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Flexport founder Ryan Petersen said in September \u2014 in the wake of his hand-picked CEO\u2019s sudden departure \u2014 that the logistics company needed to get its house in order.<\/p>\n
It started with Petersen rescinding dozens of employment offers<\/a> and looking to lease out the company\u2019s office space as it looks to get costs under control. Now, the company is laying off 20% of its workers, or about 600 people. The layoffs, which began October 13, are the latest drama to ripple through the company since Dave Clark<\/a> resigned as CEO last month and Petersen, once again, reclaimed the top leadership post.<\/p>\n Petersen said in a blog post<\/a> on the company\u2019s website that he and a leadership team \u201cevaluated every role in the company and its relationship to solving important supply chain problems for our customers. As a result, we are confident that this reduction in force will not impact the customer experience we provide to our customers today.\u201d<\/p>\n Petersen also noted that the company has more than $1 billion in net cash. \u201cFollowing this change, Flexport is now in a great position to take advantage of the opportunities in front of us to return to profitability as soon as the end of next year,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Clark, the former Amazon consumer chief, resigned suddenly in September. At the time, Petersen criticized Clark for overspending \u2014 specifically around hiring and expanding too quickly. It should be noted that Clark\u2019s hiring and big \u201centrepreneurial\u201d vision for Flexport was hardly a secret. Clark was actually co-CEO alongside Petersen his first six months on the job, at least according to Petersen\u2019s own comments<\/a>\u00a0in September 2022. Petersen then stepped into an executive chairman role.<\/p>\n