Recently laid off SoundCloud employees can submit proposals to WeTransfer and collect $10,000 for a new music tech idea.
WeTransfer president Damian Bradfield lays out the program in aMedium post. He says he came up with it during the Tech Open Air Conference in SoundCloud’s home city, Berlin.
His talk at the conference directly preceded an interview between Alex Ljung of SoundCloud and Mike Butcher of TechCrunch, the publication that published an article detailing SoundCloud’s dire financial situation after cutting 40% of its staff (173 people).
During the interview with Ljung, Bradfield had a eureka moment.
“What if each and every one of them had been offered ten thousand dollars to refrain from getting a job?” Bradfield writes. “To leave and start something. To leave and start working on the new future of music, whatever that might be.”
WeTransfer, which has been profitable since 2014, is now offering ex-SoundCloud employees the opportunity to focus on a new idea instead of getting a job. The deadline for proposals is August 21st, 2017. An email on the program has been sent to all laid-off employees, whose personal info is listed on a publicly available spreadsheet.
Check out the FAQs here, and read the letter sent to former SoundCloud employees.
