Field Dispatch
Massive layoffs at Ticketmaster | Matt Connarton Unleashed
Speaker 1: One other thing I saw that I wanted to look at.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, since we're talking about Ticketmaster. Apparently Ticketmaster ploy.
Speaker 1: We talked about Ticketmaster a lot on the show. This
Speaker 1: is from Digital Music News dot com. Major cuts at Ticketmaster.
Speaker 1: The company has cut three hundred and fifty jobs, as
Speaker 1: Live Nation divestor dangles. Let's see what this is about.
Speaker 1: It says here Ticketmaster cut eight percent of its global staff.
Speaker 1: Are around three hundred fifty employees in its on go,
Speaker 1: in its engineering, product and design divisions. The company also
Speaker 1: cut contractors. By the way, I wonder if some of
Speaker 1: this is the result of AI, you know, just aibby
Speaker 1: being able to do certain tasks that you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: need humans to do, and a company like Ticketmaster, because
Speaker 1: any company that I mean, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: would use the term tech company to describe Ticketmaster. Necessarily
Speaker 1: it's a you know, ticketing platform, but it's a ticketing
Speaker 1: platform on the Internet. They do depend heavily on probably
Speaker 1: a lot of things, a lot of tasks that you
Speaker 1: can train AI models to do. Again, this is from
Speaker 1: Digital Music News. It says Ticketmaster has cut eight percent
Speaker 1: of its global staff this week. According to a new
Speaker 1: report from Pollstar. The cut effects approximately three hundred fifty
Speaker 1: employees across twenty five countries, primarily in its engineering, product
Speaker 1: and design divisions, as well as reducing its contractors. Notably,
Speaker 1: the company's executive leadership team has not changed. Samil Meta,
Speaker 1: Ticketmaster Global President, who joined the company last October, said, quote,
Speaker 1: the purpose of these cuts is stronger prioritization, especially in engineering,
Speaker 1: product and design unquote. He also said, quote that comes
Speaker 1: with flattening layers, consolidating ownership, changing how teams are structured,
Speaker 1: and ensuring that we put more energy behind specific initiatives.
Speaker 1: We're going to keep investing in specific areas so that
Speaker 1: we can actually achieve the vision we laid out unquote.
Speaker 1: Meta presented his vision for Ticketmaster's future on April fifteen
Speaker 1: during a keynote address at the Pollstar Live conference. There,
Speaker 1: he explained the importance of Ticketmaster meeting fans where they
Speaker 1: are and optimizing the checkout process via new technologies like
Speaker 1: AI and there it is, There it is, he said
Speaker 1: during his presentation. Quote what I learned over the last
Speaker 1: ten years, which I'm trying to apply to Ticketmaster, is
Speaker 1: how to engage with commerce at scale, how to move billions,
Speaker 1: tens of billions, hundreds of billions all over the world
Speaker 1: between buyers and sellers, how to fight bad actors, fraud,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, how to take a technology first approach
Speaker 1: to problem solving, especially in the age of AI. Unquote.
Speaker 1: Meta was formerly the chief product Officer and head of
Speaker 1: Business org at Square, whose holdings include the likes of Title, Cash,
Speaker 1: app after pay, bit Key, and Spiral. So as you
Speaker 1: can see from his background, you know this is a
Speaker 1: guy who's thinking about this stuff, right, he said, quote
Speaker 1: to me, the strong performance reflects the past, and this
Speaker 1: is about what we are doing to set ourselves up
Speaker 1: for the earnings report twelve months from now, eighteen months
Speaker 1: from now, twenty four months from now. I'm thinking. The
Speaker 1: thinking is, let's do this so we are well positioned
Speaker 1: for two years down the road, one year down the road,
Speaker 1: or eighteen months down the road. So there you go.
Speaker 1: There you have it.
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