Oversee.net, the parent company of DomainSponsor, announced yesterday that it has laid off 38 employees – close to 20% of its workforce. The company cited a difficult economic environment expected in 2009 for the layoffs.
There was speculation that was one of the hardest ht divisions, but the company did not break the numbers down. They did report that employees in Los Angeles, Florida and Oregon were affected. The bulk of the layoffs reportedly occurred in Los Angeles where most of Oversee’s employees work. Oversee had already cut 10 percent of its workforce in August 2008.
The Los Angeles Business Journal reported that Oversee president “Jeff Kupietzky said most of the cuts occurred in new ventures and business units that had become less profitable, such as Web sites built around mortgages and ring tones. He said Oversee had started to see “weaknesses” in advertising but that its core business of buying and registering Internet domain names remained strong”.
“Given the tough economic situations, we are coming back to the basic strategy of our businesses where we have a leadership position or intend to have a leadership position,” he said.
The company reported that the cuts will not impact Oversee’s Domainfest conference in Los Angeles later this month. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is scheduled to deliver the keynote address, and there will be a benefit party at the Playboy Mansion. (I’ll be on a domain monetization panel on 1/27.)
NameMonetizer 
I thought it was a little brutal when Jeff was interviewing "The Woz" and Steve said, "When HP hit a reccession, well they didn’t go and do layoffs" (or something to that effect). This like a day after Jeff laid off 20%.Jeff did a great job on that interview, couldn’t have seen that coming, and I don’t think that The Woz meant it like that anyway.
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