Gak habis pikir sama taktik gila founder Canva dulu. Demi dapet modal bisnis, dia nekat latihan selancar berbulan-bulan sampe babak belur cuma buat ngejar investor yang lagi liburan di pantai.
Nama ceweknya Melanie Perkins. Dulu pas masih kuliah di Australia, dia punya mimpi bikin platform desain yang gampang banget dipake semua orang. Pas dia nyari modal ke San Francisco, dia malah diketawain dan ditolak sama 100 lebih investor di sana karena idenya dianggap konyol.
Tapi bukannya nangis terus pulang kampung, si Melanie ini malah muter otak pake strategi gila yang gak masuk akal sehat. Dia denger info kalo ada investor raksasa yang lagi dia incar tuh hobinya main kitesurfing (selancar layang).
Karena dia gak punya akses buat ketemu di kantor, dia nekat latihan olahraga ekstrem itu berbulan-bulan sampe badannya babak belur dihantam ombak. Tujuan utamanya cuma satu, biar bisa ikutan nyebur ke laut dan dapet celah waktu buat presentasi pas si bos lagi istirahat di pinggir pantai.
Bener-bener taktik nyari modal paling ekstrem. Tapi gila, dedikasi nekatnya itu berhasil ngeluluhin hati para investor. Tahun 2013 Canva resmi rilis, dan sekarang malah sukses jadi aplikasi raksasa bernilai ratusan triliun.
Jadi buat lu yang tiap hari pake Canva buat bikin tugas atau revisi desain kerjaan, sungkem dulu sama kegigihan mbak Melanie yang ampir kelep di laut demi lu semua.
Somewhere out there is a guy who uses Notion, Superhuman, OpenClaw on a Mac Mini, Raycast, a mechanical keyboard ($400), Wispr Flow, and gets nothing done every day
Very soon there are going to be more AI agents than humans making transactions.
They can’t open a bank account, but they can own a crypto wallet. Think about it.
we're making @blocks smaller today. here's my note to the company.
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today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we're reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation. i'll be straight about what's happening, why, and what it means for everyone.
first off, if you're one of the people affected, you'll receive your salary for 20 weeks + 1 week per year of tenure, equity vested through the end of may, 6 months of health care, your corporate devices, and $5,000 to put toward whatever you need to help you in this transition (if you’re outside the U.S. you’ll receive similar support but exact details are going to vary based on local requirements). i want you to know that before anything else. everyone will be notified today, whether you're being asked to leave, entering consultation, or asked to stay.
we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that's accelerating rapidly.
i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. i'd rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome. a smaller company also gives us the space to grow our business the right way, on our own terms, instead of constantly reacting to market pressures.
a decision at this scale carries risk. but so does standing still. we've done a full review to determine the roles and people we require to reliably grow the business from here, and we've pressure-tested those decisions from multiple angles. i accept that we may have gotten some of them wrong, and we've built in flexibility to account for that, and do the right thing for our customers.
we're not going to just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here. communication channels will stay open through thursday evening (pacific) so everyone can say goodbye properly, and share whatever you wish. i'll also be hosting a live video session to thank everyone at 3:35pm pacific. i know doing it this way might feel awkward. i'd rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold.
to those of you leaving…i’m grateful for you, and i’m sorry to put you through this. you built what this company is today. that's a fact that i'll honor forever. this decision is not a reflection of what you contributed. you will be a great contributor to any organization going forward.
to those staying…i made this decision, and i'll own it. what i'm asking of you is to build with me. we're going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. how we work, how we create, how we serve our customers. our customers will feel this shift too, and we're going to help them navigate it: towards a future where they can build their own features directly, composed of our capabilities and served through our interfaces. that's what i'm focused on now. expect a note from me tomorrow.
jack
After a year of quietly powering some of the best restaurants, we’re finally introducing Magic — the personalization engine for real world experiences.
Our first product, Loyalist, is live in hundreds of restaurants in 40+ cities like CARBONE, Momofuku, Le Bernardin, and COTE.