Twilio announced plans to cut around 17% of its workforce or roughly 1,500 jobs based on the 8,992 employees reported as of Sept. 30, 2022, in a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Twilio announced the layoffs in a blog post shared on the company’s website.
The announcement came after the cloud communications software maker already laid off around 11% of its workforce as part of a restructuring plan in September.
In an email to employees, CEO Jeff Lawson said the additional cuts were driven by the need to reorganize Twilio in order to succeed.
“These changes hurt,” Lawson wrote. “The weeks ahead will be about processing all this change and working together to acclimate to our new structure.”
Lawson said Twilio is forming two business units to help the company spend less and become more efficient. One unit, Twilio Data & Applications, will be led by Elena Donio, and the second unit, Twilio Communications, will be led by Khozema Shipchandler. Lawson said that when executives looked at these two business units, it was clear the company had gotten “too big”, particularly in communications.
Lawson said it is clear that Twilio needed to carry out “significant structural changes” in order to execute its strategy better.
“It is painful to part ways with so many talented people – but it’s necessary to get our two businesses into the right shape to succeed,” he said.
