CNet Lays off 120 Employees: Full Internal Memo

The San Francisco-based Internet media company said it expects to incur severance-related, non-recurring, pretax restructuring charges of $3.5 million to $4 million, and sees an additional $300,000 to $400,000 in non-personnel costs and non-cash charges.

The following is the full-text of an internal memo distributed to employees.

Hello Everyone,

We all recognize that we must continuously change to be successful, and we embrace change. At the beginning of the year, we talked about our focus on category defining brands and the need to drive greater efficiencies in the business. As part of that process, in late January, I asked Zander to lead a task force to evaluate our current organization and resource alignment.

The task force evaluated the following areas of our business: organizational construct, technology infrastructure, editorial development and go-to-market strategies. Our focus was on creating a leaner centralized organization that provides expertise and best practices around areas of excellence, efficiency, and governance such as IT architecture, SEO, yield monetization, facilities, legal, HR and communications; evolving our editorial teams so everyone is focused on content creation; innovating our technology infrastructure to embrace open APIs and drive more efficiencies throughout the organization; and finally, simplifying our sales approach by building on the traction of our partner account strategy.

Based on that business analysis, today, we are making significant changes to the organization. This includes the very difficult decision to make a workforce reduction that will affect 10 percent of our U.S. workforce or about 120 people. These changes allow the company to put greater focus on its leading brands, as well as help drive efficiencies throughout the business.

CNET Networks is made up of great employees who have all contributed to the success of the company. While the changes we are making are part of our long-term growth strategy, I understand that it doesn't make it any easier to see our friends and colleagues leave us.

Today, employees have been meeting with their managers to hear more specifics on how these changes impact their individual roles. Anyone who is impacted will be informed by 2 p.m. Pacific Time. Resources will be in place to help all employees manage through this transition, including outplacement assistance services and support from employees' managers and HR.