Updated: Back in October, when I broke the news that uber venture fund Sequoia Capital had organized a secret meeting in which it warned its portfolio companies to prepare for the pending financial apocalypse, the revelation was met with some skepticism.
Some thought Sequoia was using the downturn to its own advantage by putting a chill on the startup ecosystem. The sequence of economic events since then, however, points instead to their prescience on the matter. Mike Moritz, general partner with Sequoia, who has backed companies such as Yahoo and Google, recently told The San Francisco Chronicle that nothing had changed the firm’s view since the October meeting.
Their portfolio companies have taken their message to heart and have pruned their ranks. Thanks to hard work by Brendan Gahan, winner of my research assistant contest, and runner-up Susie Lin, we have compiled a scorecard using publicly traded information.
Among the companies, some 20 of them have cut more than 500 jobs, with online shoe retailer Zappos slashing the deepest, taking out 128 positions. It’s unclear how many jobs Jive Software and Widgetbox cut. It was rumored that Jive cut 40 people but the CEO denied that it was that many. We have heard that the total number was 36 out of which nine were contractors.
For more information on job losses at various technology companies, visit Techcrunch’s layoff tracker.
| Company | Layoffs | Company | Layoffs |
|---|---|---|---|
| * Number is unconfirmed (40 were reported, but CEO denied it was that many) ** Number of employess unknown |
|||
| AdBrite | 40 | Meraki | 10 |
| Dash Navigation | 55 | Pontis | 14 |
| Discretix | 10 | PopularMedia | 10 |
| Edelweiss Capital | 30 | Ruckus Wireless | 9 |
| Eons | 8 | Searchme.com | 11 |
| imeem | 20 | StrongMail Systems | 30 |
| Jawbone (AKA Aliph) | 25 | Sugar Inc. | 9 |
| Jive Software | Unconfirmed * | WeatherBug | 43 |
| 36 | Widgetbox | 20% ** | |
| Mahalo | 6 | Zappos.com | 128 |
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