Eliah Seton, who’s announced another round of SoundCloud layoffs, which are expected to impact about eight percent of the company. Photo Credit: SoundCloud
About 10 months after axing roughly one-fifth of its global workforce – and 10 weeks following Eliah Seton’s start as CEO – SoundCloud has announced plans to cut another eight percent of employees.
Seton informed staff of the unfortunate news in a meeting as well as an internally circulated letter (which DMN obtained) sometime during the past 24 hours or so. According to the letter, the layoffs represent one component of the Berlin-headquartered music-sharing platform’s wider plan to achieve profitability before 2023’s conclusion.
“This is a challenging but essential decision to ensure the health of our business and get SoundCloud to profitability by the end of this year,” spelled out the former Warner Music Group exec Seton. “In doing so, we are securing the company’s future for the millions of artists who rely on us for their living and their self-expression, not to mention the millions of fans who come to SoundCloud for the joy of music.”
While Seton didn’t identify the affected roles and departments, some of the impacted professionals are already taking to LinkedIn to confirm that they’re no longer with the Merlin-partnered company.
One of these persons spent about 18 months as a SoundCloud A&R exec in the States, according to the appropriate profile. Though Seton opted not to disclose in his letter the benefits that will be made available to the laid-off team members, he did indicate that “we are absolutely determined to treat everyone with the utmost respect and dignity and manage this process in as generous a manner as possible.”
In further trimming its ranks, SoundCloud – which two weeks ago rolled out a fan-to-artist messaging tool – has joined a lengthy list of music industry companies that have spearheaded personnel cutbacks to this point in 2023.
Downtown Music and Utopia Music in April announced a seemingly far-reaching reorganization and another round of layoffs, respectively, with the CD Baby parent Downtown having parted with a portion of its staff in March.
That same month, both Disney and Microsoft shut down their respective metaverse units, whereas Amazon laid off approximately 400 Twitch team members (and certain Amazon Music professionals) and SiriusXM eliminated 475 roles.
Closer to 2023’s beginning, Google/Alphabet, SoundHound, and Spotify revealed layoffs of their own; the latter business proceeded to shut down music trivia game Heardle and Spotify Live not long thereafter.