Pinterest fired employees who were trying to track the recently announced layoffs.
The digital pinboard social media company announced last week that it would be laying off about 15% of its staff and shrinking its office space as part of a restructuring effort. In a meeting led by the company’s Chief Technology Officer Matt Madrigal, engineering employees were told that Pinterest would not provide a list of affected employees due to privacy rights and company policies. That’s when two employees took matters into their own hands.
According to Pinterest, the engineers built an internal tool aimed at creating a master list of laid-off employees. The BBC reported that the tool tracked when employee accounts on platforms like Slack were being deactivated or removed.
“After being clearly informed that Pinterest would not broadly share information identifying impacted employees, two engineers wrote custom scripts improperly accessing confidential company information to identify the locations and names of all dismissed employees and then shared it more broadly,” a Pinterest spokesperson told Gizmodo in an emailed statement. “This was a clear violation of Pinterest policy and of their former colleagues’ privacy.”
CNBC and other outlets reported that those employees were eventually let go. Pinterest did not directly confirm the firings with Gizmodo.
Additionally, audio obtained from an all-hands meeting on Friday by CNBC suggests leadership viewed the incident as more than just a privacy issue.
“Healthy debate and dissent are expected, that’s how we make our decisions,” said Pinterest CEO Bill Ready at the meeting, according to CNBC. “But there’s a clear line between constructive debate and behavior that’s obstructionist.”
He went on to say that employees should look for another job if they are “working against the direction of the company.”
Like many tech companies in recent months, Pinterest has increasingly leaned into AI. In October, the company introduced several AI features, including a shopping assistant, AI-powered board upgrades, and new settings that allow users to control the amount of AI-generated content they see on the platform.
A former Pinterest employee wrote in a post on LinkedIn that a company-wide email from Ready said the company would be “doubling down on an AI-forward approach — prioritizing AI-focused roles, team and ways of working.”
Pinterest isn’t alone in announcing layoffs at the start of the year. Vimeo cut most of its video team last month. Meanwhile, Amazon announced last week it was laying off roughly 16,000 workers. That all comes as software companies are currently experiencing a blood bath in the stock market.
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