BuzzFeed, hoping to forestall layoffs with an economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic already under way, is reducing the salaries of most employees. CEO Jonah Peretti said he won't be taking any compensation until the crisis has passed.Peretti announced the salary cuts at a BuzzFeed all-hands meeting Wednesday and provided additional details in a memo, which was obtained by Variety. The digital-media company's staffers will see their pay reduced on a sliding scale of 5% to 25%, depending on...
Jonah
Peretti
Founder / CEO
Peretti led the creation of BuzzFeed back in 2006 — several lifetimes ago in internet years. The site originally started as a project based on his work as an MIT Media Lab grad student studying the spread of viral content. BuzzFeed long ago branched beyond shareable listicles and quizzes to news and original video content produced for partners including Netflix, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook. Like other companies in the space, BuzzFeed has faced growth challenges: Peretti laid off 15% of the New York company’s workforce in early 2019 and is looking build new revenue streams including merchandise, branded content and live events. Prior to BuzzFeed, Peretti co-founded news-aggregation site The Huffington Post, later acquired by AOL (now part of Verizon).