AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT GRAMMARLY

San Francisco, California-based Grammarly, a cloud-based typing assistant that reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement, and delivery mistakes, detects plagiarism, and suggests replacements for the identified errors, has announced a restructuring initiative that includes a cost-cutting initiative and a reduction in its workforce.

The reduction in force will impact approximately 230 employees.

CEO, Rahul Roy-Chowdhury noted...

Dear Grammarlians,

Today, I announced the difficult decision to lay off part of our global team as we restructure for continued success in the future. I recognize the impact of this decision, particularly on those who will no longer be working with Grammarly. I want to share some details on how we got here, the support we’re providing for those who are leaving, and what comes next for us as a company.

Restructuring Grammarly for continued success

Grammarly has spent the last 15 years building and improving our AI-powered writing assistance for millions of people around the world. Over the past five years, we’ve grown our team from 200 to 1,000 team members while running a profitable business.

In that time, Grammarly has also seen—and weathered—changes in our industry and the global environment, including a global pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and a new age of AI. Changes like these have challenged us to be more strategic and focused on the opportunities ahead—and they’ve also propelled our mission and product forward.

To arrive at today’s decision, we took a look at our organizational design and the current skillsets of our teams through the lens of our company strategy. As we strengthen our focus toward driving the AI-enabled workplace and deepen our technical investments in AI, we will need a different mix of capabilities and skillsets. We also need to redesign our organization to improve the quality and speed of collaboration — and that means, among other things, restructuring roles and co-locating certain teams. This is not a cost-cutting exercise. Grammarly’s financial position is, and remains, strong.

Support for our departing team members

This layoff affects most Grammarly functions and geographies. It’s of the utmost importance to me that we treat our departing team members respectfully and in ways that reflect Grammarly’s EAGER values.

As for Grammarly’s future: We see massive opportunity as every individual and business begins to harness the power of AI. For nearly 15 years, we’ve been building a product that helps millions of people every day, makes teams measurably more productive, and is already used by employees in 96% of the Fortune 500. We’ll build on this foundation to bring even more value to our customers. AI will fundamentally change the workplace for the better—and Grammarly will play a leading role in driving that change.

Thank you to all departing Grammarlians who’ve invested their time and energy into this company. And thank you to our entire team for your extended empathy and consideration of one another as we work through this change.

-Rahul

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT DATAMINR

New York, New York-based Dataminr, an artificial intelligence company providing software tools to monitor real-time events, and to aid with crisis response by providing playbooks, messaging tools, and post-event documentation, has announced that it will be restructuring its business and reducing its workforce by 20 percent.

The reduction in force will impact 150 employees and separations are scheduled for

According to a memo authored by founder and CEO Ted Bailey, the decision was driven by "the economic environment, operational efficiencies, and the rapid advancements of their AI platform."

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT SCALE AI

San Francisco, California-based Scale AI, an artificial intelligence company making tools for collecting, formatting, and validating training data for artificial intelligence applications, has announced it has laid off 20% of its workforce and embarked on other cost-cutting measures including reassessing the company's real estate footprint and curbing future hiring.

The reduction in force impacted 140 employees.

Founder and CEO Alexandr Wang noted that the layoffs were the result of optimistic future projections.

“As a result, I made the decision to grow the team aggressively in order to take advantage of what I thought was our new normal. For a time, this seemed to prove out — we saw strong sales growth through 2021 and 2022. As a result, we increased headcount assuming the massive growth would continue. However, the macro environment has changed dramatically in recent quarters, which is something I failed to predict. Many of the industries we serve, such as e-commerce and consumer technology, have been buoyed by the pandemic and are now experiencing a painful market correction. As a result, we need to prepare ourselves for a very different economic environment.”

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?