Dignity in Internet LAYOFFS!
From the Motley Fool Board! KUDOS to David and Tom Gartner for such a quality posting on FOOL.COM....
Letter to the Community
Fool Restructuring
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February 9, 2001
As many of you know by now, yesterday was one of the most difficult days in Motley Fool history. We said a teary goodbye to 115 people who had poured their hearts into our business, some for more than five years. You have benefited directly or indirectly from every one of their efforts, as have we, and that demands our gratitude. Unfortunately, in the present business environment, we were simply unable to continue supporting so large a workforce.
Let's talk about that business environment. Given that The Motley Fool is more popular today than ever before, serving upwards of 25 million people last month via our multimedia efforts, you might be wondering why the heck we would let so many Fool employees go?! The truth is, we've seen a primary revenue source of our business -- advertising on our free website -- weaken significantly over the past 12 months. When you stake a significant portion of your company's business model on getting a "yes" from the advertising department over at First Federal, and First Federal decides to halve its ad spend in anticipation of a recession, it hurts your business. Of course, it's particularly ironic when that happens in the face of your own rocketing customer growth numbers, but there it is. For the short term, anyway.
The bigger picture reveals that December featured the highest numbers of corporate layoffs in U.S. history. And January actually exceeded that! We had hoped to be immune to this nasty business cycle but, regrettably, discovered along with so many American corporations that we are not. Consequently, as part of an important restructuring and refocusing of our business, we reduced our staff.
We read a few grumblings from community members who felt a message like this might be a day late in coming. "Why did we have to read about it in the press, rather than in Fooldom?" they ask. We hope everyone can understand that our efforts yesterday were focused respectfully on the immediate needs of our employees -- those who were departing, but also and importantly, the 250 or so who remain. We are certainly appreciative of your interest in our company -- in our failures as well as our successes -- and are pleased to share our perspective with you the day after.
Let us assure you that the only solace we can take in letting so many good people go is that good people are just that, GOOD, and goodness wins in life! If the number of incoming calls is any indicator, we are confident that our former employees will quickly get gobbled up by other companies who value their talents and their Motley Fool experience.
Alas! As many good people as we let go, many more remain. And as difficult as the past 24 hours have been, it's 24 hours in a much longer history of a business built to last. To those who have left, we thank you again for your wonderful contributions. Let us paraphrase the poet Stephen Spender: "Born of the sun, you traveled a short while towards the sun, and left the vivid air (our vivid air) signed with your honor." And to all those who remain, we will continue pouring our hearts into a business that we love, into a mission that privileges us with the opportunity to serve millions, in order that our redoubled efforts might honor the efforts of those we've left behind. Folly forever.
--David and Tom Gardner
