Read the memo Calendly's CEO sent to employees announcing 70 job cuts

• Calendly laid off around 70 employees in its engineering, customer experience, marketing, and billing teams.
• BI obtained a copy of CEO Tope Awotona's memo announcing the cuts to staff on Wednesday morning.
• Calendly previously laid off 60 employees in July 2023 and was valued at $3 billion in 2021.

Scheduling platform Calendly laid off around 70 employees — about 13% of its workforce — on Wednesday.

The CEO, Tope Awotona, emailed employees at 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday with the subject heading "Important Update: Team Changes and Reorganization."

Awotona said he had "some difficult news" and told workers that the company was carrying out "strategic reorganizations" across its engineering, customer experience, marketing, and billing departments and that "approximately 70" people would be impacted.

"These decisions are never easy, and I take full responsibility for the choices that have led us to this point," he wrote.

Awotona also said that those affected would receive a calendar invite for a meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

Two people familiar with the matter told Business Insider that there were 46 layoffs in the engineering team, 16 in the customer-experience team seven in marketing, and two in billing.

A screenshot shared with Business Insider by an employee shows that a companywide Slack channel had 466 members after the laid-off workers lost access to the company's system.

The startup, valued at $3 billion in 2021, previously laid off 60 people in July 2023, The Information reported at the time. It was founded by Awotona in 2013 and grew to have more than 20 million users, about half of which are outside the US.

The company has faced increasing competition from Big Tech. Both Google and Microsoft have rolled out features that let users share a link to their virtual calendars so others can book meetings with them.

Calendly did not immediately respond to a request for comment, made outside normal working hours.

This is Awotona's memo sent to employees, shared with BI by two employees:

Hi Team

I am reaching out this morning to share some difficult news. We've made the decision to do a series of strategic reorganizations across our Engineering, Customer Experience, Marketing and Billing teams. As part of the process, we are reducing these teams, which means we will be saying goodbye to approximately 70 of our talented teammates today. Our primary focus right now is ensuring we handle these transactions with the utmost care and respect.

If you role has been impacted, you will receive an email and calendar invite within the next 30 minutes to your personal email address from a People Team member inviting you to an indiviual meeting later today. Please note that your access to Calendly systems will be turned off shortly, and we've sent a copy of this email to your personal email address as well to ensure you have all the necessary information.

If your roles has NOT been impacted, you will not receive a separate email. During today's All Hands (3 PM ET/ Noon PT), we will share more details about these decisions, and leave time for a live Q&A at the end. Following the All Hands, department leaders will hold team-specific meetings (check your calendar for the exact times) to discuss how these changes affect your team and provide another opportunity to ask questions.

These decisions are never easy, and I take full responsibility for the choices that have led us to this point. To those leaving us today, please know that your hard work and dedication have been deeply valued, and we are incredibly grateful for your contributions to Calendly.

As a reminder, we ask that all team members continue to uphold their confidentiality agreements and adhere to Calendly's privacy policy.

Do you work for Calendly? Got a tip? Contact the reporter Jyoti Mann via the encrypted messaging app Signal at jyotimann.11 or via email at jmann@businessinsider.com. Reach out through a nonwork device.