Sonos lays off 100 employees amid ongoing app crisis

Sonos laid off about 100 employees this morning, a source familiar with the situation said. Edge. Those affected — the marketing department, I’m told, suffered significant losses — suddenly lost access to the company’s internal network. Sonos is also in the process of closing some of its customer service offices, including one in Amsterdam that will close later this year.

These latest cuts come as Sonos continues to grapple with the fallout from its disastrous mobile app redesign. During Sonos’ earnings conference call last week, CEO Patrick Spence emphasized that fixing the app is the company’s number one priority — so much so that two hardware launches scheduled for later this year have been delayed to focus full attention on the app.

“I won’t rest until we’re in a position where we’ve addressed the issues and customers are excited about Sonos again,” Spence said. “We believe we need to focus on the app before anything else.” You might think that cutting the company’s workforce would be counterproductive to that goal, but that’s exactly what Sonos has done. Edge reached out to Sonos for comment.

The app situation has become so dire that Sonos has tapped board member Thomas Conrad to oversee improvements and ensure things stay on track. Spence also said that chief innovation officer Nick Millington, who designed the original Sonos system experience, has been asked to “do whatever it takes to fix the issues with our new app.”

Spence, who became Sonos’ CEO in 2017, has increasingly been getting calls from frustrated customers asking him to step down for getting the company into this mess—despite the fact that he’s led Sonos through a long string of successful product releases. “With the app, my pursuit of speed hasn’t paid off,” he said in an Aug. 7 phone interview.