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Hello reader,
I hate giving anyone bad news.
Not that I imagine some people enjoy it, but as someone who seeks to avoid confrontation whenever possible, the idea of disappointing someone makes my skin crawl.
I’ve learned that sugarcoating it does no one any good – it’s best to let the aggrieved party know what’s happening and why in plain words, so they can begin processing. There’s nothing worse than being in the dark as to why this crappy thing is happening to you.
Luckily I haven’t been laid off (yet), but some employees of LingoAce were laid off without knowing exactly why, according to some current and former staff of the edtech firm.
The company’s CEO disputes that, and today’s featured premium story digs into the ins and outs of a turbulent time at the startup.
Today we look at:
- Layoffs galore amid LingoAce’s expansion hurdles
- Alibaba Cloud provides open access to some of its large language models.
- Other newsy highlights such as Astra International snapping up an online classifieds firm and a report saying that the funding winter shows no sign of warming up.
Premium summary
The axe falls at LingoAce
Image credit: Timmy Loen
Edtech company LingoAce has let go hundreds of employees in about half a dozen rounds of layoffs in the past year, sources tell Tech in Asia.
The Singapore-headquartered firm is backed by Peak XV Partners (formerly known as Sequoia Capital India) and once employed as many as some 1,500 staff members. But LingoAce currently has “around 1,000” employees globally.
- Swinging the axe: LingoAce founder and CEO Hugh Yao tells Tech in Asia that the layoffs were part of a streamlining effort to ensure “efficiency and financial sustainability” after regional expansion created “many redundancies.” The firm has since pivoted “toward profitability and cash-flow positive” in its Southeast Asian markets, he adds.
- Growing pains: LingoAce’s main customer segment is the global Chinese diaspora. Its flagship offering is a Chinese-language learning product delivered via interactive livestreamed classes. Early efforts to expand to other subjects like English, which it launched in April 2022, were “not a success” according to a source, but Yao says the firm’s language learning programs continue to experience “growth and high retention” globally.
- Breakdown in communication: Sources felt that many decisions in the firm are made “unilaterally” by the CEO and based upon his “intuition” rather than numbers or data. Yao disagrees and says key decisions in the company are “never made in isolation” and based on comprehensive discussions, consultations, and input from relevant teams.
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