Latest Twilio Layoffs Hit 5% of Workforce
The layoffs are impacting two go-to-market teams.
Twilio layoffs will impact about 5% of the company's workforce, or about 300 employees, as part of a continuing workforce restructuring plan.
The provider of communication APIs for voice and video disclosed the layoffs in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing. As of Sept. 30, Twilio had 5,905 employees.
This is the latest round of Twilio layoffs. In February, Twilio confirmed it was cutting 17% of its workforce after cutting 11% in fall 2022.
The cloud communications software company expects the layoffs to be complete by the end of the first quarter of 2024. It expects to incur about $25 million-$35 million in charges in connection with the workforce reduction, consisting of expenditures for employee transition, notice period and severance payments, employee benefits and related facilitation costs.
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In a letter to employees, Jeff Lawson, Twilio’s CEO, said the layoffs are impacting the company’s Segment and Flex go-to-market (GTM) teams. Reducing those teams will also impact some supporting functions, primarily marketing and finance.
Twilio's Jeff Lawson
“Last year, we set out on a path to reorient our business toward profitable growth,” he said. “Specifically, we streamlined our more mature, scaled communications business to focus on efficiency and profit, and we organized our technology, data and analytics (TD&A) business to optimize for growth. We’ve made tremendous progress in communications, even overachieving on our goals; however, we’ve underachieved on growth in TD&A. So we’re taking some steps to create a more effective GTM motion for Flex and recalibrate our investments in Segment, which combined will unfortunately mean parting ways with approximately 5% of Twilio’s workforce.”
Last year, Twilio made the decision to invest, ahead of growth, in GTM for Segment, Lawson said.
“Unfortunately, that bet hasn’t led to the growth outcome we’d hoped for,” he said. “As a result, we’re simply spending too much. So we’ve made the hard decision to eliminate some of our Segment GTM roles - right sizing the investment for the results we’re seeing.”
Twilio is also making changes in how it sells Flex, “where we’ve seen an overlap between our Flex sales motion and many of our communications products,” Lawson said.