rumormonger, akimbo, deathwatch, layoffs, online video

Will the last Akimbo employee please turn out the lights

Akimbo has laid off nearly everyone except for its executives, according to a tip we just received. An early entrant in the TV-over-Internet field, Akimbo saw its original CEO Joshua Goldman leave for the luxury of investing in other video startups. The company dumped its set-top box business to sell Internet video-on-demand software to other hardware manufacturers. So far $47 million has been poured into the company by the likes of Cisco Systems, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Kleiner Perkins' William R. Hearst III, who serves on Akimbo's board. Any Akimbo employees out there want to confirm or contradict our tipster's impression that CEO Tom Frank and COO Neil Goldberg are mismanaging the aging startup?

4:40 PM on Thu May 1 2008
By Jackson West
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8 comments

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sadakimbo at 05:08 PM on 05/01/08
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I concur!
jackparsons at 11:04 PM on 05/01/08
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"Akimbo has laid off nearly everyone except for its executives..."

"Any Akimbo employees out there want to confirm or contradict..."

Umm... Jackson?
sadakimbo at 09:21 AM on 05/02/08
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I have heard that not only have all the employees been laid off, it was done with consideration and grace...an EMAIL was sent to all.

Fantastic management team.
sadakimbo at 11:08 AM on 05/02/08
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Note, to be fair I have had an update...an email was sent, but they then did have a face to face as well afterward.

Great original concept...just no management execution.
truthmonger at 12:13 PM on 05/02/08
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Too bad that someone who obviously got laid off for not having the skill set to adapt to their new business focus now has the free time to slame the company on this blog. No where near half the company was laid off. In fact, two weeks ago, they were hiring new staff -- mainly on the tech side to address their new business focus and provide the best product in the market for their customers. By the way, the original CEO was fired for burning through much of that investment money. The new management was brought on by the Board.
FiveStarEggRoll at 12:51 PM on 05/02/08
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"...arms akimbo..."

Harry "ohh, memories" Wang
sadakimbo at 02:32 PM on 05/02/08
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LOL...I was not laid off today. I left the company last year.

And you are correct the new management was brougth on board by the Board. The same board that constantly helped to burn through the investment money by constantly changing direction, trying to get pet projects implemented. I am not going to champion the former CEO he had his problems as well. But had the company followed the original mandate of developing a large library of niche content not being delivered by the major cable networks, instead of recycling content anyone could get from their cable systems, which also cost ridiculous guaranteed revenues...then we would have had a shot.

And I experienced several months of the new regime...and while previous management had their issues...ranting and screaming at staff in open spaces...only to apologize later and laugh it off as normal venting...was not one of them.

We had such hope for Tom F. and were sorely crushed by his lack of leadership and management skills.

So unless you put years of your life into a company only to have had it frittered away by a lack of vision or ability to lead...then you really have no place to comment.
BruceWillis at 03:19 PM on 05/02/08
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@truthmonger: Look truthmonger, I'm not gonna try and "slame" anyone. But it's pretty common knowledge that most of Akimbo quit or left that rotting corpse of a company on their own. Most people have a hard time working for terrible management and dead end projects. At least now with 0 employees left and all management, there is no one left to blame if they don't succeed.