As the global economy sinks, more companies are switching to safe mode and enforcing austerity measures. In a similar story, Dropbox lays off employees to save on running costs. This time the company is saying goodbye to 500 employees, almost 16% of its total workforce. The company’s CEO, Drew Houston, says the layoffs are due to the rocky economy.
Dropbox is working to make its AI division, and these job cuts have a great purpose to serve. While writing on his Twitter, Houston said,
“In an ideal world, we’d just move people from one team to another. And we have been doing that wherever possible. But our next stage of growth requires a different mix of skills, particularly in AI and early product development. We have brought in great talent in these areas over the last few years, and we’ll need more.”
Dropbox Lays Off Employees To Develop Its AI Divisionā¦
CEO of Dropbox says the change is essential for the company as it plans to consolidate its document workflow and core business. The company will also make necessary adjustments to its product development teams. Houston said that despite the tough economic conditions, Dropbox is still a profitable company.
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Moreover, Dropbox’s layoffs can be seen as a “natural maturation” of the company’s business. It goes on to say,
“The changes we’re announcing today, while painful, are necessary for our future. I am determined to ensure that Dropbox is at the forefront of the AI era, just as we were at the forefront of the shift to mobile and the cloud. We will need all hands on deck, as machine intelligence gives us the tools to reimagine our existing businesses and invent new ones.”
The company’s CEO has shown interest in making AI tools in the past, and integrating them into its tools will surely help Dropbox. It will also allow Dropbox to understand and serve its customers. Since 2018, the file hosting service has added a number of AI-powered features. The automatic text recognition feature is the most prominent among them.
This means that a serious shift in the company’s strategy is there to explore AI. In addition, the affected employees will receive 16 weeks’ pay, can keep company devices for personal use, and will have up to six months of healthcare support. Job placement support and career coaching are a plus.
