Several in-house lawyers and other legal team members have been swept up in the wave of layoffs at Snap Inc., including a Seattle-based associate general counsel who had joined the social media company behind Snapchat a week before she got the pink slip.
"Plot twist! After 7 days on the job, I am one of the 1000+ Snap Inc. employees that was laid off yesterday. It may not be personal, isolated, or entirely surprising, but it certainly stings," Pinar Ozer, now-former associate GC for Snap, wrote in a LinkedIn post.
Ozer worked in Amazon's legal department for more than six years, most recently as a senior corporate counsel focused on privacy, before she jumped to Snap, which is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.
"I guess this is a very real reminder that in tech (and life) not every risk we take pays off. However, I still believe in the importance of seizing opportunities and running towards fresh challenges," Ozer stated.
Attempts to speak with Ozer and Snap representatives were not immediately successful.
The Snap layoffs, which occurred after the company failed to hit revenue growth targets for the second quarter and its stock plunged, add to the ongoing job losses and hiring freezes hitting the tech industry amid an economic downturn.
Other companies that have dismissed workers or paused hiring in recent weeks include: Amazon, Apple, Coinbase, Facebook, Google, Lyft, Robinhood, Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery.
Meanwhile, back at Snap, employees suffering from low morale have dubbed the company "Snapazon," because ex-Amazon execs have taken leadership roles at the firm and managers are "obsessing over metrics, Amazon-style," Business Insider reported.
Snap laid off more than 1,200 employees last week. The extent to which the layoffs affected the legal department aren't entirely clear, but at least six other members of the team have lost their jobs, according to layoff lists on Snap's alumni talent hub and layoffs.fyi. Those lists, which did not include Ozer, are far from exhaustive.
Listed laid-off legal team employees are: Rohit Kumar, New Delhi, India-based chief compliance officer and legal counsel for the Asia-Pacific Region; Chicago-based corporate counsel Michelle Kennedy; patent counsel Shebli Mikailli of Los Gatos, California; Los Angeles-based corporate counsel Gabriel Militello; Kimberly Buncle, sustainability lead in Seattle; and Simone King, safety outreach policy associate in Santa Monica.
Michael O'Sullivan has served as Snap's GC since 2017 and still holds the position, according to the company's website and his LinkedIn profile. His pay has been on a steady decline over the last four years, from a high of $16.7 million when he arrived at Snap in the wake of its IPO to $5.4 million last year.
Phillip Bantz
Phillip Bantz is a reporter for Corporate Counsel. Follow him on Twitter @PhillipBantz.