Polygon Labs unveiled a wave of redundancies on Thursday, leading to the departure of 19% of its workforce, a total of 60 people. At the same time, major restructuring measures were announced, including salary increases. We take stock.
Polygon Labs announces a wave of layoffs
Thursday afternoon, Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, announced that the company was laying off 19% of its workforce, involving a total of 60 people:
At Polygon Labs, we are on a mission to fundamentally change the Internet so that everyone in the world is empowered to equitably access its value. Building the infrastructure to make that happen is no easy feat. It requires executing ambitiously and nimbly with an efficient,…
– Marc Boiron (@0xMarcB) February 1, 2024
While many players in the Web3 ecosystem may have made redundancies for budgetary reasons over the past 2 years, the interested party explains that this is not the case here:
“Resizing for performance rather than financial reasons may seem unconventional. The reality is that achieving our mission often requires tough decisions, and while this is difficult, the founders and I agree that we need to move forward in a thoughtful way that gives us the greatest chance of executing it successfully. “
Parallel to these departures, a major restructuring was also announced in a lengthy post on the Polygon Labs blog.
Significant restructuring
While the Polygon Ventures division was separated from Polygon Labs at the end of 2023 to become a separate 10-person entity, this will also be the case for Polygon ID in the coming months. This concerns a team of 33 people developing decentralized identity tools.
According to Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal (MATIC), the Polygon Labs team now numbers 220 employees, after deducting redundancies and team splits:
Saying goodbye to friends and colleagues is always very painful, but this was a necessary step to take Polygon Labs back to its ‘underdog’ roots. This makes us lighter, nimbler and more mission focused.
Our relentless focus is to build the Planetary scale blockchain network for…
– Sandeep AggLayer. polygon (@sandeepnailwal) February 1, 2024
In addition, remaining staff will receive a minimum 15% pay rise, retroactive to January 1. New recruits will also receive a 5% increase, and scales based on geographical area will be discontinued:
“[We] are eliminating traditional geo-payment models. This move is designed to recognize individual value regardless of location, strengthening our ability to attract the best talent globally. “
For its part, MATIC has not been particularly affected by these measures, and is even trading up 5.7% over the last 24 hours, with a price of $0.81 and a capitalization of $7.9 billion.
