Bending Spoons product leader Federico Simionato sparked a social media firestorm after announcing a major layoff at Airtable in a brief post on X yesterday.
“Today we’re laying off a large part of the Airtable team,” he wrote. “This is not a reflection of their work but a reflection of our deep belief that small teams ship more and better.”
Simionato then highlighted upcoming changes at Airtable, including a “new Core team shipping your top requests monthly (already 30+ shipped in 3 weeks),” “upgraded Omni, Airtable Canvas, a stronger MCP, and BYO agents,” and “new Performance and Infra teams focusing on speeding up bases and increasing limits on records, fields, and syncs.”
“To everyone leaving: thank you,” he concluded. “If you’re hiring, these are excellent people and worth a call.”
Milan-based Bending Spoons, which completed its initial public offering in July, is known for acquiring established software companies like Vimeo, AOL, and Evernote and improving their performance through major organizational changes. It purchased San Francisco-based Airtable in a $1.28 billion all-cash deal last month.
The reaction to Simionato’s announcement has been fierce, with commenters describing his tone as insensitive and self-promotional.
“I’ve seen some spectacularly tone-deaf layoff announcements, but turning one into a product launch announcement is genuinely pioneering work in the field of corporate sociopathy,” one user wrote.
“Celebrating layoffs is not a flex, no matter how you try to dress it up,” added another. “This is the most unempathetic thing I’ve read in my life,” another posted.
In a reply to one of the comments, Simionato insisted he was “not celebrating at all.”
“It’s a hard day for good people,” he wrote. “I’d rather be upfront about why than vague about it.”
A representative from Bending Spoons declined to comment on the post, but he told Fast Company that “the decision to part ways with members of Airtable’s pre-acquisition team wasn’t taken lightly and doesn’t reflect on the team’s excellent work.”
“Their passion and dedication made Airtable the product and business it is today, and together with the team members who are staying we’re honored to carry their work forward,” he added.
In a longer statement released shortly after Simionato’s announcement, new Airtable product lead Alessandro Savarese said departing staff “will be leaving by the end of the week with substantial separation packages.”
“This decision wasn’t taken lightly, and it doesn’t reflect on the team’s excellent work,” he added. “Their passion and dedication made Airtable the product and business it is today.”
Simionato’s announcement is an example of “confusing corporate conviction with public empathy,” Ellerton & Co. Public Relations managing partner Oliver Ellerton told Fast Company.
“You can genuinely believe that smaller teams build better businesses—fair enough. But announcing significant layoffs is not the best time to make the case for how clever that strategy is,” he said.
“This is another example of something that probably sounds perfectly reasonable in a boardroom but belongs nowhere near a public statement or social media post.”
“He wants to project confidence and decisiveness,” Ellerton continued. “But if you’ve just lost your job, it’s difficult not to read this as management congratulating itself on becoming more efficient at your expense.”
The furor over Simionato’s post comes just a few days after HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah drew criticism for a 28-word LinkedIn post thanking hundreds of laid-off employees, with one user calling his message “cold and impersonal” and another saying it was an “insincere gesture of good fellowship.”
Shah has since apologized for the “curt and insensitive” tone of the post, saying he should have shown more “care and empathy.”
Such missteps can have “reputational consequences [that] outlast the initial controversy,” Ellerton also told Fast Company. “A badly judged post can become the first thing a prospective employee finds when researching the company, long after the executives involved have moved on.”
“The employees who remain are watching this too,” he added.
“You can be confident in your strategy without sounding pleased about the human cost.”
Update, 12:44 p.m. EST: This story was updated to include a comment from Bending Spoons.
