Airtable's new owner is laying off a 'large part' of its team

• A "large part" of Airtable's workforce is being laid off, the company's new owner said.
• Bending Spoons' product leader said smaller teams and AI features are central to its new strategy.
• Cut employees will leave by the end of the week with "substantial separation packages," he said.

Big layoffs are coming to Airtable.

Airtable's new owner, Italian tech conglomerate Bending Spoons, said Monday it is laying off a "large part" of the software company as it reshapes the business around smaller teams and AI features.

In an X post, Federico Simionato, Bending Spoons' product leader, said the cuts were not a reflection of employees' work but of the company's "deep belief that small teams ship more and better."

"To everyone leaving: thank you. If you're hiring, these are excellent people and worth a call," Simionato said.

Bending Spoons announced in August that it was acquiring Airtable, the spreadsheet and database app, for $1.28 billion. It was not immediately clear how many people would be affected by the layoffs. Representatives for Bending Spoons did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Airtable product lead Alessandro Savarese said in a blog post on the company's website that the employees being cut will leave by the end of the week with "substantial separation packages."

"At Bending Spoons, we've seen firsthand how smaller, faster-moving teams with streamlined responsibilities can have an outsized impact, and we have the same ambitions at Airtable," Savarese wrote. "We intend to make Airtable a better product while providing our customers with an exceptional level of reliability and support."

Savarese said the company will focus on improving Airtable's core platform and investing in AI features.

Laid-off Airtable employees may already have some job prospects: X product engineer Mridul Singhai responded to the job-cuts announcement in a post, saying X will "continue to hire & grow people who want to commit."