Tech companies in San Francisco and across the greater Bay Area are laying off additional workers this week, a signal that economic challenges for the industry persist even amid indicators of recovery.
The job cuts are hitting companies large and small, from social media titans and financial technology mainstays to upstarts in the crypto and marketing spaces.
Crypto company Chia Network, based in South San Francisco, laid off nearly 26 members of its 79-person staff Monday—around a third of the team. The layoffs come amid a monthslong struggle to go public via an initial public offering.
“We built a fantastic team—this does not reflect their performance or contributions to Chia,” Chia Network President and CEO Gene Hoffman said in a statement provided to The Standard. “It was a difficult decision to give the company the runway it needs."
On Tuesday, Twitch—the gamer-friendly streaming platform owned by Amazon and headquartered in San Francisco—announced its second round of layoffs so far this year. A person with knowledge of the situation said the layoffs are affecting the company’s customer experience division. Twitch plans to outsource those roles to third-party vendors.
Sendoso, a San Francisco-based marketing startup valued at $640 million in mid-2021, announced its fourth headcount reduction in about 16 months, Insider reported Tuesday. Among those affected was a vice president, who posted an upbeat message on LinkedIn Wednesday expressing gratitude for the “opportunities to add value to the pursuit of building” the company.
Meta issued pink slips Wednesday to an unspecified number of employees in Meta’s Reality Labs division—its team focused on the metaverse—specifically for roles handling custom silicon chips for its suite of metaverse products.
Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton said that workers affected by the layoffs were notified last month—and the job cuts are part of the broader “year of efficiency” plans proposed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this year.
Block—the Jack Dorsey-founded financial technology company once headquartered in San Francisco—is also conducting more layoffs amid falling stock prices and allegations of user inflation and fraud on its Cash App product levied by short-seller Hindenburg Research.
The reductions come amid a broader company slowdown in hiring. A Block spokesperson said Thursday that layoffs were made in light of a recent company pivot to the “rule of 40”—aiming for its growth and profit margins to reach 40% or higher.
“This has resulted in the difficult decision to right-size our recruiting team to ensure we are supporting the current business needs in a responsible way,” a Block spokesperson said. “We do not take these decisions lightly, and we are sincerely grateful for the contributions of our impacted teammates.”