Tough times, hard decisions.

Does this mean you will be more modest about bragging on your own personal wealth? I can’t count the times you’ve shot your mouth off about high-dollar sports cars and opulent dinners. Will firing some of the people who have helped create your wealth make you a bit more moderate in your posturing?

This is never an easy decision and this economy is forcing so many to do just as you are. It’s smar thinking to act early – proactive vs. reactive. I wish all all the best in this troubling time.

You should also mention that Mahalo’s daily video show, “Mahalo
Daily” will be going from five days a week to three. It’s unfortunate
but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Wow, I wish the MD at my last place when he made half of our
dev and support departments redundant (including me) was that
honest and sincere when he told us of the cuts.

sorry to hear about this. 10% of a co is a decent sized layoff.

I should add a week after telling us they were advertising for
staff in the BK office, which apparently was totally inconnected.
Lose 100 staff in UK, employ 100 in BK to do job cheaper.

Very well put Jason – it’s a smart move.

But OMG!! Does this mean you won’t be buying the 2nd Tesla.

My thoughts are with your staff today. You have attracted an
amazing group of talent at Mahalo. Doing the tough things in
a tight economy is never easy.

[...] a post on his blog, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis has announced that his human powered search engine has laid [...]

Cutting people is never fun, but this is a great example of being proactive instead of reactive

Don’t cut This Week in YouTube please

[...] Jason Calacanis’ website: We’ve laid off a just under 10% of our full-time staff, cut our overhead by doing smart things [...]

This post must have been very tough to write. I admire your
transparency and honesty. My thoughts are with the talented people
you are laying off, opportunities tend to pop in the middle of
the storms, let us hope their talent lead them to a safe harbor.

it’s “dry powder”, not “dry power”.

As always – a class act. I think it will be much worse, though simultaneously I think there is nothing but opportunity now… I’m hearing a lot of things about wind, shelter and windmills these days.

I’m sorry to hear that. You have good people in your company. Couldn’t have been easy to let any of them go.

Nice to see you take personal responsibility. Unfortunate that it has to happen, but well done.

[...] Calacanis Blog October 22, 2008 | jason | tinyComb  [...]

[...] Could Mahalo, his so-called “human-powered search engine,” be one of them? He has laid off 13 of the humans who power Mahalo, with plans to rehire some of them offshore in the Philippines. [...]

Although yes web ads will be depressed for 18 months I did find a
service infrastructure play directly related to web 2.0..

AND I GOT MY FIRST CLIENT..:)

While ads will be down..
Overall outlook is not extremely bad or
extremely bleak.

But I had to make some hard choices
as well.. no full time hiring for awhile and etc.

I hope Taurus is well after eye surgery and take care Jason.
yes still pushing to be a Tech Crunch50-2009 applicant.

hey Jason,

can you elaborate on how you made over $10 M in revenue based on advertising alone?

What a difference between Jason’s letter and Jerry’s letter.

This doesn’t add up – at least to this uninformed outsider.

It’s almost 2009. You added a year of runway, through 2012, which means you had 3 years and now have 4 years. I.e., you made a 10% cut in staff, plus some other cuts, but you reaped a 33% gain in runway.

That’s a pretty big discrepancy. It could be explained if you’d cut people with disproportionately high salaries, or you made really big cuts elsewhere. But you also say you’ve hired (or are hiring) freelancers and their salaries are presumably part of your runway calculation.

Of course there’s no need to explain, but the high-level numbers you’ve given don’t make sense.

[...] CEO Jason Calacanis blogged (ironically given that he publicly quit blogging) that the decision was due to the economic crisis [...]

[...] Hey Jason, maybe you shouldn’t have changed coast allegiances! [...]

[...] Tech entrepreneur Jason Calacanis announced today that his “people-powerd search engine” Mahalo has laid off slightly less than 10 percent its staff. [...]

[...] on the back of this, Jason Calacanis broke the news that Mahalo culled just under 10% of it’s staff too – saying that although there is plenty of [...]

[...] back from a business trip to Europe and Asia, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis has decided to make some cuts, firing nearly 10% of the staff and has started to rent out space to other startups. From what we [...]

[...] back from a business trip to Europe and Asia, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis has decided to make some cuts, firing nearly 10% of the staff and has started to rent out space to other startups. From what we [...]

what happened to not blogging anymore?

Who is the contact person for renting out desks?

$3000 coffee machine..(ahhh… life at Mahalo)

http://calacanis.com/2007/08/16/life-at-mahalo/

[...] viene otro invierno de Internet como lo llama Jason Calacanis. Y está siendo cuantificado en Techcrunch. Por ahora los dos grandes que despidieron gente fueron [...]

Sorry to hear also – classy to own up to it – keep up the great work.

[...] Mahalo, his “people-powered search” startup — and took the extraordinary step of returning to blogging momentarily to announce the news, after having made a big show of turning his back on it. In [...]

Jason,

Hard choice, only one that could be made. Thank you for being a man and taking it.

Michael Kassing
MarkTend.com

I think it’s smart to start battening down the hatches,
I think we’re all preparing for a long cold winter. Have you all
already noticed a drop in ad revenue?

Not gonna tell you Great job or sorry that this is happening to you as this seems reactionary, almost a knee jerk response.
Whatever you do, don’t even think about trying to make things work just cut the fat. Your employees
families won’t mind. Wonder who gets cut in the 2nd round? Hopefully you told them yourself. Mahalo=epic fail

Some of those laid off can still be used as freelancers.

The relationship does not have to be completely severed

for qualified personnel

[...] evening Jason Calacanis sent out an email to the people subscribed explaining Mahalo’s layoffs. Erick Schonfeld from TechCrunch decided to republish the email even though it states not to twice [...]

[...] Calacanis wrote today about Tough times, hard decisions. He expanded the subject on his mailing list and was republished by TechCrunch. This entry was [...]

Mahalo is looking great!! You mentioned 6 offices in Santa Monica. Why are things decntralized?

[...] Leider darf man es nicht auf dem Web veröffentlichen, aber ich werde es gerne forwarden, wenn ihr mir an info(ät)SwissStartups.com schreibt. Ein kleine Zusammenfassung könnt ihr auch hier lesen. [...]

[...] Jason Calacanis is upfront about tough times at Mahalo [...]

[...] a tough market land a job, and most companies are starting to layoff people. That said there are opportunities still available and many open positions. This post is about [...]

[...] Jason’s Blog [...]

[...] Wrote Calacanis, in part: Although we’ve got a significant amount of cash on hand, and the business is ahead of schedule in terms of traffic (4m uniques a month, double where we thought we would be at this point), we’re fairly certain that the advertising climate for the next two years will be severely depressed. To ignore this obvious fact would be irresponsible…While I anticipated and prepared for the ‘internet winter’ we’re now facing (you’ve read my posts and e-mails about the startup depression I’m sure), I failed to realize how bad the situation would get. It’s much worse than I thought it would be, and ignoring market conditions today would only mean deeper cuts down the road.” [...]

[...] Calacanis.com // [...]

You guys obviously don’t pay attention to the roller coaster ride of antics and lying that surrounds Jason. It’s to bad about the people that had to be let go, but Jason is a tool and these people are better off not working for him.

[...] founded startup, has laid off 10% of its staff according to a blog post made by Calacanis on his once abandoned blog. Jason has said that:We’ve laid off a just under 10% of our full-time staff, cut our overhead by [...]

[...] 10% of their staff. Mahalo’s CEO, Jason Calcanis, previous co-founder of Weblogs, Inc., made a blog about this move. He defended that the company has sufficient amount of funding and is ahead of its [...]

[...] Jason Calacanis is upfront about tough times at Mahalo [...]

jdawg,

may i suggest the notion that inflation, not deflation, is
the real concern. this means currency devaluation is the
story. i know it is not what we have seen thus far, but i do
believe strongly inflation is coming, just like we have seen
it up until 2008, next wave will be even more painful.
check the book “crash proof” by peter schiff.

more importantly, don’t forget that 9/11 was an inside job.
the real “lesson” of this downturn is that you can’t live
in a society where stuff like that happens and think that
you will be safe if you don’t say anything about it. as
we are in the midst of learning and will continue the learn,
the safer thing to resist tyranny, not submit to it.

[...] to go through a layoff of 10 percent of his staff earlier today. After repeating the text of his blog post announcing the layoffs, he offers some advice for other entrepreneurs on how to do it right. The [...]

Saying that a rapidly growing industry will suddenly become “severely depressed” for two years is one thing, but to call it “an obvious fact” is just entirely baseless and laughable.

[...] and Arrington are up to their old tricks. Summary: Jason publishes blog post announcing layoffs at Mahalo. (I thought he wasn’t blogging anymore)? Techcrunch (Arrington) [...]

[...] Calacanis, CEO of Mahalo, a human-powered search engine, announced today that he was forced to layoff 10 percent of his staff (about five or six people) amid a [...]

[...] Jason Calacanis, “Tough times, hard decisions”, Calacanis.com, October 22, 2008, Nicholas Carlson, “Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo Fires People”, Silicon Alley Insider, [...]

I don’t get it. Shouldn’t companies invest in online advertisi in the g m
more because it’s cheaper? Do they expect to stop selling in the next two years?

[...] the material is fair game, and besides, it’s a news item, not to mention Calacanis publicly posted a much shorter version of the story on his [...]

The hard decision in this case
for you as the CEO is to stand in front of your investors and
to say we will not cut 10%, we will reduce salaries by 5%.
Why, as you wrote in the header “tough time”, in tough times
managers needs to be more human (you wrote
“we’ve got a significant amount of cash on hand,”)
and to try to help other workers to X the ocean.
I’m not saying not to cut workforce, but in this case
a small company with enough cash, company that operates like
a small unit/family, you have the option to cut salaries
instead. this is the hard decision.

Jason, I respect your candor, concern for your colleagues,
your honesty. It’s refreshing. Don’t see that much anymore

[...] In a blog post Jason Calacanis, the CEO of Mahalo, writes: Although we’ve got a significant amount of cash on hand, and the business is ahead of schedule in terms of traffic (4m uniques a month, double where we thought we would be at this point), we’re fairly certain that the advertising climate for the next two years will be severely depressed. To ignore this obvious fact would be irresponsible. [...]

[...] In a blog post Jason Calacanis, the CEO of Mahalo, writes: Although we’ve got a significant amount of cash on hand, and the business is ahead of schedule in terms of traffic (4m uniques a month, double where we thought we would be at this point), we’re fairly certain that the advertising climate for the next two years will be severely depressed. To ignore this obvious fact would be irresponsible. [...]

[...] Reading Tough times, hard decisions [...]

[...] me this really shows the global economic crisis has reached the tech industry. I’m aware the Mahalo had to a couple of weeks ago, but for me – it’s only just hit home. We’ve had a number of great successes here at [...]

[...] Il y a un mois, Jason Calacanis (Mahalo, entre autres), envoyait un long mail sur les raisons du licenciement en cours chez Mahalo. Le billet avait fait quelques échos, mais le ton de Calacanis restait mesuré. (version raccourcie du mail sur son blog) [...]

[...] Il y a un mois, Jason Calacanis (Mahalo, entre autres), envoyait un long mail sur les raisons du licenciement en cours chez Mahalo. Le billet avait fait quelques échos, mais le ton de Calacanis restait mesuré. (version raccourcie du mail sur son blog) [...]

[...] the time, Calacanis stated, “It’s my responsibility to make this hard decision and I don’t take it [...]

[...] ‘Tough times, hard decisions’ (Jason Calcanis) [...]

[...] Meanwhile Reevoo has put 7 of its 31 staff on notice. While no-one has been laid off yet, I fear they are not far away. Already this year high profile start-ups like Loic Le Meur’s Seesmic had to let go 7 staff and Jason Calacanis’s Mahalo let go 10% of their staff. [...]

[...] (from News and Observer) •Mahalo – “just under” 10% of staff.  (more from Calcanis.com) •Palm – after poor results an unspecified number of jobs, expected to be large, are [...]

[...] be a fine place to shop for the kind of top notch geek talent that has lost jobs at eBay, Google, Mahalo, Real Networks, CareerBuilder.com (oh, the [...]

[...] Calacanis.com: Tough times, hard decisions [...]

Good to know Huston was popular. ,