The below is not an official email from Hichame, but it is rebuilt using AI, based on the contents of the article from below, who seems to have access to the letter he sent, where he informs staff about layoffs.
Team,
Over the past months we’ve reviewed how Envato needs to evolve as our industry and customer expectations continue to change, particularly with the rapid growth of AI. Following this review, we will be making significant changes across the company.
These changes will impact teams globally and will include redundancies, redeployments, role changes, promotions, and reporting line adjustments. Our aim is to create smaller, more focused teams, reduce organisational layers, and allow more people to have a direct impact on customer outcomes. We are also lowering operational costs so we can continue investing in product, marketing, and AI.
I know this will bring a mix of emotions. These decisions have not been taken lightly.
Our immediate priority is supporting colleagues whose roles are ending, and we will approach this process with care, respect, and transparency.
To those leaving Envato this week, thank you for everything you’ve contributed. I’m grateful for the role you’ve played in our journey and wish you the best for what comes next.
All companies are doing this exact same thing — they are firing people left and right in the context of AI. In the short term this works like a charm, but in the long term it will be a disaster.
A lot of CEOs get huge bonus payments for these layoffs. Probably the Envato CEO will get a big paycheck from this as well. As long as AI is the reason, it seems like anything is acceptable and you can do whatever you want.
AI will never fully replace a software engineer. Even with “mega super duper AI,” there will still be a need for experienced developers to put things together. The only way to become a senior developer is to actually write code and go through the process — there is no other way around it. Just a reminder: coding/programming is hard.
I do expect CodeCanyon and ThemeForest to close soon as well. I’m not sure what they are planning, but whatever it is, they will probably come out of it very rich — I mean the Envato CEO and the people around them.
A dark age is coming for us, but it will pass. We just need to survive it.