, you will be on garden leave</i>

&gt; To be clear, as much as I believe this to be necessary it is not a reflection of me not caring for those we are asking to leave - this day leaves a scar on my soul. MessageBird is my legacy, the company I give my everything for every single day and would sacrifice almost anything for.<p>There is nothing more distasteful to me than the CEO harping on about how hard these lay-offs are for them.

That is a big cut, unusual for a European company.<p>I wonder whether there is already a &#x27;Musk effect&#x27; at play. His taking the axe to the payroll in unprecedented style at Twitter might have pushed the boundaries as to what is acceptable to do, so has increase the range of permissible action for CEO&#x27;s. 25-30% cuts might now be the new normal, rather than 5-10%