Zoom (ZM) to lay off 15% of workers

The video communication company is cutting 1,300 jobs.

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Zoom saw a massive boom during the worst days of the pandemic, with major companies and academic institutions turning to the video communications platform for meetings, classes, and casual hangouts. Today, it appears that business isn’t booming as well as it once was. Zoom Communications Inc. has announced that it will be laying off 1,300 employees.

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan shared a blog post in which he announced the upcoming layoffs at the company. He talks about the company’s highs during the height of the COVID pandemic, as well as middling performance in recent quarters. Yuan implies that Zoom expanded its business too fast, a critical mistake that led to today’s unfortunate news. It echoes a common sentiment among companies that have made similar layoffs.

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan.

Source: Getty Images

Zoom stock peaked at $559.00 per share in October 2021, and currently sits at $84.66.

This follows the unfortunate trend we’ve seen in the tech and gaming space as of late, with several of the industry’s largest companies laying off employees. This included Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Interestingly enough, Nintendo shared earlier today that it would actually be raising employee wages by 10 percent. As we continue to monitor the business moves of the biggest companies, stick with Shacknews.

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_

From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 7, 2023 1:40 PM

    Donovan Erskine posted a new article, Zoom (ZM) to lay off 15% of workers

    • reply
      February 7, 2023 1:46 PM

      They have a product that everyone started using and it does one thing well. How did they fuck this up?

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        February 7, 2023 1:47 PM

        Layoffs don't necessarily mean they messed up. They can be cynical and greed-driven.

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          February 7, 2023 2:47 PM

          start the clock on stock buybacks or some shit

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          February 7, 2023 2:48 PM

          On the other hand, if the firings don't harm the company long term, then the employees probably weren't needed?

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            February 7, 2023 3:32 PM

            Depends, was there an immediate round of hirings a couple quarters later?

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        February 7, 2023 1:48 PM

        Because it's a shit solution, has been full of security holes and at my very large global company banned from being used unless absolutely needed. I have to use it for one vendor call a month and it's god awful.

        Also MS including Teams in O365 pretty much kills people wanting to pay more for zoom.

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          February 7, 2023 2:48 PM

          Zoom is so far superior to Teams its not even funny

          I can successfully join maybe 10-25% of the Teams meetings I am invited to, but only via the web and incognito mode

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            February 7, 2023 2:56 PM

            I'm not even a huge fan of Teams but I have run and or join 15+ meetings a week in Teams involving people outside our org and inside connecting from the other side of the world and nobody has even not been able to join.

            Zoom has been fine for the one vendor I need it for but the overall app / experience is not as good as Teams. It's a fine solution if you need a meeting w a family member or just something quick like that but like Shirif said it's ass in an enterprise setting.

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            February 7, 2023 3:03 PM

            it really isn't, and they are trying to sell me on Zoom Phone too, which I'm guessing is a massive part of the layoffs

            teams surpassed it long long ago, the ONLY thing zoom had going for it was larger rooms. now it's about quality, and zoom looks and sounds like shit compared to teams

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            February 7, 2023 3:15 PM

            agreed, we use Zoom for everything and I rage out when I need to connect to a teams call for some customer. it's trash.

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            February 7, 2023 3:37 PM

            I feel like this used to be the case but they flip flopped a few years ago.

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            February 7, 2023 3:39 PM

            lol what. I’ve never had a problem using M365 client.

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          February 7, 2023 3:54 PM

          [deleted]

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        February 7, 2023 1:52 PM

        Correction: it's used by non-paying people, usually no tech savvy people or people who need an hour of conferencing in a very long while

        It's shitty in an enterprise setting.

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        February 7, 2023 3:00 PM

        Everyone started using it suddenly so they had to staff up to meet customer needs. But now some amount of pandemic usage has disappeared, along with competitors taking some market share.

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        February 7, 2023 6:39 PM

        They get free layoffs right now so of course they gunna do it. Perfect time to cut some fat and get more efficient without the public wondering what the heck. It's so obvious.

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        February 7, 2023 7:32 PM

        They had to scale up far too much too fast, it causes all kinds of innate fuckery

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      February 7, 2023 3:19 PM

      Kinda shocked to read this in the blog post:

      As the CEO and founder of Zoom, I am accountable for these mistakes and the actions we take today– and I want to show accountability not just in words but in my own actions. To that end, I am reducing my salary for the coming fiscal year by 98% and foregoing my FY23 corporate bonus. Members of my executive leadership team will reduce their base salaries by 20% for the coming fiscal year while also forfeiting their FY23 corporate bonuses.

      Some will say this isn’t enough but frankly it’s so rare to see company leadership take any responsibility these days that I think it’s worth mentioning here

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        February 7, 2023 4:45 PM

        He can live off his shares.

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        February 7, 2023 7:09 PM

        That's cool of them. Our CEO admitted to it being his fault for having to let 30% of the company go, though he didn't take any reduction in pay or anything. The severance packages were decent though, 46 folks let go with the severance packages expected to cost somewhere between $1.5M-2.5M. I forget what our initial runway was prior to this, but this will allow us to make it to Q1 of 2025. :/

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          February 8, 2023 5:42 AM

          They always admit fault, it’s meaningless.

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      February 7, 2023 5:00 PM

      They need to stop with these darn layoffs. It’s making it hard to shop for a new job!

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      February 7, 2023 6:27 PM

      Ebay let a few go today too. Here's all the layoff info you'll ever need https://layoffs.fyi/

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      February 7, 2023 7:31 PM

      Can't say I'm shocked considering they went from a company I'd never heard over to a household name pretty much overnight thanks to the pandemic

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