Mountain View’s Quora lays off workers in Bay Area, New York
Mountain View startup Quora is laying off employees in its Bay Area and New York offices, according to a blog post from company CEO Adam D’Angelo on the company’s website.
The decadeold company, considered a unicorn for its private valuation of $2 billion and wellknown because of D’Angelo’s role as one of Facebook’s earliest employees, allows users to post questions and answers on an array of topics and says its mission is “to share and grow the world’s knowledge.”
D’Angelo said the layoffs are necessary to ensure a healthy financial future for the company.
“We continue to have strong usage and revenue growth. At the same time, to put us on the strongest financial footing, we need to reduce our burn rate to a sustainable level from which we can focus on pursuing the mission and growing the business over the long term,” D’Angelo wrote.
“We do not want to be dependent on outside capital, so selfreliance and careful management of our resources are crucial to our future,” he added.
Quora spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser declined to say how many employees have been laid off or how many will remain. The California Employment Development Department said the company had not filed the type of notice that is required for mass layoffs, suggesting the cuts in the state involve fewer than 50 employees.
Mozilla, the browser software maker, also said this month it would cut staff to shore up its finances, and even larger Bay Area tech companies including eBay are laying off workers amid concerns over slowing economic growth.
Quora’s website and apps have more than 300 million monthly visitors around the world, D’Angelo said. The company has raised $226 million in funding, according to Crunchbase, a startup database.
Quora suffered a data breach in 2018 affecting 100 million users.