Amazon-backed creator startup Spotter lays off staffers. Read the memo from its CEO.
BI was unable to determine the exact number of employees affected, but the layoffs impacted teams across the company.
"As the macroeconomic environment continues to evolve, we've made the difficult but strategic decision to implement organizational changes, including a reduction in the size of our team," a spokesperson for Spotter told BI.
The spokesperson said the cuts will help "accelerate our path to profitability by the end of this year."
Spotter is a major player in the creator space. Last year, it attracted funding from Amazon as part of a larger deal to work with Spotter's creator partners. The company's talent pool includes MrBeast, Dude Perfect, and Ryan Trahan. Spotter, which was founded in 2019 and is also backed by SoftBank, built a business buying the rights to license creator content. In March, the company said it had paid out over $950 million to creators.
That month, Spotter hosted a splashy pitch event in New York for creators and advertisers. The company said this week's layoffs did not impact Spotter's advertising sales team.
The cuts mark Spotter's second round of layoffs in the last six months. The company laid off employees in November, a spokesperson previously told The Information.
Spotter is not the only creator content licensing startup to cull staff in the past year. Jellysmack, a competitor that shares Softbank as an investor, made cuts in October amid a restructuring. Some startups focused on creator services have failed to meet growth expectations, industry investors previously told BI.
Spotter also offers AI-powered products to help creators come up with video ideas, titles, and thumbnails. It runs an advertising business connecting brands with creators as well.
Read the email Spotter's CEO Aaron DeBevoise sent to employees this week announcing the job cuts:
Team,
Today, we've made the difficult decision to part ways with some of our teammates. I understand today is challenging - particularly for those impacted.
These changes were thoroughly considered, particularly given recent economic uncertainty and volatility, which have further impacted investors' demand for efficiency and profitability. Despite our success in Q1, it has become clear that in light of the economic environment, we must make targeted changes to accelerate our path to profitability and control our own destiny.
To our impacted teammates: We are so thankful for your contributions which have been critical to advancing our mission to help Creators win.
We have already sent calendar invites to all impacted employees for conversations today where you will learn about next steps. We are committed to supporting these team members as they transition to their next opportunities.
Thank you.
Aaron
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Instagram Says Trial Reels Have Helped Creators Significantly Increase Their Reach
This story was originally published on Social Media Today. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Social Media Today newsletter. Instagram's trial Reels have been available for just on six months now, and IG is keen to get more creators trying out its audience sampling feature, in order to help boost content performance. As you can see in this example sequence, trial Reels are shown to a selection of users who don't follow your profile, which can give you early insight into the likely performance of your Reel. To be clear, trial Reels are not displayed to your followers, either in the main Feed or via the Reels tab. The idea is that this gives you an unbiased assessment of content quality, while also helping you potentially reach a broader audience. Which some have also used as a growth hack of sorts, in that you can get your content in front of a broader audience in the app by only showing your Reels to people who don't follow you. Within that, you can also re-post older posts as trial Reels as well, and some creators have found this to be an effective way to build their audience. Another element to consider. 'Approximately 24 hours after sharing a trial reel, you can view engagement data, such as views, likes, comments and shares. The more trial reels you create, the more insights you'll have to compare against other trial reels and the more understanding you'll have on what might perform best.' You're limited to 20 trial Reels per day, but outside of that, you can test and measure your initial Reels' response, which can then help to inform your content strategy. And for those who are using trial Reels, they have proven effective: 'After trying trial reels, 40% of creators started posting reels more often and of those who did, 80% saw an increase in reels reach from non-followers.' So it can help to guide your thinking on what to post, while you can also easily convert trial Reels into regular posts, which will then be shared with your followers. It could be a valuable tool in your IG strategy, and as Instagram notes, many creators are finding this a valuable tool for audience sampling. And IG clearly wants more creators to try it out. If you are thinking about adopting trial Reels, you need to have a professional account (though IG also says that some creators without a professional account may have access to trial reels as part of ongoing testing). You can activate a trial Reel in the publish element of the Reels upload process. Sign in to access your portfolio
Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Amazon's latest big bet may flop
Science does not understand consciousness; this is an unsolved problem. Consciousness is possible with little to no intelligence, but there is no such thing as intelligence without consciousness. If you don't understand something, can you recreate it? I don't think it is likely to happen. How many neurons does an ant have? According to the University of Arizona News, a desert-harvesting ant species has about 90,000 or so brain cells. How did this question make you feel? Did it make you angry, surprised, or curious? Normally, if we are not under pressure, and there will be no negative outcome, if we are asked something we can't answer, there is no negative emotional reaction to it. Related: Veteran fund manager reboots Palantir stock price target If you are told something incorrect and genuinely understand the truth, you will not react angrily. Let's say someone tells you that the sky is brown. You might get worried about that person's health or question their intentions, but you shouldn't get angry. If a person's belief is questioned, we can expect an adverse reaction, especially if the belief is important and the argument against it is convincing. Sometimes we mix up what we know and think we know, but it is still a belief we have. When I first heard of Amazon's (AMZN) "Just Walk Out" system, I immediately saw the scene from a Silicon Valley TV show in which Jared hired a "click farm" in India to generate fake user activity for his company's website. I was convinced this Amazon system was a huge number of Indians doing the work and not an "AI." It turned out I was right. A lot of companies have been put into a tough spot by the tariff war. Amazon is no exception, and CEO Andy Jassy tried to explain how he plans to handle the situation during the company's first-quarter earnings call. "It's hard to tell what's going to happen with tariffs right now. It's hard to tell where they're going to settle and when they're going to settle. And so, a lot of what we're thinking about short and medium term actually turns out to be what we think about long-term too, which is, how do we actually have the broadest possible selection for customers at the lowest possible prices?" stated Jassy. Related: Samsung Galaxy phones add creepy AI feature It seems that the real answer is to create savings in Amazon's logistics. The company recently introduced a Vulcan robot, which, from what I've seen, is an advanced packing machine. Amazon calls it a robot because it sounds so much cooler. It is a good machine, and it probably saves the company a lot of money. After all, it can work for 20 hours straight without stopping. But it is not a robot replacing humans. It is a machine that helps them waste less time. Recently, an AI tech startup, Builder AI, backed by Microsoft, went bankrupt. They were building an AI platform that would make creating applications as "easy as ordering pizza". Even if you are not familiar with the story, you should be able to figure out where I am going with this. Real people were writing the code, not AI. This is what happens when companies start believing their marketing, and even the big ones are not immune to it. More Retail: Huge retail chain closing more stores soon (locations revealed)Struggling drugstore chain announces second bankruptcyBeloved discount grocery chain has massive US plans Amazon seems to be set in the direction of repeating the mistake of "Just Walk Out" deception. This time, it's betting it will make huge savings on logistics. Unconfirmed media reports suggest that Amazon is developing software for humanoid robots that could eventually be used in its delivery operations. According to the reports, Amazon is creating a "humanoid park" closed-course environment to test the humanoid robots before testing them on real streets. Based on this information, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak gave us his opinion. Related: Nvidia, Dell announce major project to reshape AI The analyst previously estimated that Amazon is working on automating its fulfillment costs (approximately 18.6% of retail revenue) and that every 10% of US units that go through new robotics-enabled warehouses can drive between $2 billion and $3 billion of annual savings in 2030. "New headlines support our previous views that Amazon is also taking steps to automate its shipping and last-mile logistics (which also make up 17.5% of retail revenue). The potential timing of these humanoids may admittedly be further out, but when we combine this with autonomous long-haul and last mile trucking, and drones, we see a path over the next 5-10 years where Amazon is set to be able to deliver more items to more people faster and in a more cash flow generative manner," said Nowak and his team. "This should enable AMZN to invest in price and technology to drive further share gains, while also delivering more free cash flow for shareholders." Morgan Stanley analysts maintained Amazon's overweight rating, with a price target of $250. I expect that if the "robots" launch, humans will remotely control them. Whether or not this leads to actual savings is another thing. Related: Popular cloud storage service might be oversharing your data The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Bloomberg
5 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Major League Baseball Is Growing Again. Why Isn't Its TV Money?
TV ratings and in-game attendance are up, but the league is about to take a pay cut on its media rights. By and Hannah Miller Save Good afternoon from Los Angeles, and a special hello to those of you who watched one of the greatest tennis matches ever. Warner Bros. Discovery has gotten some grief for mishandling the NBA negotiations, among other things, but its inaugural presentation of Roland Garros was a marked improvement on recent years. Live sports has been swallowing the entertainment business for years, and it feels even more significant now. Football, once less popular than Survivor and ER, now accounts for the majority of the 100 most-watched broadcasts on TV in the US. Amazon and Comcast are cutting back on entertainment programming after splurging on basketball rights. Rupert Murdoch, often ahead of the curve, sold his Hollywood studio — and kept his news and sports businesses.
