Team,
I am writing to share a difficult and painful decision that we have made to part ways with 22 teammates at Magic Eden today as part of a company-wide restructuring. This letter will outline why we made this decision, how we are going to treat these individuals with care and respect, and how we intend to move forward.
Why is Magic Eden restructuring?
Just fifteen months ago, we were searching for product-market fit on Solana. Since then, our business has grown significantly and the nature of our challenges has evolved. Our focus areas for 2023 include growing traction across chains, developing services for NFT creators, and exploring new use cases like rewards and social experiences. As we established these priorities for the year, we had to take a hard look at what structure and roles are needed. To be clear-eyed, addressing our strategic goals requires making changes to our team. In order to reach our goals, our team must encompass certain types of new skills and expertise without losing momentum.
How are we taking care of the impacted individuals?
We are deeply grateful to each and every person impacted. Their unique contributions have helped make Magic Eden what it is today. They have supported us through challenges and dedicated their time and efforts to help Magic Eden get from 0 to 1. This decision takes nothing away from their talent, commitment, and hard work. We plan to honor these folks and their contributions with the utmost care and consideration. At the time of this writing, we have already informed each individual via dedicated calls.
To help these individuals land on their feet as smoothly as possible, we will offer two months’ severance, remove the 1-year vesting cliff and extend the exercise period to 1 year, provide healthcare for another 6 months and a year’s subscription to Headspace, and set up complimentary career coaching and job placement services. All employees will also be able to keep their laptops. We acknowledge that most people use their company laptops for personal reasons, too, and it is therefore important to have as they are looking for their next role.
How do we move forward?
Today is a sad day for everyone at Magic Eden. I recognize the team will need time to process this change and may surface questions about what led us here and what's ahead. This week, we will focus our energy on helping the people who are transitioning from Magic Eden. Next week, we will reset and move forward.
To our broader team, the company remains strongly capitalized with a long runway even in today’s bear market. Many of our products are entering new stages of growth and we will make it our utmost priority to support these products with the strongest teams.
We will be sharing forums for discussion at an all hands meeting later today, team-specific meetings throughout the week, and Founder AMAs towards the end of this week. Days like this are extremely difficult, and I hope we can all be kind to ourselves and to one another.
Speak soon,
Jack
