LOS ANGELES — Earlier this week, esports juggernaut 100 Thieves announced that they will be laying off roughly 20% of their workforce, bringing the brand down to only 80 Thieves.
The founder and CEO of 80 Thieves, formerly 100 Thieves, Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag, iterated to employees in an internal memo that letting employees go was a tough decision.
“Choosing the 20 thieves to let go of was no easy task,” said Nadeshot. “When you get a group of people this talented, it’s hard to let any of them go. But, when you start spinning off your mildly successful esports venture into a bunch of other things, it turns out that it burns even more money than a regular esports team. Especially when you’re using the same roster of 100 people for all of that.”
A laid off member of the company, Sam Sytsma, expressed relief for being done with the organization.
“Honestly, thank god,” Sytsma said. “I signed on to play VALORANT, but because Nadeshot insisted there was only gonna be 100 of us, I had to work on all the other shit too. One day I was a professional gamer, the next I was selling energy drinks or helping code a video game.”
“I’ve wanted to leave for a while, but the logo guy worked really hard on that 100 Thieves design.” Sam continued. “Making him make an all-new one for ’99 Thieves’ seemed cruel. I guess they just had this one ready ahead of time.”
Another former member of the company, John Jones-Popp, seemed angry at the baggage the company name will give him.
“Come on, man. I’m trapped in esports for life now,” John lamented. “You think any normal company is gonna hire a guy who spent two years at a place called ‘100 Thieves?’ Oh well. Guess it’s time to go to another place and wait for their esports growth bubble to pop too.”
At press time, Nadeshot was considering changing the organization to “Around 60 or so Thieves” in the coming months.
