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Cameo lays off close to 90, including senior executives

Tobor

Tobor

Member
Oct 25, 2017
28,504
Richmond, VA
Get your birthday greetings from Ludacris and Tony Hawk while you can!

Protocol said:
Cameo, the celebrity video greetings startup, laid off 87 of staffers Wednesday, a move that CEO Steven Galanis described as "right-sizing." The layoffs also affected some of Cameo's most senior executives, Protocol has learned. Leadership departures included Cameo CTO Rob Post, top marketing executive Emily Boschwitz, CPO Nundu Janakiram and Chief People Officer Melanie Steinbach, according to a source close to the company.
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www.protocol.com

Cameo lays off close to 90, including senior executives

CPO, CTO and VP of Marketing are among the people laid off.
www.protocol.com www.protocol.com

EDIT: They laid off a quarter of the workforce and are blaming the over hiring on exploding traffic during the pandemic.

techcrunch.com

Cameo is the latest tech unicorn to have layoffs

Cameo, a platform that allows fans to buy personalized videos from celebrities, has laid off nearly a quarter of its staff.
techcrunch.com techcrunch.com
 
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Deleted member 4614

Oct 25, 2017
6,345
Classic example of overvaluation killing a startup
 
Slayven

Slayven

Never read a comic in his life
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
93,150
Oh shit i saw the news and didn't put it together. I use to go to the site to see who was on there. I can only guess mismanagement because doesn't seem like there be much overhead
 
Spehornoob

Spehornoob

Member
Nov 15, 2017
8,946
I directed a play a few years ago, written by a late theatre acquaintance of mine. The day it went up, one of my best friends took me out to lunch beforehand and showed me a Cameo he got wishing me luck on the project.

The Cameo was from Greg Sestero, of "The Room" fame.

I almost cried.
 
Commodore64

Commodore64

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,264
I'll regret not getting a cameo of Gilbert Gottfried telling me to go fuck myself while I still had the chance.
 
wrowa

wrowa

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,373
How many employees do they have? Cameo doesn't really sound like the kind of company that would need tons of employees.
 
SwampBastard

SwampBastard

The Fallen
Nov 1, 2017
11,040
A couple weeks ago I was poking around the site and filtering by lowest price. Some of what's on there is pretty grim. Like, who determines who counts as a celebrity? Some people were doing them for $3.
 
OP
OP
Tobor

Tobor

Member
Oct 25, 2017
28,504
Richmond, VA
echoshifting

echoshifting

very salt heavy
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
14,734
The Negative Zone
I hope they pull through because I think it's a neat thing. I paid a B-list youtube celebrity (LA Beast) a small fee to wish my daughter a happy birthday, she was so surprised and happy. And she was turning 15, pretty fucking hard for her dad to put that kind of grin and glow on her face (it usually costs a lot more). Some of them really go over the top to make it special.
 
Lkr

Lkr

Member
Oct 28, 2017
9,525
youtube.com

Smokey Robinson Mispronounces Chanukah I Cameo

It's gone viral out of pure humor but yet so much endearment For more 👉 https://cmeo.co/cameoSUBSCRIBE TO CAMEO:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Oo7RWGGc5...
youtube.com youtube.com
this is all I remember from cameo's existence. it's a cool service but I don't know how much money is truly in this as an "industry"
 
Joe

Joe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,617
I hope they make it through, because anything responsible for content like this deserves to thrive.

www.youtube.com

Sugar Ray Fires An Employee On Cameo (Full Upload)

Watch Full Episodes here... https://www.youtube.com/h3podcastTEDDY FRESH...http://teddyfresh.comFollow us on Social Media:https://twitter.com/h3h3productions...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

I don't care that it's a joke, I just love watching Mark McGrath so quickly go from his usually chipper start to a somber "we're gonna have to let you go."
 
Imaginary_Number

Imaginary_Number

Member
Oct 27, 2017
489


'Cameo Fameo' rubs me the wrong way, but laying off a lot of higher level executives implies to me this was done for the long term.
 
Euron

Euron

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,773
It's a great concept, just really hard to gain consistency since it's entirely dependent on enough celebrities consistently creating enough content.

I'm stunned that Instagram (or TikTok) hasn't cloned this yet.
 
Teh_Lurv

Teh_Lurv

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,098
I hope this isn't an ill omen for the future of Cameo, if it wasn't for that site we'd never have this gem:

 
Bigkrev

Bigkrev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,327
I can see the need for a staff for this- they need a tech team to maintain the platform, payment processing from buyers and payouts to the talent, customer service, probably an entire team dedicated to ensuring that the people on the platform are who they say they are, etc.... But it sounds like they had almost 400 employees if 90 people is 25% of the force, which is a gigantic amount. It's not a social network, it's not a market for advertising, it's a cool service that even the most heavy users will use maybe a couple of times a year. I'm glad they seem to understand that and aren't pulling a patreon and going "we can move everything to the blockchain" or trying to figure out ways to grift money from investors. Hopefully the company continues on- I've never used it, but it's a really cool idea
 
Dice

Dice

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,366
Canada
200.gif

whoops

Plumbob said:
Classic example of overvaluation killing a startup
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Yep.

Seeing some posts here, I love how some cameos are done while people are clearly heading out the door to do other stuff. xD
 
SoleSurvivor

SoleSurvivor

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,018
I've gotten and sent a bunch of Cameos. Such a cool concept, but sucks to hear they're treating their employees this way after building the business to what its become.
 

Deleted member 9241

Oct 26, 2017
10,416
I have a friend who drew cartoons for Penthouse. He had one on one discussions with Larry Flint every few months. One time he had Larry Flint leave me a voice message on my answering machine as a joke about 20 years ago. It was awesome.
 
thediamondage

thediamondage

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,277
never in a million years would i have guessed cameo has 400 people working on it, i'd have guessed tops 5-10 lol


now to make it more personal.... i wonder how many people work at resetERA. I'd guess 3-5 (paid) and i'm probably way off
 
Cruxist

Cruxist

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
3,821
My uncle got my dad a retirement cameo from Brett Favre. He showed basically everyone for like a month, it was honestly pretty cool.
 
Plinko

Plinko

Member
Oct 28, 2017
18,576
A family member gave me a Cameo from Bret "The Hitman" Hart for my birthday a while back, and it was honestly one of the coolest things I've been given. Hope they survive the downsizing.
 
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
60,164
Lotsa businesses are fighting the post pandemic contracting. Peloton, Zoom, Teladoc, Netflix. This is another one.
 
SteveByDesign

SteveByDesign

Member
Sep 11, 2019
794
Imaginary_Number said:


'Cameo Fameo' rubs me the wrong way, but laying off a lot of higher level executives implies to me this was done for the long term.
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Any employer referring to their employees as family rubs me the wrong way.

Just give your employees stability and pay them well. This "we are a family" shit is awful. Whenever I interview for jobs if that is what they are trying to sell me I don't take the job if offered.
 
OP
OP
Tobor

Tobor

Member
Oct 25, 2017
28,504
Richmond, VA
To be fair, at least they laid off C-Suite executives as well. That's more than most companies in this situation do.
 
Tavernade

Tavernade

Tavernade
Moderator
Sep 18, 2018
8,633
If 90 members is 1/4 of their staff, I'm curious what the breakdown is for what their employees do. I'd imagine a lot are doing upkeep of the site and customer help/relations stuff.
 
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