Yuga Labs Is Getting Back To Its Roots After Garga Announced Layoffs This Morning
It was a somber day around the swamp after Yuga Labs CEO Garga announced that the company would be letting some of its employees go as they work to return to their roots and get BAYC back to basics.
On Friday, Garga took to Twitter with a lengthy post and a screenshotted email announcing that Yuga Labs would be laying off some of its employees.
“Gm, really tough day today,” he wrote. “I am hellbent on transforming yuga and getting us back to our roots, and that means making hard decisions. by far the hardest is saying goodbye to some talented team members. here was my message to the team this morning.”
In his email to employees, Garga explained that Yuga Labs had lost its way and that these layoffs would help the company reestablish itself as a place that does 'fewer things but does them brilliantly.'
“I owe everyone a frank and honest explanation of what led to this decision,” Garga wrote in the email he shared online. “To put it simply: Yuga- lost its way. Getting ourselves centered and on the right path means being a smaller, more agile and cryptonative team. A team that does fewer things but does them brilliantly. I've had to take real stock of where the company is at while at the helm these last two months. The creative-first spirit that drove this company from inception has been getting muddied by labyrinthine corporate processes. We work hard and we care but somehow end up with groups and committees. We plan more than we ship. Yuga was about a dozen people when someone knocked on the door with a massive valuation. The ethos back then was just: ship only stuff that delights you but also do it like your butt's on fire. We had our share of luck and moments of brilliance, but in a lot of ways we were playing the game on easy mode: Creator royalties were thriving and made our whole ecosystem electric. Now we're in hard mode. Yuga is going from zero to one again, and we can't pretend otherwise. But I have a plan to put us back on top, and we have an incredible community that has our back. Part of that plan has started to roll out, such as the spinout of HV-MTL and Legends of the Mara, which enables us to focus our gaming efforts on 3D Otherside. Other aspects of the plan will be announced soon. And to be clear, some things are still taking shape. In the history of Yuga, our biggest home runs are things that went from a glimmer in our eye to shipped in under 3 months.”
Following Garga’s announcement this morning, Yuga Labs Co-Founder Gordon Goner took to Twitter and talked about the move and thanked Garga for his leadership.
“This is a hard day,” Goner wrote. “Some of the people let go today were very close to me, some I have known for over a decade. I want them to succeed as much as I want Yuga to succeed. To say Yuga’s decision was difficult is putting it lightly, but I know that if we’re going to get back to our roots, back to the agile company we were in our first year, that hard decisions like these are necessary. Thank you for all your dedicated time with us and thank you @cryptogarga for your unwavering leadership.”
The Bored Ape Gazette will continue to follow Yuga Labs' efforts to return to its roots and will let you know when Garga and Yuga Labs announce the next phase of their plan to get Apes back on top. Stay tuned for updates.
