Airtable's new owner is laying off a 'large part' of its team

Layoffs have hit Airtable. Illustration by Idrees Abbas/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Big layoffs are coming to Airtable.Airtable's new owner, Italian tech conglomerate Bending Spoons, said Monday it is laying off a "large part" of the software company as it reshapes the business around smaller teams and AI features.In an X post, Federico Simionato, Bending Spoons' product leader, said the cuts were not a reflection of employees' work but of the company's "deep belief that small teams ship more and better.""To everyone leaving: thank you. If you're hiring, these are excellent people and worth a call," Simionato said.Bending Spoons announced in August that it was acquiring Airtable, the spreadsheet and database app, for $1.28 billion. It was not immediately clear how many people would be affected by the layoffs. Representatives for Bending Spoons did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Airtable product lead Alessandro Savarese said in a blog post on the company's website that the employees being cut will leave by the end of the week with "substantial separation packages.""At Bending Spoons, we've seen firsthand how smaller, faster-moving teams with streamlined responsibilities can have an outsized impact, and we have the same ambitions at Airtable," Savarese wrote. "We intend to make Airtable a better product while providing our customers with an exceptional level of reliability and support."Savarese said the company will focus on improving Airtable's core platform and investing in AI features.Laid-off Airtable employees may already have some job prospects: X product engineer Mridul Singhai responded to the job-cuts announcement in a post, saying X will "continue to hire & grow people who want to commit." Read next Natalie is a senior reporter on Business Insider's Business News team covering the AI and data center boom.She was previously on BI's Legal Affairs team, where she handled major cases coming out of state and federal court, as well as bankruptcy. Her coverage often focused on stories at the intersection of law, business, politics, and technology. Natalie has covered Donald Trump’s criminal and civil cases, the wave of lawsuits against the second Trump administration, the indictment and criminal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and the legal battles facing Elon Musk and his companies. Natalie came to Business Insider in June 2021 as a breaking news reporter, focusing on the most interesting angles on the day's trending news. Natalie largely drove BI’s coverage around the fatal “Rust” shooting involving Alec Baldwin and the disappearance and murder of Gabby Petito.Prior to joining BI, Natalie worked for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and The Brooklyn Paper. She has an extensive background covering crime and courts. During her more than 12-year journalism career, she did a stint covering the police beat out of the New York Police Department's headquarters. Natalie, a Brooklyn native, graduated from Brooklyn College in 2012 with a degree in journalism. Technology AI