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Planning and Managing Layoffs
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Planning and Managing Layoffs

David Ulevitch
A16Z, 2020
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8

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David Ulevitch doesn’t purport to be a lawyer or an HR expert, but as a serial start-up entrepreneur, he has suffered the disappointment of having to lay off faultless employees. In this detailed playbook for managing layoffs, Ulevitch empathizes with firms that must let people go in order to survive and with leaders tagged to deliver the bad news. Rightly though, he reserves most of his compassion for affected employees; especially those let go in a time of crisis and few available jobs. 

Take-Aways

  • You’ve exhausted all other options and must lay off your employees; prepare for one of the most difficult days of your career.
  • Make the transition as caring as possible for affected employees while protecting your firm. 
  • Don’t spread layoffs across several days. Do it in one go.

About the Author

David Ulevitch is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he focuses on enterprise and SaaS investments. He is the founder and former CEO of enterprise security company OpenDNS (which Cisco acquired) and founder of EveryDNS, an authoritative domain name service.

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