Startup Lays Off Everyone But Culture Team To Protect Culture

AUSTIN, TX — Logistics software startup Palisade Loop cut 212 of its 221 employees Thursday, retaining only its nine-person Culture & Belonging team so that, in the words of a company-wide email, "the thing that makes us us has room to breathe."

The email, sent at 9:04 a.m. from a shared inbox called hello-culture, did not mention that the company's product, a freight-routing platform, now has no engineers. Chief Culture Officer Dana Whitlock said the decision followed a rigorous internal audit in which the culture was found to be "doing great, honestly, just surrounded by a lot of overhead."

"People kept asking what we do here," Whitlock said, standing beside a kombucha tap that now serves nine. "What we do is hold the values. You can't hold values and also file tickets. Someone had to choose."

The remaining staff have already begun a series of initiatives, including a weekly Gratitude Standup for the absent, and a Slack channel called #wins that has gone eleven hours without a win. A laminated sign reading "We Are A Family" was moved from the lobby to the center of the floor, where it faces the nine desks.

Customers have noticed. Marcus Odell, a dispatch manager at a regional trucking firm, said his pallets have been routed to a Dollar General in Tulsa since Tuesday. "I emailed support and got a reply that said, 'We hear you, and we want you to feel heard,'" Odell said. "Then it asked how I was feeling. I had 40 trucks in a field."

A study commissioned by Palisade Loop's own People Experience Lab found that morale among remaining employees is at an all-time high of 100 percent. Its author, lab director Priya Venkataraman, acknowledged the sample size was nine and that all nine had designed the survey. "That is what we mean by alignment," she said.

Laid-off employees received a severance package of three weeks' pay and a tote bag. Several said the bag was the only item the company has ever delivered on time.

Investors remain supportive. Board member Greg Hallett said the move "de-risks the company's biggest asset, which is how we feel about ourselves," and added that a Series C would likely follow once the team finishes drafting its mission statement.

At press time, the culture team had announced a new core value of "Resilience" and promptly laid off the person who suggested it.