Tech Company Will Lay Off 11 Percent of its Workforce Using a 'Race-Based Focus'

Twilio, a cloud communications company that provides messaging systems for businesses like Lyft, Netflix, and Airbnb, has had a bad couple of months. In August, the company lost 18 percent of its value as earnings failed to match forecasts. The company also suffered a serious security breach in August that may have impacted its best customers.

Company CEO and co-founder Jeff Lawson didn’t like the direction the company was headed and knew he had to make changes. Yesterday, he wrote a blog post to Twilio employees informing them that 11 percent of the company’s workforce, around 800 employees, will be laid off.

But Twilio is a very woke company, and Mr. Lawson couldn’t let the opportunity slip by to show the world just how woke Twilio is. So the firings are going to be done a little differently.

Today the CEO of a publicly traded company was like "Yes, we fired a bunch of people for being white" and apparently everyone is just shrugging their shoulders. https://t.co/CvnCLLGJwI

— PEG (@pegobry) September 14, 2022

“We ultimately found that some investments no longer make sense and identified areas where we can be more efficient,” Lawson wrote, claiming the company used a “rigorous selection process” to determine which employees would be let go. “Today’s layoffs are about aligning our investments more squarely with our priorities, as well as running our company more efficiently overall.”

I’m sure the lawyers for some of those employees who got fired are extremely interested in the “rigorous selection process” used to fire someone — especially since the pigmentation of an employee’s skin appears to play a big role.

“As you all know, we are committed to becoming an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression company. Layoffs like this can have a more pronounced impact on marginalized communities, so we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs – while a business necessity today – were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens,” Lawson added.

Fired employees will receive generous severance packages, but isn’t firing someone based on the color of their skin illegal — as well as racist?

Bay Area Inno:

Twilio declined to comment on what it meant by conducting layoffs with an anti-racist/anti-oppression lens and whether it meant race was a factor in its layoff decisions. Companies can be sued by employees that believe they were terminated based on race, which is illegal in California and federally, based on the Civil Rights Act.

Lawson isn’t an idiot, and it’s likely that the procedures used to fire employees are legal and completely proper. So why make a big deal about carrying out the firings through an “anti-racist/anti-oppression lens”?

Because Twilio is based in San Francisco and in the wokest city on the planet, it doesn’t matter the company actually fires white people based on their race. What matters is making people think you’re going to fire white people based on their race. That’s what gets the blood pumping and juices flowing for the good little wokesters in San Francisco. Giving voice to their shame and guilt at being so rich and white while other residents of color have so little is what Lawson’s little morality play is all about.