Zillow CEO Rich Barton announced yesterday in a blog post that they are laying off 25% of their work force. I guess they are taking to heart the advice in the Sequoia Capital "R.I.P. Good Times" presentation: cut the burn rate so you can survive the recession. Or maybe, as Michael Arrington speculates on TechCrunch, they are also joining the trend of using layoffs as a way to get rid of deadwood employees.
Zillow still hasn’t reached profitability. They are cutting back on marketing and engineering, and investing further in sales. I wonder what their workforce composition will look like in a few years. My guess is they will continue to shift from engineering-heavy to sales-heavy.
The 5.4 million unique visitors to the site in September represented a 42 percent increase over the same time last year, and revenue is growing "at a rapid pace." … Launched in February, 2006, the company has raised $87 million in venture capital from employees, individuals and several leading investment firms including Benchmark Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures, PAR Capital and Legg Mason Capital Management.".
Zillow isn’t alone… TechCrunch has a web page tracking other tech industry layoffs.
