Patreon is laying off 20% of its workforce

Patreon is laying off 20% of its workforce, or 93 people, CEO Jack Conti told employees Thursday. In a memo to employees that the company shared online, Conte said Patreon’s core business is strong but the platform must respond to market changes and adjust its cost structure to remain stable, which is why it needs to make the “painful” but necessary cuts.

“AI has fundamentally transformed the technology industry,” Conte wrote, and the pace of change “has never been more intense.” However, Conte noted that Patreon is not making the cuts because it wants to replace employees with artificial intelligence.

“To be clear about the impact of AI on today’s decision: we are no “We’re making the above changes because we believe AI is replacing humans,” he wrote. “The more we learn to use these new tools, the clearer they are that they are not replacements for the creativity, judgment, detailed guidance, or craftsmanship of our teammates, nor do they replace the desire for human connection that we all hold so dear. This is my personal opinion, but more importantly, it’s the foundation of Patreon’s strategy: the vision for our products and business is built on the value of human creativity and human connection.”

He continued: “Amnesty International He has However, it has radically transformed the technology industry, including how we work, how we build products, how we communicate, and more. Which He does “It will have an impact on the way we work and organize.”

In addition to cutting staff, Conte said Patreon is also restructuring how it operates, “flattening” its organizational chart and refocusing teams around its top priorities. Affected employees will receive at least 16 weeks of severance pay, plus an additional week for each year worked, health care coverage through the end of the year, and $1,500 to replace a company laptop.

Last week, Patreon announced that it had partnered with Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure provider, to directly block access to AI bots designed to train its AI models on creators’ works without permission. The company said it had to bolster its efforts on this front because the AI ​​scraping process has become more complex. The move came as online publishers and creators grapple with AI companies that use their businesses to train AI models.

Patreon’s latest round of layoffs is the platform’s largest since it cut 17% of its staff back in 2022. During that previous round of layoffs, Patreon also closed its offices in Berlin and Dublin.