Massive layoffs at Ticketmaster | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: One other thing I saw that I wanted to look at.

0:02 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, since we're talking about Ticketmaster. Apparently Ticketmaster ploy.

0:06 Speaker 1: We talked about Ticketmaster a lot on the show. This

0:09 Speaker 1: is from Digital Music News dot com. Major cuts at Ticketmaster.

0:12 Speaker 1: The company has cut three hundred and fifty jobs, as

0:16 Speaker 1: Live Nation divestor dangles. Let's see what this is about.

0:23 Speaker 1: It says here Ticketmaster cut eight percent of its global staff.

0:26 Speaker 1: Are around three hundred fifty employees in its on go,

0:29 Speaker 1: in its engineering, product and design divisions. The company also

0:34 Speaker 1: cut contractors. By the way, I wonder if some of

0:37 Speaker 1: this is the result of AI, you know, just aibby

0:42 Speaker 1: being able to do certain tasks that you don't necessarily

0:47 Speaker 1: need humans to do, and a company like Ticketmaster, because

0:51 Speaker 1: any company that I mean, I don't know if you

0:53 Speaker 1: would use the term tech company to describe Ticketmaster. Necessarily

0:57 Speaker 1: it's a you know, ticketing platform, but it's a ticketing

1:01 Speaker 1: platform on the Internet. They do depend heavily on probably

1:05 Speaker 1: a lot of things, a lot of tasks that you

1:07 Speaker 1: can train AI models to do. Again, this is from

1:11 Speaker 1: Digital Music News. It says Ticketmaster has cut eight percent

1:13 Speaker 1: of its global staff this week. According to a new

1:16 Speaker 1: report from Pollstar. The cut effects approximately three hundred fifty

1:19 Speaker 1: employees across twenty five countries, primarily in its engineering, product

1:24 Speaker 1: and design divisions, as well as reducing its contractors. Notably,

1:27 Speaker 1: the company's executive leadership team has not changed. Samil Meta,

1:33 Speaker 1: Ticketmaster Global President, who joined the company last October, said, quote,

1:37 Speaker 1: the purpose of these cuts is stronger prioritization, especially in engineering,

1:42 Speaker 1: product and design unquote. He also said, quote that comes

1:46 Speaker 1: with flattening layers, consolidating ownership, changing how teams are structured,

1:53 Speaker 1: and ensuring that we put more energy behind specific initiatives.

1:57 Speaker 1: We're going to keep investing in specific areas so that

2:00 Speaker 1: we can actually achieve the vision we laid out unquote.

2:05 Speaker 1: Meta presented his vision for Ticketmaster's future on April fifteen

2:08 Speaker 1: during a keynote address at the Pollstar Live conference. There,

2:12 Speaker 1: he explained the importance of Ticketmaster meeting fans where they

2:16 Speaker 1: are and optimizing the checkout process via new technologies like

2:21 Speaker 1: AI and there it is, There it is, he said

2:25 Speaker 1: during his presentation. Quote what I learned over the last

2:28 Speaker 1: ten years, which I'm trying to apply to Ticketmaster, is

2:32 Speaker 1: how to engage with commerce at scale, how to move billions,

2:36 Speaker 1: tens of billions, hundreds of billions all over the world

2:39 Speaker 1: between buyers and sellers, how to fight bad actors, fraud,

2:42 Speaker 1: and most importantly, how to take a technology first approach

2:46 Speaker 1: to problem solving, especially in the age of AI. Unquote.

2:51 Speaker 1: Meta was formerly the chief product Officer and head of

2:54 Speaker 1: Business org at Square, whose holdings include the likes of Title, Cash,

2:59 Speaker 1: app after pay, bit Key, and Spiral. So as you

3:02 Speaker 1: can see from his background, you know this is a

3:05 Speaker 1: guy who's thinking about this stuff, right, he said, quote

3:09 Speaker 1: to me, the strong performance reflects the past, and this

3:12 Speaker 1: is about what we are doing to set ourselves up

3:15 Speaker 1: for the earnings report twelve months from now, eighteen months

3:17 Speaker 1: from now, twenty four months from now. I'm thinking. The

3:21 Speaker 1: thinking is, let's do this so we are well positioned

3:24 Speaker 1: for two years down the road, one year down the road,

3:26 Speaker 1: or eighteen months down the road. So there you go.

3:31 Speaker 1: There you have it.