Saw that crazy CloudFlare layoff video, good on her for posting that video - apologies for those effected. Did this solely impact the sales team? Pretty big cut?

Question

Saw that crazy CloudFlare layoff video, good on her for posting that video - apologies for those effected.  Did this solely impact the sales team? Pretty big cut?

Accepted Answer

It looks like the folks impacted were new sales reps who had been there less than one year. Keep in mind, Cloudflare did ANOTHER layoff in July 2023, where 100 "underperforming" sales reps were laid off. This layoff likely impacted the new sales reps that they hired to replace those sales reps. Worth noting that they have a newer CRO who came from Twilio about a year ago: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcboroditsky/

It seems like Cloudflare is shaking up a lot of things as their goal is to hit $5B in revenue in the next couple of years.

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About 30 people were let go across about 3 sales orgs. Also some sales managers were demoted to AEs. The remaining AEs are getting new roles and it sounds like it is a complete mess. I wouldn't recommend this company to anyone in sales.

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I was laid off late last summer (after returning from paternity, no PIP or anything) buy my linkedin has had quite a few posts from people affected by this layoff, id say it's quite a big one. I'd actively avoid working at Cloudflare unless you have no other choice.

Can you link to the video?

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My roomate works here... What I gathered is some reps on the MM teams as new as September were let go based on, "not meeting Cloudflare's performance expectations." No pip, no severance, just let go on the spot. Apparently Cloudflare just had one of their best quarters in company history too. Not sure what to make of it but he hasn't heard any good news since he started last summer.

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The cut was pretty significant. My theory is that the President of Revenue, who is a former Twilio executive, is replicating what he did at Twilio, which is to dismantle the functional sales org. That, combined with the CEO's disdain for the sales team, is definitely a recipe for disaster.

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Pretty big cut. The CEO hates sales

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It didn't just effect new hires. Those were just some of the most surprising since they were on ramp. It was mostly contained to US mid-market, but some very tenured reps, managers and even directors were fired. It came as a surprise because normal performance cuts already took place a week before and the second round of cuts that the video shows mostly involved people that were never told they were in danger. It's total chaos, but very representative of the culture of Cloudflare sales. Rather than invest in better resources for sales they've decided to try to churn and burn and hope they can hire their way out of inept executive leadership.

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I was PIP'd and let go barely after I finished ramping. The sales org and culture was so toxic that I've been in therapy to help heal from the work trauma I experienced. I've never worked at a company where there were so many miserable employees.

If you're reading this and thinking about applying to Cloudflare, stay as far away as possible. The score on Repvue and Glassdoor are propped up by good reviews from a time past, when Cloudflare actually cared about its employees. This company has seriously lost its way.

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As someone who got cut in the original layoff in 05/2022, they did so without PIPs or warning. The company in the mid-market space was in a free for all model as of 2022, meaning no one had an assigned territory and you got to pick up or drop accounts as you please. More senior reps tended to have much better account lists as new hires got the scraps. Additionally, you used to be able to try and upsell to customers on free/business to enterprise but they took that away from reps in Q4 of 2022. They finally put in place territories and verticals at the start of 2023 but only gave reps 1 quarter with a brand new account list before the layoffs they framed as firing low performers. There was NO channel or partner involvement. They were scrambling to build that out in the switch to territories. CEO definitely doesn't care about sales at all. The CEO trashed the "100 underperforming reps" on the public earnings call when in reality he and the executive team were asleep at the wheel running a 1 billion dollar annual revenue company without any structure just hoping reps could grind out their number which apparently used to work before they did a massive hiring spree. Somewhere around 50%. They then did the scripted 15 minute call everyone has now seen on the viral tiktok video. Direct managers were great but they were left out of this by the new CRO and CEO. I have no clue how they have been doing in building out the channel and processes but this was by far the worst sales organization of my career and I was only there for 1yr.  Would recommend looking elsewhere.

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Big, quite a few in my network have been affected.

Can you share the link to the video you are referring to?

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over 30 sales people from what i have heard.

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What layoff video are you referring to? Not sure as to what other teams were affected, but a decent amount of the NAMER Mid-Market sales team was let go.

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Reorg seemed needed but was surprised that it seemingly focused on the new hires who were backfilling spots from the last (big) layoff in May & included the AEs who were still ramping from internal bdr promotions (on a much smaller salary)

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what video? think it was just a restructure of teams.

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Anonymous Q&A

Saw that crazy CloudFlare layoff video, good on her for posting that video - apologies for those effected. Did this solely impact the sales team? Pretty big cut?