Plex, the free streaming app, laid off approximately 20% of its staff, TechCrunch has learned, which will affect all departments, including the Personal Media teams.

“This is by far the hardest decision we’ve had to make at Plex,” CEO Keith Valory said in a statement. “These are all wonderful people, great colleagues, and good friends. But we believe it is the right thing for the long-term health and stability of Plex.”

The streaming app gives users a single destination to upload and organize content (video, audio and photos) from their own server while also allowing them to stream it via mobile app, smart TV or desktop.

In recent years, however, Plex has invested in free, ad-supported streaming (FAST) and live TV offerings. The FAST market has become saturated as many companies have entered the space. Plus, the overall advertising industry has taken a hit, making it harder for companies to earn enough revenue.

Valory noted in his statement that the company was significantly impacted by the slowdown. “While we adjusted our business plan last year after the shift in equity markets to get us back on a path to profitability without having to cut personnel expenses, the downturn in the ad market in Q2 put significantly more pressure on our business and ultimately it became clear that we would need to take additional measures in order to maintain a confident path to profitability within the next 18 months,” he said.

He added that the company is still expected to see 30% growth this year.

According to a Slack message from Valory, obtained by The Verge, which first reported the layoffs, Valory noted that 37 employees would be impacted.

Additionally, it seems that Plex may have had another round of layoffs earlier this year. Five months ago, a former account executive posted on LinkedIn that they were “affected by company layoffs.”

As of January, the company had 175 employees, and its revenue was in the double-digit millions.

Updated 6/29/23 at 12:10 p.m. ET with a statement from CEO.

  • Paradox@lemdro.id
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    1 year ago

    Most want to make it as amicable as possible

    Like having an office manager tell you to gtfo, instead of the CEO who was “deeply sorry” for all this, or calling everyone to the floor, reading off a list of names, and then saying “If you heard your name, this is your last day with the company”, or the people who find out by not being able to access their work accounts (google, outlook, slack, whatever). Sure is amicable.

    I guess I’m just projecting, after all, not all of us are temporarily embarrassed CEOs, who understand just how hard it is to tell someone that they’ve gotta do a lot of bullshit for the next n weeks, and we’re deeply sorry (but not sorry enough not to do it).

    Smacks of the same energy Spez gave off when he’s “listening to people’s concerns” while demodding people right and left and being unwilling to budge on the amazingly arbitrary API cut off.

    And I don’t need to be a master chef to tell you that refried dumpster chicken is bad food.

    Layoffs indicate one thing and one thing only: the leadership made some wrong choices along the way, and so they’re going to step on the people that had no input into the process that got them there, so they, the people who made those bad choices, can stick around and continue to make more bad bets. No amount of “mercy” or “empathy” can ameliorate the fact that they’re screwing other people over in their own interests.

    A key example of this is that in virtually every single layoff severance package, they never move the vesting cliff forwards. Been there less than a year and not at your 25% cliff? Guess what, those n months you spent are worth fuck all. If they were as sorry and merciful as they claim they were, they’d move the cliff up and give you the appropriate percentage of your options. Laid off 2 months before your cliff? Cool, here you go, you get 20.75% of your total (assuming 4 years with 1 year being 25%) vesting package. But no, they just take those shares from you as if they had fired you, because thats all a layoff really is: mass firings

    You aren’t entitled to a job in perpetuity

    And the people that mass fire people to save their own asses aren’t entitled to sympathy. They are the bad guy in this situation.

    Since you asked for some things that make laying off people less shitty for the people who actually suffer and not the “poor” CEOs, here’s some low cost things you can do that don’t fuck people over quite as much. IIRC Shopify did some of these when they had to cut workforce:

    • Give them enough severance to cover the time till they actually find another job. No need to support a freeloader, but no need to be a miser either.
    • Help them start their job search. Your recruiters know other recruiters, they can put the names out and give them some options
    • Actually do the terminations in person, not just an email you send out about how hard it is, or worse, having an underling do it.
    • Do more for insurance and other benefits than the bare minimum COBRA requires
    • Give them the option to keep or purchase (at significantly reduced cost) their work equipment. For many people their work computer becomes their only computer. If you need it back for legal reasons, buy them an equivalent computer, if they want it
    • Give them their stock vesting, regardless of cliff date.
    • Keep their slack and other accounts open, so they have a chance to say goodbye to the “survivors”
    • Don’t lay people off before a holiday weekend. That shortens the time they have for job search by at least one day, if not longer.

    None of that sounds too egregious, yet its never done by the “deeply sympathetic” leadership.