Things are not going well for the world-renowned esports organization 100 Thieves. Recently, the organization had to lay off multiple employees in both its social media and content creation departments.
According to a report from Dexerto, over a dozen 100 Thieves employees announced they were laid off from the company on July 13th. Some of the people let go were more recent hires while others had reportedly served the company for “multiple years.”
Esports social media veteran Blackbeard and 100T executive producer Mike Aransky were among the casualties. The loss of Aransky will likely be a huge blow to the company since he has played a role in many announcements during his almost four-year-long tenure with the organization.
Interestingly enough, not a lot of people were angry with 100 Thieves. In fact, many of the people that were let go took to social media to express their gratitude for the time they got to spend with the company. One former employee said that they were so grateful for the opportunity. Another person said that working there had been an absolute pleasure.
Clearly, nobody in gaming and esports is prone to cutbacks and layoffs. This is especially true when you realize that Forbes ranked 100 Thieves as the second most valuable esports organization in the world behind only TSM, who also had to recently lay off more than 20 employees.
The Profit‘s Take:
We always have to preface these stories by saying we feel bad for the people affected by these layoffs, and we hope they land on their feet. It’s pretty incredible that 100 Thieves laid off members of its content creator team during the same week that FaZe Clan, a content creator media company, went public. For a long time, I have said that 100 Thieves management is out of its depth. The business has grown beyond their capabilities. You can tell because it seems like they’re always just reacting. There’s no clear vision or plan. “The economy is down! FIRE PEOPLE!!” To be honest, though, 100 Thieves has never been a premier content creator. The only videos that they’ve produced that we care about are CouRage’s announcement and their facilities tour. If those are the best things you’ve got, then how can you call yourself a content organization? Could these layoffs be a form of self-awareness? Maybe they realized that they’re not that good at content creation. While 100 Thieves may be struggling, I still think the esports industry is somewhat recession-proof. Just, ask our friend Alexander Lee. Here’s how this decision probably went down. They had an investor call. Investors said, “we’re a little worried about the economy, so the next check we write you may not come as quickly as previous ones.” So, 100 Thieves immediately reacted to that news by laying people off. I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation. Regardless, I don’t think this is the end of 100 Thieves, by any means.
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