Pandora Lays Off 20 Employees, Bringing Total Staff to 120

Published by on October 17, 2008

Pandora, everyone’s favorite internet radio has let go of 20 employees from their staff of 140. There isn’t an indication who was let go, but I imagine it wasn’t the sales team.

We already saw AdBrite laid off 40 of its 100 employees, and I think this is going to be a continuing trend as we’ve already seen Sequoia tell its’ portfolio ‘RIP Good Times‘.

Not All of these layoffs mean the company isn’t do well. Sometimes layoffs can be good for the company, if they’ve been pursuing strategies or product lines that aren’t producing, hard economic times can be good instigators to turn companies around.

Pandora Lays Off 20

Here is the quote from Tim (founder):

This is a very sad day for Pandora, and for me personally. Today we reduced our staff from 140 to 120 employees. Like virtually every company, Pandora is not immune to the challenges presented by the current economic turmoil. We are trying to react quickly and responsibly to the new environment.

We cherish our employees. We have painstakingly built a team that I am tremendously proud of – there’s not a person in our company who hasn’t contributed substantially to what we do, and who we are. The twenty folks we let go today were no exception.

I started this company nine years ago. I lived through some very tough times back in 2001-2002. But letting go of an employee will, for me at least, always be the most gut-wrenching thing there is. We tried our best today to treat these friends and colleagues with great understanding, and with as much financial support for their transition as we can afford.

There are tough times ahead for the economy, but our listenership is growing rapidly, the Internet radio royalty rate resolution seems finally near, and the explosion of mobile devices like the iPhone are opening up a world of opportunity for internet radio to expand off the desktop. Moreover, our ad sales are growing so well that, not only did we not make any reductions there, we need to continue to hire more.

It’s just hard to be excited about all that today.