Cloud storage giant Dropbox, with headquarters in San Francisco, California, announced on Thursday that it is laying off 500 employees, or 16% of its workforce, due to slowing growth. Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox, informed that the decision comes with the natural maturation of their existing businesses and the economic downturn due to Covid-19. In January 2021, Dropbox had already laid off 315 employees, and now additional 500 employees are impacted.
Houston stated that the business is still profitable, and he takes full ownership of this decision. Nonetheless, the 500 laid-off employees will receive a package equal to 16 weeks of pay, one additional week of pay for each completed year of tenure at Dropbox, and six months of COBRA in the US. They are eligible to keep company devices such as laptops, phones, tablets, and peripheral accessories for personal use. Moreover, they will receive their Q2 equity vest, and Houston confirmed that the company will provide Mental Health support by Modern Heath.
Drew Houston is the co-founder and CEO of Dropbox since 2007, when the company started offering its service to the public. Their fundamental concept is to store data and files online, in a secure way, as an alternative to conventional storage devices or physical servers. Since then, Dropbox have been growing everyday by adding more features and services, becoming a leading cloud storage platform, where individuals and companies can store, sync, share, and access their data.
