4 ms·

Juul to lay off over half its workforce

32 points by xoxoy 6y ago

retox 6y ago
Altria, aka Philip Morris, took a 35% stake in Juul for $12B, and also happen to have a competing product in the iQOS system. The conspiracy theorist in me feels like the investment was to kill the Juul and will just factored into the cost of doing business.
- bsder 6y ago
  That would be silly since Juul already has a massive establishment brand. Juul spent a LOT of money on customer acquisition. They've now acquired the customers and there just aren't that many more customers to get. So, now it's time to settle down and set the numbers for exploiting the addicted. And you don't need 3,000 people in marketing for that.
- llimos 6y ago
  As someone with experience of Altria's previous foray into e-cigarettes, this is not as farfetched as it sounds. However, also from experience, they are just as capable of killing it through stupidity. When they shut down said previous attempt and took the stake in Juul, we speculated that the reason they only took a minority stake was to save it from themselves.
3636388373 6y ago
This is what happens when you give soccer moms more of a voice than doctors.
rjeli 6y ago
I agree with most complaints about them getting teens hooked, but I hope they stick around for adult smokers. The sensation of the Juul device was good enough to for me to completely stop smoking, where box mods failed. So I still had a nic addiction but without the awful lung health. Unfortunately since the SF ban, I have gone back to a pack a day, since I have no car to drive out of SF and public transport has shut down. Thanks sf :)
bsder 6y ago
Can we please not use WSJ links when there are perfectly fine other ones out there? LA Times link: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-09-03/juul-plans-layoffs-may-exit-markets https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-09-03/juul-plans... Edit: Apparent LA Times also is paywall ... https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/09/03/juul-may-lay-off-more-than-50-of-its-workforce-report-says/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/09/03/juul-m... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-juul-layoffs/juul-to-drastically-cut-workforce-explore-exiting-some-markets-idUSKBN25U36A https://www.reuters.com/article/us-juul-layoffs/juul-to-dras...
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  LA Times has a loginwall/paywall

32 points by xoxoy 6y ago

Altria, aka Philip Morris, took a 35% stake in Juul for $12B, and also happen to have a competing product in the iQOS system. The conspiracy theorist in me feels like the investment was to kill the Juul and will just factored into the cost of doing business.

bsder 6y ago
That would be silly since Juul already has a massive establishment brand. Juul spent a LOT of money on customer acquisition. They've now acquired the customers and there just aren't that many more customers to get. So, now it's time to settle down and set the numbers for exploiting the addicted. And you don't need 3,000 people in marketing for that.
llimos 6y ago
As someone with experience of Altria's previous foray into e-cigarettes, this is not as farfetched as it sounds. However, also from experience, they are just as capable of killing it through stupidity. When they shut down said previous attempt and took the stake in Juul, we speculated that the reason they only took a minority stake was to save it from themselves.

3636388373 6y ago

This is what happens when you give soccer moms more of a voice than doctors.

rjeli 6y ago

I agree with most complaints about them getting teens hooked, but I hope they stick around for adult smokers. The sensation of the Juul device was good enough to for me to completely stop smoking, where box mods failed. So I still had a nic addiction but without the awful lung health. Unfortunately since the SF ban, I have gone back to a pack a day, since I have no car to drive out of SF and public transport has shut down. Thanks sf :)

bsder 6y ago

Can we please not use WSJ links when there are perfectly fine other ones out there? LA Times link: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-09-03/juul-plans-layoffs-may-exit-markets https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-09-03/juul-plans... Edit: Apparent LA Times also is paywall ... https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/09/03/juul-may-lay-off-more-than-50-of-its-workforce-report-says/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/09/03/juul-m... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-juul-layoffs/juul-to-drastically-cut-workforce-explore-exiting-some-markets-idUSKBN25U36A https://www.reuters.com/article/us-juul-layoffs/juul-to-dras...

srtjstjsj 6y ago
LA Times has a loginwall/paywall