WeTransfer CEO Damian Bradfield recently gave a lecture on confidence, empathy and the digital life at the Tech Open Air in Berlin, entitled “Data theft, mistrust and Stockholm syndrome.”
However, despite the intense preparation, he did not seem to be able to win the audience, which, according to his own statement, might have meant that an interview with SoundCloud CEO Alexander Ljung was on the agenda after his lecture. After SoundCloud had dismissed 173 employees in mid-July and had to close down its offices in San Francisco and London in order to maintain its profitability, this was the first public appearance of Ljung.
Bradfield sat during the interview, in which he said in a four-eye interview: “It’s nice he regretted it, but he could not have offered every 10,000 dollars to start something new ? ”
Open letter to the dismissed employees
But since SoundCloud did not come up with such an idea by itself, Bradfield addressed an open letter to the dismissed SoundCloud staff. He carries the headline: “Do not seek a job.” In it, the WeTransfer boss offers every dismissed $ 10,000 if he or she establishes their own company in the music industry.
He gave them four weeks to send their ideas to WeTransfer. This amount is not a loan or an investment. It is an opportunity and you do not want to compete or have something, writes Bradfield at medium.com, where you can also read the entire letter.
Bradsfield justifies the action as follows: “What if each of these 173 people has a brilliant idea? Would we all have to finance? Maybe. To be honest, we were not sure. We’ve heard rumors that 35 have already found a new job. “10,000 dollars are not enough to build a completely new company, but it’s enough to start an idea, design or design something.
WeTransfer is a file hosting service with around 40 million users a month, which was founded in Amsterdam in 2009. The reason for the generosity to the former SoundCloud staff is, among other things, that WeTransfer is well-connected in the creative scene.
The amount of the sum has a good reason
In the past, performers like Oasis and Moby use the platform to provide their fans with exclusive songs. Even the $10,000 is not a coincidence, as WeTransfer was founded with a similar sum. WeTransfer provides 30 percent of its advertising revenues for the support of the arts within the framework of the “This Works” program.
