San Francisco, California-based Planet Labs, a designer and operator of satellites to image the entirety of the Earth daily to monitor changes and pinpoint trends, has announced a reduction in force.
The reduction will impact approximately 10% of the company's workforce, 117 employees.
CEO Will Marshall noted, "I have some important and tough news to share. For reasons I’ll get to here, we’re reducing the size of our team and saying goodbye to 117 talented Planeteers."
“Our business has scaled rapidly and continues to grow apace, but the expansion of projects has also increased cost and complexity, which slowed us down in some regards. We are making changes to prioritize our attention on the highest ROI opportunities for our business and mission, while reinforcing our path to profitability, consistent with what we shared on our prior earnings call. I want to be clear that I am responsible for the decisions that led us here. I know this has significant effects on the lives of our team and their families, and for that I am sorry. We do not make these changes lightly.”
While Planet has always operated with a lean mentality, we transitioned into a new operating mode when we went public 18 months ago. This included building out teams that had been historically understaffed and taking on a range of new projects to expand our market opportunity."
"Our business has scaled rapidly and continues to grow apace, but the expansion of projects has also increased cost and complexity, which slowed us down in some regards. Simultaneously, the macroeconomic environment has changed. For both of these reasons, we are making changes to prioritize our attention on the highest ROI opportunities for our business and mission, while reinforcing our path to profitability, consistent with what we shared on our prior earnings call."
"Planet remains hyper-relevant to the world: the sustainability transformation, the digital transformation, and the increasing global attention on peace and security will continue to be tailwinds for years to come. The AI revolution adds yet another. But, to seize these opportunities we need to focus and execute – and that leads us to the hard changes we’re making today."
Our Process
"We performed a deep assessment of our business and spending, looking at elements such as our fastest growth markets, our mission impact, our product and go-to-market efforts, and our operations. This led to decisions resulting in cuts to costs and teams. At the end of the day, our driving theme was the focus of our business and our mission. The changes impact every division at Planet, globally."
"I want to be clear that this action is not a reflection of personal or professional qualities. The contributions of the set of people whose roles are impacted today have been tremendous."
"With this in mind, I want to thank all of the Planeteers who are leaving us. Thank you for bringing your talents and passion to Planet, and most of all for believing in and contributing to our mission. We appreciate everything you’ve done to help get Planet to where it is today."
"The leadership team and I remain firmly convinced of the opportunity ahead of us. Our cash position is strong and we believe we are well-positioned to compete and succeed in an uncertain economic environment. And our North Star remains unchanged: Planet’s differentiated data products, our investments toward an Earth Data Platform, and the immense potential for AI with our data have immense value to the world."
I know this news is hard, so please take care of yourself and those around you."
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?