Substack fires 14% of its work force

Keeping in line with tech companies laying off people, Substack’s CEO Christ Best tweeted on Wednesday that he was letting 13 workers go. The number while small, makes up 14% of the newsletter company’s workforce, according to Axios. In a bunch of follow-up tweets, Best said that “market conditions” had led to his decision.

He went on to say that the move may come as a surprise to employees, given that he had earlier said that Substack had been planning to grow their team, adding that while they were still hiring, the team had been “pared down.” Best goes on to say that the the measures were an effort to maintain a “strong financial foundation” for the company.

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The New York Times reported that some of those who were let go, were in Human Resources and writer support. Interestingly, the report points out that Substack had recently stopped seeking funding from investors but that revenue was still growing. In Best’s open letter to employees on Twitter, he mentioned that part of the reason for the layoffs was that he current state of the economy has become uncertain and that the company was refocusing their team and financial planning to continue to fund their investments.

Earlier this year in April, Substack was in the limelight as controversy erupted after Lulu Cheng Meservey, vice president of communications, tweeted a hiring link and pointing out the kind of people the company didn’t want on its team. “ If you’re a Twitter employee who’s considering resigning because you’re worried about Elon Musk pushing for less regulated speech… please do not come work here,” she said. In December 2020, the company had noted that the freedom of speech was incredibly important to them, saying in a blog post that they disagreed with people who “would seek to tightly constrain the bounds of acceptable discourse.”

Substack is far from the only one laying off its employees. Earlier this week, electric carmakers Tesla laid off 200 of its workers at a plant in San Mateo.