Latest Twilio Layoffs Hit 5% of Workforce

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.

“Given the similar buyer personas and product synergies between voice, interactive voice response (IVR) and Flex, we want to simplify the experience for our customers,” he said. “So, we’re consolidating Flex GTM into communications and eliminating many Flex GTM roles. Account executives in communications can now sell Flex alongside our other contact center products — aligned with how customers want to buy. Flex R&D will also move intact to communications to keep product development close to our customer-facing teams.”

The layoffs are in the best interest of Twilio’s customers and the long-term health of the business, Lawson said.

“At the same time, we’re opening up more account executive (AE) roles inside of communications and I encourage all sellers impacted by these changes to apply,” he said.