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Etsy Announces Its CEO Is Stepping Down; Plans To Cut 8% of Workforce (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new dept.

Etsy is saying goodbye to CEO Chad Dickerson and CTO John Allspaw, and hello to former Skype and Evite CEO Josh Silverman and VP of Engineering Mike Brittain. "The Board decided that it was time for new leadership to take Etsy forward and I support that decision," Dickerson said in the announcement, later adding, "I have the greatest degree of confidence in the long-term growth opportunities for Etsy under Josh's leadership." The press release also outlined plans to "eliminate approximately 80 positions, which is approximately 8% of the total workforce." TechCrunch reports: Dickerson (as well as Allspaw) will remain at Etsy in an advisory role until the end of May. He first joined the craft marketplace as CTO in 2008, then became CEO three years later -- he held the role when Etsy went public in 2015. He'll also be stepping down as chair of the company's board of directors, with Fred Wilson taking his place. When it went public, Etsy stock was initially priced at $16 per share and rose to nearly $35 on the first day of trading, but it was down at $11.39 per share at market close today. Hedge fund Black-and-White Capital LP is urging the company to explore strategic alternatives, including a possible sale.

34 comments

  1. What? Who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What's an Etsy and why should i care?

    1. Re:What? Who? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

      I had to google it: after doing so I still don't care.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    2. Re:What? Who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I saw an Etsy at the zoo once - I think they bite

    3. Re:What? Who? by Hadlock · · Score: 2

      It's pretty popular in the 25-35 crowd, especially women. Sort of an online crafts market. My girlfriend has bought jewlery, a cat "house", I bought some walnut building blocks as a toy gift for someone. It's like an upscale Cafe Press. Halfway between.. .Craigslist and Ebay I suppose? There's a place for it on the ecommerce spectrum for sure.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    4. Re:What? Who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a store front as a service. Basically, if you want to start your own business without spending a year learning how to setup an online store and spending $$$ on lawyers to figure out how to charge taxes and the like, you create an account on Etsy. All you need to do is list your product and ship your orders. It's extremely convenient for hobbyists and non-VC backed startups who ship products. Etsy takes a small cut of your sales and/or a small fee every time you list an item (not sure, I only buy things from them).

      You can sell things you've created, so you don't have to deal with creating new products in Amazon and you have a better maintained storefront with no auctions, so eBay isn't an exact replacement.

    5. Re:What? Who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's a Cafe Press?

    6. Re:What? Who? by barc0001 · · Score: 2

      Careful with that edge there, you might nick yourself by accident....

      Etsy is basically a marketplace for people to sell stuff they make themselves. Jewelry, clothing items, house knickknacks, 3d printed items and similar seem to be the more popular. A friend of a friend has a storefront on there and makes about $3000 a month in profit selling necklaces and various accessories through it so it's got some traction.

    7. Re:What? Who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a great place to buy brass casings for manufacturing your own ammunition.

      I think they have some artsy crap too.

    8. Re:What? Who? by Khyber · · Score: 1

      Etsy fee is Twenty Cents per listing for a 4-month listing period.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    9. Re: What? Who? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      I used to know but its relevance was such that I was happy to forgot... sounds awfully similar to "echi" which means "perverted" in Japanese.

    10. Re: What? Who? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Your best post ever. :)

    11. Re: What? Who? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      A friend of a friend has a storefront on there and makes about $3000 a month

      My guess is that either A) you're a shill or B} your friend has to resell $4000/month worth of slave labor from Alibaba to hit those numbers...

    12. Re: What? Who? by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      Well you guess is wrong. Check my post history and you'll plainly see I couldn't give two shits about Etsy either way. Was just trying to answer someone's question seeing as a lot of people on this site, especially the 7 digit members, had few clues but lots of snark.

      As for the "slave labor" bit, who knows. I did say friend *of a friend*, so I've never spoken with her directly but my friend alluded to her creating at least some of what is sold herself. Regardless, I don't really care.

  2. Ok, I'll ask by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What the hell is etsy?

  3. Hijo de verga. by rmdingler · · Score: 1
    Etsy is saying goodbye to CEO Chad Dickerson.

    Tough day to be a Dickerson

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  4. Shocking! by mattyj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The most surprising thing here is that 80 people only comprise about 8% of the workforce. I figured 80 people would be a surplus. What he hell are all those people doing? I realize that websites don't run themselves, but Etsy should mostly be robots, eh? Yeowch.

    1. Re:Shocking! by vlad30 · · Score: 0

      What essentially is a clone of ebay or early amazon where people with no web skills can sell their product to other people and they act as the middleman again a little due diligence by stock holders and a few less expenses by the CEO, those 80 workers even at low estimate of 30k average represent 2.4 million in wages (anually) and oncosts which would have been the difference between profit and loss

      --
      Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
    2. Re:Shocking! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably 3-4 engineers, and 75-76 management leeches.

      I'm sure the engineers were let go as part of the 8%, and will be outsourced.

    3. Re:Shocking! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes I find this puzzling. If I'm reading it right they make about $100m in revenue and no profit. The company I work for must have a similar level of operations, a more complex product, technically, half the revenue, and 40 employees, 13 of them doing dev and ops.

      No wonder Etsy don't make a profit. 1000 people? What can they all be doing? I'm genuinely interested to know.

    4. Re:Shocking! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This has been a common problem ever since the first dotcom boom of the 90s. Companies with 1000 employees when 100 would be more than enough to run the business.

    5. Re:Shocking! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, but I'm still interested to know what those people are doing. Each person must have been hired with the view to doing something useful, and each person working must believe in some way that their job is of use.

    6. Re:Shocking! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Project Management. Meetings about meetings. Reports about reports. Churn some paper, kill some trees.

    7. Re:Shocking! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's the other way around. They have tons and tons of engineers, far too many to run an ecommerce site.

    8. Re:Shocking! by istartedi · · Score: 1

      A lot of these companies seem to have way more people than they need. Craigslist has about 40 according to their current FAQ. Etsy just cut two Craigslists worth of people who are way less productive than CL.

      Of course CL hasn't changed its UI in ages; but that's a good thing. As somebody who used to enjoy Yahoo and Flickr, I find myself wishing they'd just revert all the changes in the past 10 years and fire the people who made them. CL doesn't have to do that, because they never hired dead weight in the first place.

      See also, Slashdot beta. Slashdot seems noteworthy as the site that actually managed to come down with this disease and recover. Most sites just stay sick. Some go into a permanent vegetative state, like Digg. I guess some have been outright killed by this disease too; but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  5. News for nerds by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    News for nerds, indeed. Finance nerds, to be precise.

  6. Not Suprised Since Many Artists Got Kicked Out by mallyn · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Frankly, I am not suprised.

    I have heard that they kicked out many struggling artists and craft people from their merchant roles and favor those who are resellers.

    Apparently Etsy has been inconsistent in enforcing their terms of service and end up kicking out small artists and letting the larger sellers get away with rule violations.

    Some friends later tell me that being kicked out of Etsy has been the best thing that has happened to them because they were forced to go out on their own. Going out on their own ended up saving them the 10 to 12 percent commission that Etsy charges and freeing them from Etsy's capricious rule enforcement habits.

    If you are an Etsy merchant, get your own setup going - get yourself a merchant account so that you can accept plastic on your own. Get your own website. Learn to market using social media on your own. Then if Etsy kicks you out, you have nothing to lose.

    It would be interesting to find out if those being laid off are the ones that are capriciously enforcing the rules and randomly kicking out artists.

    --
    Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
    1. Re:Not Suprised Since Many Artists Got Kicked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I certainly wouldn't argue against setting yourself up to be less reliant on a single platform, but I'm not sure that going it alone is 'the best thing that could happen' to many users; social media marketing is just putting a different party between you and your potential customers which is going to want your money just for eyeballs instead of sales, being part of a marketplace increases your products exposure to casual browsers which is important if you're not already an established business and/or what your selling isn't something you'll be able to easily get exposure to customers through search engines (if you sell something which doesn't have a clearly and well known name for example).

  7. Why float? by ThirdPrize · · Score: 1

    You just take the emphasis away from doing what you do best to making money. And you are no longer in control of your own future. Crazy.

    --
    I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
  8. Cutting more than workforce by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the thing is, people don't have money.
    So less stuff moves.
    seems a simple math equation -- so far.
    I hope they keep it operating successfully!
    Even if it is small.

    I mean where else can I find an awesome groovy vintage 1970's copco red plastic spice rack?
    Twice the price in yellow on ebay.

  9. Difference. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Craigslist is for selling junk you bought. Etsy is for selling junk you made.

  10. Exactly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All they need is two employees: a web guy and an IT guy. Accounting can be outsourced on spec to the Saul the Jew down the street, and Maria can do cleanup at night.

    1. Re:Exactly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You need one more employee to waste time making racist comments on Slashdot.

  11. Etsy has a workforce? by hackel · · Score: 0

    I figured it was just run by a few people. This is surprising.