The Seattle based real estate site, Zillow, has joined the category of “economically affected businesses” by laying off 25% of its workforce. The company is going to fire 40 employees this week. The startup is popular for estimating the value of the property of people.
Zillow’s CEO Rich Barton has called it an incredibly painful decision. Last month, the startup’s traffic was 42% higher than it was in the same period last year. Though the startup has a venture finance of $87 million, it is yet not profitable. While going through tough times, this is the reason why they have to fire employees.
This is what Rich Barton said while making the announcement:
This week we are reducing our workforce by 25%. This was an incredibly painful decision for me and the leadership team, but, in the end, we concluded that we had no choice but to securely batten down the hatches as we sail into a major economic storm.
Furthermore he said:
Saying goodbye to dedicated colleagues, who we have worked with side by side, is miserable. This is a group of incredibly smart and talented people who helped build and support a product they can be proud of. I want to thank these folks for their service and contributions and offer my apology for the having to make this decision.
Now, even the venture capitalist firms are urging their portfolio companies to control their spending. This is what the Benchmark Capital (Zillow’s backer) has done.
