SNAP
Snap’s new diet plan
Snap woke up and decided the company needed to get a lot leaner. It’s laying off roughly 1,000 employees — about 16% of its full-time staff — and closing more than 300 open roles as it tries to streamline operations and lean into AI for the boring stuff.
Activist pressure, meet the pink slip
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Activist investor Irenic Capital Management, which says it has about a 2.5% economic interest in Snap, had already pushed CEO Evan Spiegel to rethink the company’s playbook. In a March 31 letter, it argued Snap could unlock major value by tightening costs and taking a hard look at expensive bets.
The AR glasses elephant in the room
One of Irenic’s loudest asks: shut down or spin off Specs, Snap’s augmented reality glasses unit. Snap has poured more than $3.5 billion into the project, so this is basically the corporate version of “we need to talk” after a very expensive hobby.
Why investors care
Snap says the cuts should help it deliver more than $500 million in annualized expense reductions by the second half of 2026. The market liked the sound of that — shares jumped 5.8% on the news — but the stock is still down about 31% this year, which tells you investors want more than cost cuts and good intentions.
Big picture: Snap is trying to prove that AI and austerity can do what years of splashy bets haven’t — turn a cool app into a sturdier business.