Bending Spoons product leader Federico Simionato sparked a social media firestorm after announcing a major layoff at Airtable in a brief post on X yesterday.

“Today we’re laying off a large part of the Airtable team,” he wrote. “This is not a reflection of their work but a reflection of our deep belief that small teams ship more and better.”

Simionato then highlighted upcoming changes at Airtable, including a “new Core team shipping your top requests monthly (already 30+ shipped in 3 weeks),” “upgraded Omni, Airtable Canvas, a stronger MCP, and BYO agents,” and “new Performance and Infra teams focusing on speeding up bases and increasing limits on records, fields, and syncs.”

“To everyone leaving: thank you,” he concluded. “If you’re hiring, these are excellent people and worth a call.”

Milan-based Bending Spoons, which completed its initial public offering in July, is known for acquiring established software companies like Vimeo, AOL, and Evernote and improving their performance through major organizational changes. It purchased San Francisco-based Airtable in a $1.28 billion all-cash deal last month.

The reaction to Simionato’s announcement has been fierce, with commenters describing his tone as insensitive and self-promotional.

Today we’re laying off a large part of the Airtable team.

This is not a reflection of their work but a reflection of our deep belief that small teams ship more and better.

For Airtable, better is about to look like:
– A new Core team shipping your top requests monthly (already…

“I’ve seen some spectacularly tone-deaf layoff announcements, but turning one into a product launch announcement is genuinely pioneering work in the field of corporate sociopathy,” one user wrote.

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