Fiverr has announced the abolition of 250 posts, or almost 30 % of its workforce, as part of a transformation intended to make the freelance platform an “A-St-St Company”. His CEO and founder, Micha Kaufman, justified this decision in a long message published on X, evoking a return to the spirit of the beginnings of the company.
“Fiverr returns to startup mode. We transform Fiverr into an Ai-First Company, lighter and simpler, which dreams greater and built faster, ”said Kaufman.
For several months, the leader has highlighted the structural impact of artificial intelligence on work and the organization of companies. “The speed at which technology is evolving, and the possibilities it brings, are incredible. They require new ways of thinking and greater speed to stay at the top, ”he wrote. Fiverr already claims to integrate AI into several of its services, such as its matching engine, its internal NEO tool, market moderation or the automation of customer support and detection of fraud.
According to Micha Kaufman, this development requires a radical reorganization: “It is not a question of simply adding more people to build over our infrastructure; It’s about simplifying it. It is a different competence and a different state of mind. This requires returning to startup mode. “The manager highlights the need for a flatter organization, with” a smaller team, each member of which is much more productive, and much less management levels “.
But for the employees concerned, this turn results in a sudden rupture. The CEO talks about a “painful reset” but without effect for the heart of its business, namely the user community that it ensures that it will not be affected by this transition.
For five years, GAFAMs have also deployed large -scale workforce reduction plans, often linked to the reorganization of their teams around AI and Cloud. But at this stage, few European companies, and a French fortiori, also engaged in this dynamic, at least publicly. The rare known examples are just that plans to delete 450 jobs in part thanks to the automation of its customer service, and SAP which has initiated a restructuring plan of 8,000 jobs to refocus on AI.
