Video conference platform Zoom fired its President Greg Tomb. Mr. Tomb’s contract was abruptly terminated “without cause” according to a report by BBC. The president was still entitled to several benefits in accordance with the company’s arrangements payable upon “termination without cause”.
Zoom’s mass layoffs had affected about 15 percent of its workforce or 1,300 of its staff only days ago. The company also trimmed the base pay for its executive leadership as pandemic-fuelled demand for the company’s video conferencing services slows. Greg Tomb joined the company in San Francisco Bay Area in June last year after stints with several companies, including Google and SAP. Since then, he had actively participated in earnings calls and managed the company’s sales. According to a Zoom representative, the tech company is not seeking a replacement.
He answered directly to Zoom’s CEO Eric Yuan, who founded the company in 2011 and had to quickly expand it during a pandemic-driven boom, as per the outlet. The company has begun laying off employees more recently to deal with decreasing demand. In a company-wide email, CEO Yuan said he was accountable for the mistakes that led to the layoffs and would reduce his salary by 98 percent for the coming fiscal year, as well as forego his corporate bonus.
Hiring during COVID
“Our trajectory was forever changed during the pandemic when the world faced one of its toughest challenges, and I am proud of the way we mobilized as a company to keep people connected,” Yuan said. According to him, Zoom hired more employees during the pandemic as people used the platform for remote work, court appearances, social gatherings, and education purposes as Covid-19 risks prevented them from meeting up in person. He continued, “We worked tirelessly, but we also made mistakes. We didn’t take as much time as we should have to thoroughly analyze our teams or assess if we were growing sustainably, toward the highest priorities. We are seeing that people and businesses continue to rely on Zoom.”
“But the uncertainty of the global economy, and its effect on our customers, means we need to take a hard look inward to reset ourselves so we can weather the economic environment, deliver for our customers and achieve Zoom’s long-term vision,” he said in company’s blog post. The layoffs from various companies continue and the reasons may or may not vary. However, the cutting costs method seems to be laying off employees as of now. meanwhile, there are companies that are particularly hiring talent from these lay offs.
