Earlier this week, Epic announced that 1000 people--20% of the company's total workforce--would be laid off. The cuts were accompanied by official corporate statements from CEO and founder Tim Sweeney, but in the hours since, the boss has felt the need to add further commentary the only way he knows how: with bad posts.
Writing on Twitter, Sweeney says of the cuts:
In the coming days, employers will see a stream of resumes of once-in-a-lifetime quality folks. An important thing to understand is that Epic never lowered our hiring standards as we grew, and the layoff wasn't a performance-based "rightsizing" as companies call it nowadays. It's a sound bet that anyone with Epic Games on their resume is in the top few percent of their discipline.
Tim, I don't know how to tell you this--you're the boss, so I understand why you wouldn't be checking Indeed every day--but for most of the affected there are no jobs, and the jobs that do exist for the lucky few involve going through hell.
Luke Plunkett
I would argue that an "important thing to understand" is that, when 830 workers were laid off in 2023, they were put out of work because the company needed to make its "cost structure more sustainable". If just three years later 1000 more needed to go because the company was "spending significantly more than we're making", whose fault was that? Not those getting laid off!
To suggest that putting 1000 people out of work is some kind of "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity for the rest of a battle-damaged industry to upskill, instead of being a stressful and often life-defining moment for every single one of those affected, is some weird and cold shit to commit to public record.
Just log off, man!
Luke Plunkett
Nathan Grayson
