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Saturday, November 21, 
7:47 pm

Seesmic steps up layoffs, look out below

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Sign of the times: Noted Silicon Valley startup Seesmic has laid off seven employees, with founder and CEO Loïc LeMeur attributing the move to the souring economy.

"Of course this is not a decision we have entered into lightly, especially when all of our staff have contributed so heavily to our growth," says LeMeur in a blog post accompanying the video below. "But the longevity of the company is obviously of significant importance--and thus we must reduce costs now in order to establish Seesmic as a solid business and pursue success of the company for years to come."

This is the second round of layoffs for Seesmic in recent weeks. The provider of video-blogging services, only in June announced that it had raised an additional $6 million round from from Omidyar Network and Wellington Partners, where LeMeur is a partner. The startup in February announced a $6 million Series A round from a long list of investors, including: Atomico Investments, the firm operated by Skype co-founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis; SoftTechVC founder Jeff Clavier; LinkedIn Corp. founder Reid Hoffman; TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington; angel investor Ron Conway; former AOL chief Steve Case; FON founder Martin Varsavsky; Goldman, Sachs & Co. managing director Michael Parekh; Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship director Dan Gillmor; video blogger Steve Garfield; SupportSoft Inc. co-founder Mark Pincus; Topica Inc. founder Ariel Poler; and Pulver.com founder Jeff Pulver.

LeMeur is clearly battening down the hatches for what many expect to be a long, stormy period for startups. And if Seesmic, one of the more ballyhooed Web startups of late, is already scaling back, it bodes ill for other Web 2.0 companies that continue to flail around in search of a business model. Or as Arrington puts it in his post on Seesmic's latest layoffs, "It's time to start slamming the reality of the Silicon Valley situation home to everyone." -- Alain Sherter 


Tough times. Tough decisions.also read my blog post http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2008/10/tough-times-tou.html
See Oct. 10 post on Seesmic's layoffs from LeMeur's blog
See June 20 post on Seesmic's latest funding from Tech Confidential
See Jan. 2 post on Seesmic's development from Tech Confidential
For more see TechCrunch, Cnet News and The Inquisitr

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Comments

From: Rachel,

Well I still see thousands of jobs posted on employment sites.

www.linkedin.com (networking)
www.indeed.com (aggregated listings)
www.realmatch.com (matches you to jobs)

good luck to those searching for jobs.


From: LayoffGossip,

People always hate to talk about when they are laid off. But as it has become every day's news headline since Yahoo started it with cutting 1500 of its task force last year, now a need of platform has been in demand where people can express their selves in words how they are feeling about their company, whey the got laid off was that justified or not.
And every thing they want to tell anonymously.And www.layoffgossip.com is providing you that platform.


From: Layoffs,

People always hate to talk about when they are laid off. But as it has become every day's news headline since Yahoo started it with cutting 1500 of its task force last year, now a need of platform has been in demand where people can express their selves in words how they are feeling about their company, whey the got laid off was that justified or not.
And every thing they want to tell anonymously.And www.layoffgossip.com is providing you that platform.


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