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

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.

Comments

What? Who?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's an Etsy and why should i care?

Re:What? Who?

[BarbaraHudson]

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

Re:What? Who?

[Hadlock]

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.

Re:What? Who?

[barc0001]

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.

Shocking!

[mattyj]

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.

Not Suprised Since Many Artists Got Kicked Out

[mallyn]

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.