How Fab Told Its 100 Employees They Were Being Laid Off

Despite raising $150 million, which Fab CEO Jason Goldberg calls the "largest single venture capital investment round in the world in the second quarter of 2013," the e-commerce startup recently laid off more than 100 employees abroad.

Goldberg broke the news to Berlin-based employees in a long, internal memo detailing why the move made sense from a business standpoint, and which departments would be spared. He, his co-founder Bradford, and other Fab executives were there in person to deliver the news as well.

In sum: "We’re doing this because simply it’s smart business," Goldberg wrote. "Centralized operations are the most efficient and will enable us to exceed customer expectations on a global scale."

Bloomberg's Sarah Frier has published the memo in its entirety, here.

Here's the most interesting bit, below, highlighting the exact moves Fab made to create a more efficient business.

• 6 individuals from the Berlin team have been asked to move to New York.
• Fab DBY will remain in Berlin and we will be growing the Fab DBY team. We have 35 people in DBY now and we plan to have 70 by end of year. We will be opening more DBY showrooms and we are investing in DBY.
• 15 individuals from the Fab Berlin team have been asked to stay on permanently in Berlin. Some will move to Fab DBY. Others will continue to support our Fab European sales.
• A handful of people are being asked to move to Eindhoven, where we will manage all of our European logistics.
• We are asking many of the CrackerJacks to stay until the end of the year. During that time we will evaluate where in the world it makes the most sense for Fab to run global customer service around-the-clock.
• Unfortunately, we will be eliminating more than 100 positions in our Berlin office due to redundancies.
• Everyone whose jobs have been made redundant will be given generous severance packages. We will also make efforts to help everyone with their job search.
• Some of the people whose jobs are redundant will have their last day be today. After this meeting they will learn about their severance package.
• Some of the people whose jobs are redundant will be offered the opportunity to work for a few more months with Fab, in exchange for an added bonus in addition to the severance.
• As noted, we have a number of openings at Fab DBY. If you are interested in applying we encourage you to do so.