While expressing regret over the layoff of 500 workers, the CEO of Amazon-owned live streaming platform Twitch scolded his staff in a memo for leaking the news to the press hours before Wednesday's official announcement.
“I also want to acknowledge how disappointed I was yesterday that this information was leaked,” CEO Dan Clancy wrote in the memo published in a blog post. “I'm sorry for all the anxiety it caused over the past few hours. “Our hope was that everyone would hear from us this morning and understand very quickly how this affected their role, and unfortunately we were unable to accelerate the timeline, which I know is very frustrating.”
Bloomberg News It initially reported the layoffs at San Francisco-based Twitch on Tuesday night, stating that the cuts would affect about 35% of the staff. The reductions come at a time when many technological platforms are reducing their workforce following a surge in hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Last year we paid over $1 billion to streamers,” Clancy explained in his memo to staff about the company's decision. “So while Twitch's business remains strong, for some time now the organization has been sized based on where we optimistically expect our business to be in 3 or more years, not where we are today.
“Like many other companies in the technology space, we are now sizing our organization based on the current scale of our business and conservative predictions about how we expect to grow in the future.”
Clancy said he expected employees at Twitch, best known as the home of popular video game live streamers, to learn of the layoffs directly from the company on Wednesday morning. He noted that follow-up emails would be immediately sent to affected employees.
The layoffs follow a previous round of cuts at the company last March when it was announced that 400 workers They would lose their jobs.
