Zillow Lays off 25% of it Workforce

Rich Barton, the CEO of Zillow recently wrote a post entitled “Difficult Times, Difficult Decisions“. In it he says:

This week we are reducing our workforce by 25%.  This was an incredibly painful decision for me and the leadership team, but, in the end, we concluded that we had no choice but to securely batten down the hatches as we sail into a major economic storm. 

The unprecedented economic events that are playing out on a global stage began in our own industry and have made a prolonged recession likely, in our judgment.  We are a young company that is not yet making a profit.  Despite having sizeable cash reserves, we deemed the responsible course was to meaningfully reduce expenses, so that Zillow emerges from the other side of the recession in a very strong position, even if the recession lasts many years. ….. Fear, value-shopping, and curiosity are driving people in record volumes to our site.  The fact that we have never spent any money on advertising gives me tremendous confidence in our consumer-centric product vision and in the long-term leverage in our business model (free, open access funded by targeted, relevant advertising).