Thursday 3rd November is going to be remembered as one of the darkest days this year for scale-ups.
On that one day alone, three high profile scale-ups announced major job losses.
Uber competitor Lyft said it will lay off 13% of its staff, or nearly 700 employees. Ubiquitous payments company Stripe chopped 14%, some 1,100 employees. And Danish management expense fintech Pleo axed 15%, around 150 people.
Founders took to company blogs to prostrate themselves and take the blame, which is de rigueur these days.
The backdrop is large layoffs across the UK and US, with tech shown to have clay feet when it comes tough macro-economic conditions. Twitter has shed almost half its staff according to some media estimates and Facebook is said to be also looking to reduce headcount in the coming days.