@James_Zwift , @shooj , @Chris_Cru_Jones (who else?) …you all okay?
DCR makes a comment about hardware. In light of a few employee comments on this forum, I wondered if we might see a Zwift Zteerer zoon.
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Investing in fundamentals if it can be taken at face value could be good for some people, more focused on the people doing the core work of making the product run or improving it.
Best of luck to everyone involved and hopefully it’s not a CEO that’s coming in with the “success at once, change everything” for the sake of it approach.
Some organisations I’ve seen are also way too top heavy and it leaves not enough people to actually do the development or support, then those that are left burn out and go.
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I’m right now making the switch from being a CyclingTips Veloclub member to being an EscapeCollective member, thanks to idiot venture capitalists looking to ‘streamline’ and ‘lean up’ and all the other ‘fire people and turn out a worse product to somehow make money’ euphemisms. So there might be some PTSD happening here for me.
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Less marketing and more of everything else sounds like a positive development for existing customers, though repeated rounds of layoffs are always draining for the entire company, not just the people affected. It also seems like Eric is gliding out as the CEO, which kind of sounded like what was happening with the earlier co-CEO announcement. Being a CEO is a really hard job and it can take a lot out of a person.
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“The layoffs are almost exclusively within the marketing and so-called “people” teams, which is basically the HR and other non-product functions.”
Maybe we won’t get emails with typos and incorrect info anymore…
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But are ‘people teams’ also the ones who respond to us on these forums?
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well probably not James, he is on the events team
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Good to know–that’s the sort of stuff I never seem to figure out. I’m the sort who hits random buttons when the automated phone operator asks which department I want to talk to.
Usually “people teams” means recruiting and HR. Recruiting typically gets cut when hiring slows down. It’s also often outsourced or staffed by contractors.
Right, but often companies will have…looking for a less demeaning term than ‘customer service’…positions within other teams. Someone is on the X team, but they’re the one who spends their time dealing with things like forums, responding to reviews, etc. regarding the X team sphere. That Rainmaker article makes it sound like they’re wanting to focus on people who make the product. And people who talk to customers might not be considered to be that.
Well, that sucks for all who are impacted (and is also stressful for the folks that remain as it is whenever there is a reduction). I understand how it makes sense to focus less on marketing, and more on product (which as someone who already knows the product exists is fine with me :)), but, if you’re only reducing marketing, and not increasing product heads, then you might on the whole be more focused on product, but you might not see much more product throughput.
It’s not like actual resourcing shifted over to the eng teams as part of this, it sounds more like it’s primarily a reduction in brand/marketing efforts rather than additional product resources coming onboard.
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Appreciate your concern, gang. Thanks for reaching out. I’m still here.
Please respect that this is a traumatic time for our colleagues whose positions were cut. Thanks for understanding that we’re not going to discuss the layoffs on our forums.
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Glad you are still with us Shooj, and James! Condolences to your colleagues who were laid off today.
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James is still here
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Personally I would suggest to close this thread.
This doesn’t add anything. I would suggest that discussions about the future of Zwift should be in the feature request part. And not in a thread about reorganization
Good luck to all the employees who are involved. I know this sucks
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----> Zwift Announces New Layoffs Reducing 15% of Workforce | DC Rainmaker
Maybe that’s why Zwift loses quality… when things don’t go well within a company, the rest unfortunately follows…
And I hope Silicon Valley Bank’s bankruptcy last Friday won’t negatively affect Zwift. 