Filecoin Blockchain Parent Firm Protocol Labs Announces 21% Layoff

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Jeff Horseman
Jeff Horseman
Jeff Horseman got into journalism because he liked to write and stunk at math. He grew up in Vermont and he honed his interviewing skills as a supermarket cashier by asking Bernie Sanders “Paper or plastic?” After graduating from Syracuse University in 1999, Jeff began his journalistic odyssey at The Watertown Daily Times in upstate New York, where he impressed then-U.S. Senate candidate Hillary Clinton so much she called him “John” at the end of an interview. From there, he went to Annapolis, Maryland, where he covered city, county and state government at The Capital newspaper. Today, Jeff writes about anything and everything. Along the way, Jeff has covered wildfires, a tropical storm, 9/11 and the Dec. 2 terror attack in San Bernardino. If you have a question or story idea about politics or the inner workings of government, please let Jeff know. He’ll do his best to answer, even if it involves a little math.
  • To provide light on the layoffs, CEO Juan Benet published a blog post.
  • Benet wrote on Friday that the transition will be challenging for all Labbers.

On February 3rd, Protocol Labs, the company behind the Filecoin blockchain network for storing files, revealed that it would be laying off some of its staff. To provide light on the layoffs, CEO Juan Benet published a blog post titled “Focusing Our Strategy to Weather Crypto Winter.”

He said the crypto sector was impacted especially hard by the very severe economic crisis.  Benet argued that the severity and duration of the crypto winter had been amplified by the macro winter, making it more severe and lasting longer than had been anticipated.

The CEO stated:

“Although we worked extremely hard to avoid this, we’ve made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce by 89 roles (approximately 21%). This impacts individuals across PLGO teams (PL Corp, PL Member Services, Network Goods, PL Outercore, and PL Starfleet). We’ve had to focus our headcount against the most impactful and business critical efforts.”

Industry-wide Layoffs

Due to the crypto winter, Protocol Labs has joined the ranks of other companies in the cryptocurrency sector that have reduced their workforce. Staff reductions have also occurred in various sectors including tech and retail. Although it has been more severe in the cryptocurrency and blockchain sectors.

The trend of widespread layoffs in the business started picking up speed in 2022, and it shows no signs of abating any time before 2023. Benet wrote on Friday that the transition will be challenging for all Labbers and that the business will be holding a “PLGO All Hands” meeting on Monday to address any concerns that may have been raised.

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