The video communications startup Zoom has announced that it will let go of 1,300 workers, or 15% of its workforce.
The huge layoffs that have shaken the global software industry since late last year have claimed their latest victims with this announcement: Zoom employees.
Zoom’s CEO Eric Yuan warned that the layoffs will affect every area of the company in a memo to staff members. Yuan acknowledged that he made “mistakes” in how swiftly the business expanded during the pandemic and added that he and other executives would take a large pay cut.
The memo from Zoom CEO, who accepted full responsibility for the choices that resulted in the layoffs, said that “As the CEO and founder of Zoom, I am accountable for these mistakes and the actions we take today– and I want to show accountability not just in words but in my own actions. To that end, I am reducing my salary for the coming fiscal year by 98% and foregoing my FY23 corporate bonus,” he added.
Yuan said members of the executive leadership team will reduce their base salaries by 20% for the coming fiscal year and forfeit their fiscal year 2023 bonuses.
Recall that Zoom came to the limelight globally during the COVID-19 pandemic as many people turned to the platform for business meetings, family chats and so on.
By mid-2020, Zoom reported skyrocketing revenue fueled by a spike in business customers from the many companies forced to turn to remote work.
Yuan said the company staffed up rapidly during the early days of the pandemic to support the boom in demand as many turned to its platform to video chat with friends and colleagues.
- “Within 24 months, Zoom grew 3x in size to manage this demand while enabling continued innovation,” Yuan wrote.
