Things are shaking up at Snap Inc. The social media company laid off roughly two dozen staff members on Thursday, Jan. 18, mostly from Snap's editorial content team, according to sources close to the matter.
Snap Inc CEO Evan Spiegel Wants To Build A Scalable Business
This was a total shock to everyone who was laid off by the company as they recently received a message from Snap Inc. CEO, Evan Spiegel, on the importance of building a "scalable business model."
The memo, which surfaced online, details Spiegel's message on the importance of building an organization that scales internally when it comes to the business.
"There is an obvious caveat, of course, which is that not all problems can be solved with scalable solutions - in the case of content review, for example, our editorial team plays an important role," said Spiegel in the memo that was released.
Snapchat Lays Off 22 Staff Members From The Editorial Division
Even after adding that the editorial content team plays a strong role in Snap, the company then went ahead and laid off roughly two dozen members but mostly from the editorial content division.
Members of the editorial content team were responsible for collaborating with major publishing partners such as NBC and BuzzFeed in creating trending news videos for Snapchat's mobile application.
This isn't the first firing rage Snap went on. The company laid off at least one dozen staff members, back in September, but those members were part of the hardware team. And right before the New Year, the company laid off a good chunk of its recruiters to slow down the hiring process.
During the company's earnings call in November 2017, Spiegel said Snapchat is working on introducing a major redesign, making the application much easier to understand.
"One thing that we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use," said Spiegel. "As a result, we are currently redesigning our application to make it easier to use."
Snap originally intended for the redesign to be launched to its users in December, but it's only become available to users in Canada and Australia. The company plans to launch the redesign by the end of first quarter this year, a source close to the matter reveals. However, with all of the layoffs, it might not be possible for Snap to reach its goal.
