HubSpot CEO Yamini Rangan shared a layoff memo for 660 employees.

As longtime operators, we've seen a lot of these. Most suck. This one was different.

Here’s what stood out, what worked, and where it fell short.

Bottom line up front. Impacted people found out fast what was happening and what happens in the next 15 minutes. No burying the lead.

Then she went straight to why. Strategy is changing, and the org needs to change with it.

That sounds basic, but compare it to the Workday announcement last week — which was just an 8-K about “better aligning team structures” with no public memo. This was clear, accountable and human.

Yamini was explicit: this is not driven by AI-related efficiencies.

That’s a pendulum swing from this last year where every layoff was blamed on AI. We think that directness helped.

At the same time, AI is changing how work gets done and what org structure you need. You can’t separate that from cost structure and competition entirely.

What we liked most: she explained not just the outcome, but the process.

Review the strategy. Define what customers need. Protect the business. Then build the right org from the bottom up.

That’s first-principles thinking. A lot of restructures skip that and go straight to numbers. (See our critique of the Block layoff )

“Current leadership fit” was a big part of the criteria.

We read that as very different from “all managers suck.” It’s about having the right leaders for what’s next — leaders who are comfortable with unknowns, can adapt fast, and can motivate teams when things are uncomfortable.

That message resonates better than a blanket attack on management.

She publicly laid out the severance package.

We call that severance transparency, and it matters. Now employees have a benchmark. It puts pressure on every other company to be decent and be clear.

Two things we’d push on:

Bottom line

Hard moment. Clear memo. Human focus.

Well done, Yamini and your comms team.

If you’re a leader, steal the good parts: lead with the bottom line, explain the why and the process, be transparent on severance, and center on the people leaving.

Watch the full hot take for the point-by-point breakdown.

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** Typos and poor grammar either because I'm too lazy to edit properly, or to make you feel confident this was written by a flawed human and not AI generated.