

Path Axes 20 Percent Of Staff In A ‘Realigning Of The Company’ - capkutay
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/15/path-axes-20-percent-of-staff-in-a-realignment-of-the-company/

======
Steko
_Path laid off 13 staffers today, axing 20 percent of its workforce...

Path founder and CEO Dave Morin, who celebrated his 33rd birthday yesterday,
has not responded to requests for comment._

Cmon Techcrunch, you should know that Path dude never answers his phone, it
puts him on defense.

~~~
amirmc
Some context for those who don't know the reference.

> _" I don’t use a ring of any kind on my phone. This is so that I am always
> on offense and never defense."_ [1]

[1] [http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/my-phone/2013/03/dave-
mori...](http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/my-phone/2013/03/dave-morin-path-
facebook-apple)

~~~
dannyr
I wonder which phone Techcrunch called.

They might have called his night phone this morning.

~~~
adamnemecek
I'm surprised that so many people remember this.

~~~
malandrew
It was recently mentioned in another thread in the past few days so it is
fresh in the minds of some.

------
trimbo
Was Matt Van Horn one of them?

[Context: [http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/04/silicon-valley-
brog...](http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/04/silicon-valley-brogrammer-
culture-sexist-sxsw)]

~~~
dcpdx
No wonder Path and Klout are both laughingstocks in the Valley...

------
meritt
I wonder how many of those guys had job offers in their inbox before they had
their exit interview.

~~~
jfb
Is Path particularly well-regarded?

~~~
meritt
Not necessarily. But Silicon Valley engineers with startup experience who just
lost their job and are likely to accept lowball offers so they can continue to
pay their hyper-inflated apartment leases, those people are highly sought
after.

~~~
debt
Ha. Actually engineers in general are sought after out here simply because
there's a shortage; which is likely due to the fact that outsiders hold your
viewpoint.

NOT EVERYONE WHO MOVES TO THE BAY AREA LIVES OR NEEDS TO LIVE IN SAN
FRANCISCO. THERE ARE A PLETHORA OF OPTIONS.

Look at a map, jeesh.

------
capkutay
I think this is interesting because this may represent a pullback in the
social/mobile consumer space from an investment standpoint. Path is a VC
darling given that it raised over $40 million from the likes of KPCB (a firm
that also mentioned a direction change[0]). Anyone talking about a SV bubble
should consider that some companies with tremendous momentum are scaling back
a little bit. It could be a healthy pull back.

0:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540362](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540362)

~~~
wellboy
It all comes back to you if you try screwing over the market, the market sees
everything.

I love the market.

~~~
jbooth
Consider that the people who made the biggest, shittiest decisions here made
way more money while doing so than you did during the same period, most
likely.

~~~
wellboy
What do you mean by them having made more money than me?

As far as I can see, they have to sell Path for more than $41.2M before they
make more money than $0 and that´s gonna be a tough one. I'm currently a bit
above that number. ;)

~~~
jbooth
They likely paid themselves executive level salaries out of that 41.2M all the
while. If you're doing much better than a high-end developer salary, congrats,
but if you're not, they prob paid themselves more than you.

------
sniddy
"The spokesperson said that Path currently has 20 million users"

Has Path ever released a data point other than total number of registered
users?

~~~
yapcguy
Translation: Path stole 20 million e-mail addresses from iOS and Android
address books and spammed them.

------
stevewilber
Did Path destroy itself with questionable ethics[1] or is there really no way
to compete with Facebook anymore?

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/path-uploads-your-
iphones-a...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/path-uploads-your-iphones-
address-book-to-their-servers-without-a-peep/)

~~~
untog
Path originally touted the idea of having a limited friends group - only your
closest. I thought that actually made sense.

Then they started spamming people in your phone book, completely ruining the
entire point of their original pitch. Now they seem to make money selling
stickers? I'm not sure why any self-respective developer would still be
working there.

------
morewillie
According to their site, they are still hiring for five positions. Maybe it's
just a massive cleansing?

~~~
mikkelewis
or they just haven't updated their website :)

~~~
PLenz
They just fired the person who updates their website

------
wellboy
That's what happens when you realise that it costs more to acquire a user than
you can make money off him/her. There'll probably another layoff in 4 months
and another one and then we have an acquihire, yeah!

Ugh, I tried to like it, but I just dont like Path. If I can think of a vanity
startup with vanity PR, vanity founder, vanity metrics, it's Path. Ugh.

~~~
Andrex
I'm the same. Really tried using and liking path for 6-8 months but I just
couldn't find a use-case outside of using it like Instagram without having to
admit I used Instagram. It's derivative and deliberately-limited for no
perceivable benefit. And since everyone (even Trello!) is adding "stickers"
Path had to hop on the bandwagon too.

------
6thSigma
To people who use Path - why do you use it over Facebook?

~~~
gummadi
Facebook for me is just an address book of all my contacts. I never share
anything personal there due to the number of privacy settings I need to hop
through to make sure I shared with the right people.

Path is just a curated set of close friends with whom I feel free to share
anything. Also when it came out Path mobile app is far better than Facebook.

------
auctiontheory
I cannot tell from their website what this company does. (Other than that it
might be a Facebook clone.)

~~~
lnanek2
That's basically what is. A Facebook clone focusing on mobile. They limit your
number of friends and have a better mobile experience by doing things like
putting things accessible from fewer screens, because mobile users hate multi-
screen flows, etc..

