SoundHound, a voice AI firm, laid off almost half of its remaining employees final week—roughly 200 individuals—in a serious company-wide downsizing, based on three workers who misplaced their jobs and an electronic mail from the CEO seen by Gizmodo. What’s extra, the previous SoundHound workers are in for a tough touchdown. Their severance bundle consists of no healthcare and simply two weeks of severance, and that’s provided that SoundHound can increase extra money, the three laid off staffers informed Gizmodo. If the corporate can’t safe further funding, the previous workers stated they don’t know what is going to occur to them.
An ex-employee summed up the state of affairs in a single phrase: “Pitiful.”
“Im actually quite shocked by the way the layoffs were handled,” one of many laid off workers informed Gizmodo. “I was expecting a 17 year old company, which is now a public company, to at least provide bare minimum severance.”
The extreme cuts come simply two months after one other spherical of layoffs that noticed 10% of the corporate’s workforce eradicated and others burdened with wage reductions. SoundHound’s workforce numbered 450 previous to the layoffs, however employees has been reduce greater than 50% in simply three months, based on the previous workers.
In his electronic mail to employees, SoundHound co-founder and CEO Keyvan Mohajer described a interval of fast progress in 2021 however stated altering market circumstances have been forcing it to re-evaluate its financials and speed up its path to profitability in 2023.
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“When we set course in early 2021 to become publicly listed, high tech companies like SoundHound were the darlings of the investor community,” Mohajer wrote. “Companies who could achieve high growth, despite high costs, were seen as engines of a future economy. However, as a result of changing economic conditions, including high interest rates, rising inflation, and fears of recession, companies with our profile became much less desirable.”
SoundHound didn’t reply to Gizmodo’s a number of requests for remark.
Mohajer added private reflection on conferences with buyers to his electronic mail: “As I reflect on the feedback I received from the investor community during countless meetings over the last several months, a recurring theme was that they loved our technology, vision, perseverance, talented team, and business strategy.”
Mohajer completed with a line that’s certain to be chilly consolation to each the remaining workers and people he let go: “But they were concerned that SoundHound does not have the heart to let go of its people.”
The CEO appears to have discovered the “heart” to put off his individuals.
Though many different of the estimated 107,000 tech employees who misplaced their jobs as a part of the latest tech downturn have been supplied snug exit packages, the laid off SoundHound workers talking with Gizmodo stated that wasn’t true for them. In their case, the previous workers stated they might obtain solely two weeks severance and no well being care, with one worker including SoundHound human sources stated the severance was contingent on the corporate elevating further funding. The workers requested to stay nameless in order to not jeopardize what severance they might obtain.
SoundHound’s trajectory is a acquainted one within the tech trade this yr. Companies as massive as Amazon, Snap, and Meta scaled up their workforces in 2020 following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic solely to face main financial headwinds in late 2022 and 2023. Amazon almost doubled the scale of its layoffs from 10,000 to 18,000 workers final week.
Founded in 2005 by a bunch of Stanford graduates, SoundHound has turn out to be a serious supplier of AI voice software program utilized by a wide range of family names. Music streaming service Pandora, for instance, makes use of SoundHound’s platform to let clients pause, play and skip songs utilizing solely their voice. Snap makes use of SoundHound’s tech to supply real-time computerized captioning companies in its Voice Scan digital camera search characteristic. The firm additionally has a pair of cell apps known as SoundHound Music and Hound, that are used for music discovery like Shazam and voice search help, respectively. SoundHound went public by way of a SPAC in early 2022. The firm’s clients embrace Mercedes-Benz, Snap, Netflix, and different manufacturers spanning a number of industries.
“It’s really disappointing to see SoundHound’s once bright future ruined by executive decisions made in the wake of going public,” one of many laid off employees informed Gizmodo. “While the outcome of going public was not easily foreseen when the process was begun, as it became clear that far less cash would be raised than anticipated steps should have been taken to preserve cashflow rather than the unbridled hiring which took place.”
The main layoffs come lower than two months after the corporate reportedly moved to chop round 10% of employees. In addition to the layoffs, an unknown variety of employees on the time additionally skilled wage cuts, some as excessive as 20%, based on one of many former workers.
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https://gizmodo.com/soundhound-lays-off-half-employees-pitiful-severance-1849987534