Was listening the Friday Giro updates on the Cyclingtips podcast and they announced that Outside (the parent company of cyclingtips) had a number of layoffs recently and Dane Cash was one of the employees who was let go. Really gutted. Episodes were always a bit better when he was there - enjoyed his analysis and he had a great radio voice.
Hoping he lands somewhere good
Ben Delany and a 3rd person I can’t think of in my VO2 fog also got dumped from VeloNews. Crazy times and hope for the best for all of them.
I just found a tweet - looks like the other one is Greg Kaplan. Bummer for all three
Greg Kaplan
And they killed both Beta and Peloton too
Yes, was sad to hear that news too. Dane added a lot to the CyclingTips podcast, not least his excellent race analysis and acting as an excellent counter-balance to Caley et al who are more likely to fire from the hip and go off at tangents. Hope he finds a great new job.
Which was weird because they just killed the print version of VeloNews and switched everyone over to a Peloton subscription.
This is your regular reminder that the VC world sucks….corporate vultures that can only read spreadsheets and don’t understand how to run businesses.
Very Sad. I hope Dane and others find a new home for their talents. I struggle to make sense of these layoffs. My loyalty as a listener and reader is with the journalists that I have come to know and love through the podcasts and printed stories.
While I wouldn’t argue about the Venture Capitol (maybe Vulture Capitol is more appropriate) being filled with some greedy low lifes, at least they serve a useful purpose. On the other hand, private equity firms are the worst. Buy a business. Reduce service. Cut costs. Raise prices.
You can read about the deal that brought all these companies together
The saddest thing is this quote from Ben
“This deal should mean nothing but good things for our readers,” Delaney said.
Yeah, I probably should have used PE instead of VC in this case. Thanks for the correction.
Laying off Kaplan and Delaney will mean far fewer tech & gravel articles on VeloNews. Seems like an odd decision as they have been providing a lot of content for the site
You forgot “leverage to the hilt, and use the money to line the PE firms’ pockets”,
Scariest thing I read recently is that PE is buying up long-term care / nursing homes now. This will not go well for the elderly, or our public coffers.
Outside bought Velonews, Peloton, Cyclingtips, and many other cycling properties. Now they probably have too many staffers doing the exact same thing.
It’s sad that they let go long time staffers (who were probably paid more with benefits) and you now see a lot of articles by authors you never heard of (probably contractors).
So they bought Peloton only to kill it a year later?
I’m not positive it’s true, but on the CT Forum I just saw someone say Caley Fretz, Dave Rome, Matt de Neef and Daniel Bensons (Editor-in-Chief of VN) along with 12% of staff were let go today.
Ouch. That is cutting to the core of the operation.
jfc!
Something good may be brewing
