Okta, the identity and access software-maker, is headquartered at 100 1st St. in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood. Some of the company’s 83 laid-off California workers are based in the office.
Courtesy of Google StreetviewOkta, a San Francisco-based company known for identity authentication software, is laying off 7% of its staff — including 83 workers in California.
CEO Todd McKinnon announced the layoff of 400 full-time workers in a Thursday email to staff and a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the email, published by CNBC and confirmed by Okta spokesperson Jenny Grich, McKinnon called the layoff a “proactive measure” to cut the software giant’s costs, which he called “too high.”
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Okta also filed a WARN notice with San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s office, as is required under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. The notice, obtained by SFGATE, said 83 workers in the state will lose their jobs; some are remote, others are based at Okta’s SoMa headquarters.
McKinnon, in his email, told U.S. staff they’d learn Thursday morning whether they were among the layoffs and that the workers would receive cash severance plus additional time on the company payroll. He apologized for the layoff, but defended his decision, writing, “In order to grow profitably, we need to run the business with greater efficiency.” Okta lost $311 million from January to October 2023, according to a December filing.
Okta, which went public in 2017, sells its identity and access management tools to other businesses and has a $14 billion valuation on the stock market. After the 400-worker layoff, its remaining headcount is about 5,300.
The Thursday layoff comes just under a year after Okta laid off 300 workers; at the time, McKinnon blamed overhiring in the prior year. Okta joins several Bay Area tech companies starting 2024 with sweeping cuts — PayPal, Google, Discord, eBay, Unity Software and Twitch also laid off workers.
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Hear of anything happening at Okta or another tech company? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.