Artificial intelligence company SoundHound has laid off half of its employees. The reason for this, according to its CEO, the current macroeconomic conditions.
SoundHound, a company that once wanted to compete with Amazon and Google’s dominance of the AI voice market, has reportedly laid off half of its payroll. The company parted ways with about 200 employees last week as part of a massive restructuring, according to Gizmodo. If the information is correct, this mass layoff will be the second layoff in less than a year. In November, the company laid off 10% of its employees. Before the first wave, SoundHound employed about 450 people.
SoundHound, the voice AI company, would lay off half of its employees
Three former employees spoke to Gizmodo about a “dismal”severance package dependent on the company’s fundraising. They claim that the package did not include health insurance and only two weeks’ severance pay. SoundHound went public through a specialty acquisition firm in early 2022. She has raised over $300 million to date, according to CrunchBase. SoundHound’s clients include Pandora, Mercedes-Benz and Snap.
The reason for this, according to its CEO, the current macroeconomic conditions
In an email obtained by Gizmodo, SoundHound CEO and co-founder Keyvan Mohajer blames the layoffs on current macroeconomic conditions. “When we launched the IPO operation in early 2021, high-tech companies like SoundHound were very popular with the investment community. Companies that could have high growth rates despite high costs were seen as the engines of the economy of the future,” he wrote. “However, as a result of rapidly changing economic conditions, including high interest rates, rising inflation and fear of a recession, businesses like ours have become far less desirable.
Waves of layoffs have become common among tech companies in recent months. In early November, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, laid off about 13% of its payroll, causing more than 11,000 people to lose their jobs. Most recently, Amazon extended layoffs to cover more than 18,000 employees.