Some Comixology employees are posting to social media today that they’ve been impacted by the latest round of layoffs from their parent company, Amazon.
Journalist Jason Del Rey, who regularly reports on Amazon for Recode, shared a leaked letter from Amazon retail CEO Doug Herrington about the layoffs. According to news reports, Amazon plans to lay off 18,000 employees in this latest round, or roughly 6% of their global workforce. Herrington’s letter says they hope to have their U.S., Canada and Costa Rica employee notifications done today, with other regions to follow in the weeks ahead.
Comixology isn’t mentioned specifically in the letter, but some employees have confirmed they’ve been impacted:
Both John Roberts and David Steinberger, who founded the digital comics system and the company that was eventually bought by Amazon, commented as well:
Amazon purchased Comixology in 2014, where it continued to function as a stand-alone system until 2021, when Amazon integrated into its website and relaunched the app. To say the integration has been rough on users would be an understatement, but features and functionality that was lost in translation have slowly been making their way back into the app over the last year or so.
No doubt more people will announce they’ve been impacted in the next few days, so we’ll try to provide an update as we learn more about the extent of the cuts. We also extend our best wishes and sympathy to everyone impacted by these layoffs.
Update: Scott McGovern, whose tweet is shown above and who worked at Comixology for roughly 10 years, offers a thoughtful thread on his time with them. He also guesses that at least 50% of Comixology’s staff was laid off today.
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