Dropbox to lay off 500 employees, or about 16% of its workforce

Dropbox on Thursday introduced plans to chop 500 workers, or about 16% of its workforce, in response to a weblog submit on the corporate’s web site.

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston wrote within the weblog submit that the corporate has been reckoning with slowing progress, partially as a consequence of a maturation of its business, but additionally because of financial headwinds which can be pressuring its clients.

Houston stated that the corporate can also be going through an urgency to focus extra on synthetic intelligence-powered merchandise, and doing so would require hiring staff with totally different ability units.

“In an ideal world, we’d simply shift people from one team to another,” Houston wrote. “And we’ve done that wherever possible. However, our next stage of growth requires a different mix of skill sets, particularly in AI and early-stage product development. We’ve been bringing in great talent in these areas over the last couple years and we’ll need even more.”

Impacted workers will obtain free job placement companies and profession teaching, in response to the weblog submit, together with as much as 16 weeks of severance pay and one further week per yr of Dropbox tenure.

The layoffs are a part of a broader firm consolidation, Houston wrote, as the corporate merges its Core and Document Workflows companies and another inner workforce restructuring. Dropbox plans to host inner city halls tomorrow and subsequent week to reply worker questions.

“These transitions are never easy, but I’m determined to ensure that Dropbox is at the forefront of the AI era, just as we were at the forefront of the shift to mobile and the cloud,” Houston wrote.