Week 23: A RIF helps a top beauty company refocus...

Also, Amazon can't keep their hands off workers tots 🥔​

Change is happening at Glossier, Inc as several top executives change roles. Founder and CEO, Emily Weiss, has stepped down and, after returning from maternity leave, will step into the role of Executive Chairwoman of the board. Kyle Leahy, current Chief Commercial Officer, will step into the role of CEO effective immediately. Weiss stated in a blog written to the Glossier community that Kyle’s “balance of art and science, coupled with her huge heart (the world needs empathetic leadership now more than ever), will enable us to continue to invest in the products and experiences that will change how the world sees beauty for years to come.”

Ali Weiss, who has been Chief Marketing Officer since 2015, will leave that position in July.

After restructuring that resulted in a significant reduction in the workforce, particularly on the tech team, Glossier is refocusing on its beauty products and building the infrastructure needed to meet consumer demand through pursuing wholesale partners and opening more stores. And if you’re in SoHo watch for the reopening of their flagship store in early 2023!

Who’s Hiring

• Supply chain issues have been at the forefront of the national conversation over the past year. Altana AI is looking for talented leaders and individual contributors to join its mission of building trusted global commerce.

• We’ve all heard the phrase work smarter, not harder and that’s exactly what Clockwise is helping people do. Be part of the team striving to “rework the workday”.

• Tools to make digital marketing easier are always in high demand and Copy.ai, an AI-powered copywriter, is growing its marketing and product teams.

• If you’re a problem solver who wants to make a difference, join the passionate team of technologists at Hum Capital working to rewire the fundraising landscape.

Who’s Downsizing

• With rising support for marijuana legalization in the U.S. and legal cannabis sales increasing by 40% in 2021, it’s hard to imagine that companies in the cannabis industry would be struggling but companies like Dutchie and Canopy Growth are tightening their financial belts. Dutchie, a software startup specializing in cannabis e-commerce and point-of-sale systems laid off about 8% of its workforce. Cannabis producer, Canopy Growth, announced they will lay off about 250 employees (about 8% of the workforce) “to realize profitability and power growth”, the company CEO said in a public statement.

• After hiring 1,200 employees in Q1 of 2022, the crypto exchange, Coinbase, has extended a hiring freeze originally announced in mid-May for the foreseeable future. Coinbase isn’t the only company in the crypto space pumping the brakes. Gemini announced that approximately 10% of its positions will be eliminated and Robinhood has laid off 9% of its workforce. The good news is that smaller crypto and Web3 projects will have less competition from power players in the space when it comes to hiring top talent.

Recent Raises

• Edge, a nine-month-old L.A.-based startup that is building a payments platform to solve problems and service businesses labeled and grouped as “high-risk” has raised its $2.4M pre-seed led by Long Journey Ventures.

• “If Uber and Southwest Airlines had a baby,” you’d get Kolors. The smart bus platform connecting riders and bus operators in Mexico City has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by UP Partners, with participation from Toyota Ventures, plus a handful of others.

• The Bay Area-based platform LaunchNotes raised $15 million with the intention of using the funds to expand from simply connecting teams and users to the product development lifecycle to a full platform for product success.

• The cybersecurity startup for hybrid & remote workers, Perimeter 81, has just raised $100 million and has made a “five-fold jump in valuation” led by B Capital; ION Crossover Ventures, and previous investor Insight Partners, allowing it to create a “one-stop-shop for corporate network security.”

• Edtech unicorn Guild Education raised a $175 million Series F in response to continuing labor market demands, bringing it to a total of $553.5 million raised. This Denver startup educates and upskills workers for large partners.

Other News

Come on, give me some of your TOTs.

No way man, Amazon took ‘em all. Ugh…

Internal documents were filed with the National Labor Relations Board earlier this year by the high-profile law firm that represents Amazon. The documents were filed as part of a dispute between Amazon and a warehouse associate at the recently-unionized Amazon warehouse in Staten Island called JFK8.

Amazon is known to punish warehouse employees that are believed to be wasting time and these new details give some insight into how Amazon actually tracks and records every single minute of an employee’s time as well as how corrective action and termination is administered.

Using the radio-frequency handheld scanners used to track customer packages, all warehouse associates’ time-off-task (TOT) is surveilled and questioned and then adjusted or disciplined accordingly. Some Amazon warehouse associates that were interviewed stated that they aren’t always clear on how much TOT they’ve accumulated and that they skip water and bathroom breaks for fear of being written up or fired.

Read the full Motherboard Tech by Vice story here.

Reads + Listens

Marcus Sawyerr is building a community that empowers diverse people to get to the next level in their professional careers. His company, EQ Community, is a private group cultivating connections, community, and careers for multicultural professionals interested in tech. Listen in to our conversation with Marcus to learn about his founder’s journey and the great things he’s doing to elevate diversity in hiring and recruiting practices.

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