Snap plans to slow hiring, warns that revenue will grow slower than expected

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told employees Monday that the company would significantly slow hiring for the rest of the year after warning investors that its revenue wouldn’t grow as fast as expected.

“Like many companies, we continue to face rising inflation and interest rates, supply chain shortages and labor disruptions, platform policy changes, the impact of the war in Ukraine, and more,” Spiegel wrote in a memo to employees obtained by The Verge. He went on to say that Snap expects to report revenue below the low-end of the guidance it gave investors for the current quarter. That news was also disclosed in a filing with the SEC that sent Snap’s stock price cratering to a low it hasn’t seen since mid-2020.

Like its larger competitor in social media, Meta, Snap plans to pull back on hiring for the rest of the year, though Spiegel said the company will continue to recruit for roles already listed. He said Snap plans to hire 500 more people this year versus the 2,000 new people it hired over the past 12 months.

Here is Spiegel’s full memo Monday to employees:

Team,

Thank you so much for your hard work executing through this challenging macroeconomic environment. Like many companies, we continue to face rising inflation and interest rates, supply chain shortages and labor disruptions, platform policy changes, the impact of the war in Ukraine, and more.

Today we filed an 8-K, sharing that the macro environment has deteriorated further and faster than we anticipated when we issued our quarterly guidance last month. As a result, while our revenue continues to grow year-over-year, it is growing more slowly than we expected at this time. We believe it is now likely that we will report revenue and adjusted EBITDA below the low end of the guidance range we provided for this quarter.

We believe that the progress we’ve made growing our revenue, combined with the strength of our balance sheet, has positioned us well for the current environment. The fundamentals of our business remain strong, our community is growing and engaged, and we are excited about the many opportunities ahead. As a result, 2022 remains a significant investment year for Snap, despite the ongoing market volatility.

Responsibly managing our expenses will allow us to invest through this period of time and emerge stronger as a business. Moving forward, we will be taking steps to reprioritize our investments – continuing to invest across our business priorities, but in many cases doing so at a slower pace than we had planned given the operating environment.

We will continue to hire new team members, including recruiting for open roles.

We will slow our pace of hiring for unopened roles for the remainder of the year, as well as push some planned hiring into next year.

We expect to hire more than 500 new team members between now and the end of the year, representing nearly 10% company-wide headcount growth over the next seven months. This is in addition to over 900 offers already accepted this year, up 41% year-over-year, and the roughly 2,000 people added to our team in the trailing 12 months.

We will continue to backfill existing positions that become available as a result of attrition if those roles remain a high priority for our teams.

We will also evaluate the remainder of our 2022 budgets and leaders have been asked to review spending to find additional cost savings.

Our most meaningful gains over the coming months will come as a result of improved productivity from our existing team members, as we work together and help our new team members get to know Snap and learn how to contribute to their full potential.

Thank you so much for all your hard work and commitment to our community and partners. Through many ups and downs over the past decade you have made clear your ability to see through the short term and invest in our long term success.

Evan