Unicorn Startup Airtable Lays Off 27% Of Firm, Shifts Focus To Big Clients

Abstraction: Airtable cuts 237 employees and pivots from SMB to enterprise million-dollar accounts

Key points:

• Airtable laid off 237 people (27%) in September 2023, following a December 2022 round that cut 254; company valued at $11.7 billion
• CEO Howie Liu attributed the cuts to over-hiring during the easy-money COVID-era tech boom and a strategic shift to "efficient growth"
• Pivot is away from small clients (~$10K spend) toward enterprise accounts with $1M+ spend rates; product and SMB sales teams hit hardest
• Company serves 450,000+ organizations including Amazon, Netflix, and Nike; launched in 2013 as a no-code cloud spreadsheet
• Liu expects the company to be cash-flow positive after the layoffs and is targeting a path to public company status
• Q1 2023 saw 136,000+ tech layoffs industry-wide, led by Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft

Connections: Airtable · Enterprise Software · Tech Industry Layoffs

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2023/09/14/unicorn-startup-airtable-lays-off-27-of-firm-shifts-focus-to-big-clients/