Valentine's Day Massacre: Fab Confirms 81 Staffers Will Be Axed By Feb. 15
The company sent us this statement:
Out of deference to individuals' privacy we have elected not to comment on individuals. All people affected by our strategic re-alignment were informed that their last day at Fab will be February 15, 2014.
By our count, that should reduce the fashion and design e-commerce firm's headcount to about 359 people - almost half the number of employees it had earlier this year when 700 workers had jobs there.
The company is in the middle of its second "pivot," or strategic change in direction. It began as a gay community site and morphed into a flash sales company, selling email daily deals.
More recently, Fab has tried to become a more traditional e-commerce retailer that holds inventory until it is all sold out.
We also understand that Fab has pulled back on its marketing. It was once one of Facebook's biggest advertising spenders, but our sources say Fab has become much more judicious with its marketing money.
Fab is apparently not going bankrupt, though. Earlier this year, it raised $165 million in new investment this year alone, for a total of $336 million in all venture funding.
Whether CEO Jason Goldberg can turn the company around is an open question. He has lost COO Beth Ferreira, chief product officer David Paltiel, HR head Allison Rutledge-Parisi* and cofounder Bradford Shellhammer from the company recently.
*It was previously reported that HR head Allison Rutledge-Parisi was leaving the company, but Fab tells us that is false:
... while as a company we do not discuss individuals without their consent it is untrue that our head of HR is part of the action taken today; she is still an employee at Fab now and for the foreseeable future.