Spotify has become the latest tech/media company to announce significant layoffs. The cuts, announced by CEO Daniel Ek on Monday, total 6% of the audio streamer’s workforce. In his note to staff, Ek said:
Like many other leaders, I hoped to sustain the strong tailwinds from the pandemic and believed that our broad global business and lower risk to the impact of a slowdown in ads would insulate us. In hindsight, I was too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth. And for this reason, today, we are reducing our employee base by about 6% across the company. I take full accountability for the moves that got us here today.
The Spotify boss also announced a shake up in management. Dawn Ostroff, chief content officer and advertising business officer is leaving. She had been crucial to Spotify’s growing podcast presence and will remain as an adviser for a transitional period. Elsewhere, Gustav Söderström, chief product officer and Alex Norström, chief business officer, are becoming co-presidents. Ek said they will be “effectively helping me run the company day-to-day.”
Spotify joins Alphabet, Meta and Salesforce, amongst others, is cutting staff in recent weeks in what has been a tumultuous time for the tech industry. Media company’s such as CNN have also announced significant layoffs. Indeed, Vox media announced last week that around 7% of its staff were being cut.