Patreon is shedding 20% of its workforce, or 93 folks, CEO Jack Conte informed staff on Thursday. In a memo to workers that was shared online by the corporate, Conte mentioned Patreon’s core enterprise is powerful however that the platform has to reply to market modifications and modify its value construction to stay steady, which is why it must make the “painful” however obligatory cuts.
Conte wrote that “AI has basically remodeled the tech trade,” and that the tempo of change has “by no means been extra intense.” Nonetheless, Conte went on to notice that Patreon isn’t making the cuts as a result of it needs to interchange staff with AI.
“To be clear concerning the impression of AI on right now’s determination: we’re not making the above modifications as a result of we consider AI replaces people,” he wrote. “The extra we have now discovered to make use of these new instruments, the clearer it has change into that they don’t seem to be substitutes for the creativity, judgment, element orientation, or craftsmanship that our teammates have in spades, nor do they change the need for human connection that every one of us cherish so deeply. That’s my private opinion, however extra importantly, it’s the muse of Patreon’s technique: our product imaginative and prescient and enterprise are each predicated on the worth of human creativity and human connection.”
He continued, “AI has basically remodeled the tech trade, although, together with how we work, how we construct merchandise, how we talk, and extra. That does have an effect on how we function and arrange.”
Past the headcount discount, Conte mentioned Patreon can be restructuring the way it operates, “flattening” its organizational chart and refocusing groups round its high priorities. Affected staff will obtain no less than 16 weeks of severance pay, plus a further week for yearly labored, healthcare protection by the tip of the 12 months, and a $1,500 stipend to interchange their firm laptop computer.
Final week, Patreon introduced that it was partnering with web infrastructure supplier Cloudflare to straight block entry to AI bots designed to coach their AI fashions on creators’ work with out permission. The corporate mentioned it needed to improve its efforts on this entrance as a result of AI scraping has change into extra subtle. The transfer got here as on-line publishers and creators are grappling with AI firms utilizing their work to coach AI fashions.
Patreon’s newest spherical of layoffs is the platform’s largest because it minimize 17% of its workers again in 2022. Throughout that earlier spherical of layoffs, Patreon additionally closed its places of work in Berlin and Dublin.
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