Cameo lays off 87 staff; source says CTO Rob Post, marketing exec Emily Boschwitz, CPO Nundu Janakiram, and Chief People Officer Melanie Steinbach have gone
Cameo, the celebrity video greetings startup, laid off 87 of staffers Wednesday, a move that CEO Steven Galanis described as “right-sizing.”
ProtocolJanko Roettgers
Context & Ripple Effects
Cameo had expanded its leadership bench in 2021, adding a CTO, CFO, COO and CPO amid reported growth in personalized-video transactions. This cut removes four senior leaders, including executives from that earlier leadership build-out, alongside 87 employees.
The reduction also marks an earlier stage of a retrenchment that later reporting described as another 80-plus layoffs tied to financial pressure. It matters because the company is shrinking both operating capacity and the executive layer intended to scale it.
First-order effects
Cameo loses 87 staff and the leaders overseeing technology, marketing, product and people operations, concentrating near-term responsibility around CEO Steven Galanis and the remaining management team.
The smaller organization has less dedicated leadership capacity to recruit and support the celebrity supply that later coverage identified as a weakness in Cameo's decline.
A second major workforce reduction reported in 2023 indicates that the 2022 right-sizing did not establish a stable cost base, extending disruption for the employees who remained.
Third-order effects
Cameo's arc—from pandemic-era hiring and leadership expansion to repeated cuts—shows how marketplaces built for a demand surge can be forced to redesign their overhead when supply growth and demand do not sustain that scale.
If this pattern persists across creator and celebrity marketplaces, executive teams will be judged less on growth staffing and more on maintaining supply-side differentiation with leaner operating structures.
The trend: Pandemic-expanded consumer marketplaces are moving from scale-first hiring toward leaner organizations built around the supply and demand they can sustain.
Today has been a brutal day at the office. I made the painful decision to let go of 87 beloved members of the Cameo Fameo. If you're looking to hire hungry, humble, smart, kind, curious, learning machines who love to win - and you see Cameo on their resume - look no further.
Lol I'm sorry but you gotta at least temporarily change the bored ape avatar when you tweet out that your startup is making layoffs https://twitter.com/...
I've been told by a source close to the company that Cameo's massive layoffs today included its CTO, CPO, VP of Marketing and Chief People Officer 👀 https://www.protocol.com/...
Today, I was 1 of 87 people laid off at Cameo. Im so grateful for my experience, and am proud of the work I shipped to connect creators with their fans. So whats next? Im open to new product opportunities building marketplaces, video, and creator tools. DMs are open!✨
I'm sure there is a good answer for this but how can you lose money on a business where celebrities film themselves on their own phones and send the files to paying customers?? Is this not a high-margin situation? https://twitter.com/...
Cameo CEO Steven Galanis told CNBC last year: “Our goal at Cameo is to become a publicly traded company most likely in the next 18 to 36 months.” https://www.cnbc.com/... https://twitter.com/...
If I worked somewhere that laid me off and referred to me as part of the “Fameo” I think I might be too crestfallen to ever work again. https://twitter.com/...
@CaseyNewton Totally guessing, but let's say (like idk Substack) they guaranteed those celebrities a pretty high floor assuming demand would eventually catch up. Then in cases where it didn't, they wound up paying out more money than they took in, and/or the celebs bailed when th…
“To support both fan and talent demand during the pandemic lockdowns, Cameo's headcount exploded from just over 100 to nearly 400. We hired a lot of people quickly, and market conditions have rapidly changed since then.” https://twitter.com/...
Also affected by the layoffs were the company's international operations, including much of its London office, as well as a number of employees in sales and marketing, the source told Protocol. https://www.protocol.com/...
Cameo just had a round of layoffs. I assume once the novelty wore off, they are struggling to hit guaranteed minimums to keep various celebrities adequately compensated. https://twitter.com/...