Polygon Labs Lays Off 19% of Staff to Focus on Development
Polygon Labs, the core developer behind leading Ethereum scaling solution Polygon, laid off 19% of staff this week. The moves come as part of a restructuring aimed at focusing Polygon Labs on critical network development.
Key changes at Polygon Labs:
- Layoffs impact roughly 60 employees, or about 19% of Polygon Labs staff.
- Separately spun off the 10-person Polygon Ventures team into its own crypto VC firm.
- Polygon ID digital identity group will also become a standalone 33-person operation.
- The remaining team will focus more narrowly on core protocol development.
- All retained staff will see at least a 15% base salary and token compensation bumps.
In a blog post announcing the changes, the firm’s CEO Marc Boiron cited a need to return to the core qualities of “extreme focus, diligence, efficiency, and agility” in pursuit of the firm’s network growth mission. Boiron admitted the crypto market surge and subsequent retreat diluted some execution ability.
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Polygon Labs CEO talks about the benefits of a smaller team
“As a smaller team, we can collaborate more, expedite demanding projects and execute at our highest potential,” Boiron wrote, framing the layoffs as a difficult but necessary move rather than financially motivated.
Beyond payroll cuts impacting 19% of staff, Polygon Labs is also spinning out its venture capital and digital identity groups into their own independent operations.
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The firm will distribute at least two months of severance and extended health coverage to laid-off employees. The remaining staff will also see their total compensation bumped by 15%, effective January 1st.
CEO Boiron expressed regret over the job losses but confidence the firm would now operate more “scrappy” and determined on its core mission of building interconnected blockchain networks.
