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‘Burning through cash,’ Boston Dynamics lays off 45 employees
The layoffs represent five percent of the total workforce at the Waltham-based robotics firm.
Waltham-based Boston Dynamics laid off 45 employees last week, representing a reduction of five percent of the company’s workforce, The Boston Globe reports.
A spokesperson for the robotics firm told the newspaper the cuts on Dec. 10 “affect nearly every function throughout the business.” All the affected employees are reportedly receiving severance and continuing benefits.
Over the years, videos of the life-like robots created by the firm have garnered attention and gone viral.
According to The Globe, the company, which is owned by Hyundai Motor Group, had increased its workforce nearly fourfold since 2021.
Robert Playter, the company’s chief executive, told employees in a note obtained by The Globe that the decision to move forward with layoffs was “not made lightly.”
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“Our long-term outlook remains positive: Spot continues scaling steadily with industrial and government customers, Stretch is proving its value with logistics and retail players, and our R&D work on Atlas is progressing at an encouraging pace,” he said, according to the newspaper. “However, we are also burning through cash at a rate that exceeds our commercial progress to date, and we need to streamline our operations and production processes to support sustainable growth. Today is about making a very difficult short-term decision in service of our longer-term strategy and profitability goals.”
The layoffs follow a host of cuts at other Boston-area tech companies, including Wayfair, iRobot, and Toast.
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