I just heard from Barbara, who I used to work with at Teaching Network. She just got word that a few more people were laid off. It’s now down to only the 3 owners.
This is pretty sad. It was a great company to work for when I started there in June of last year. We were developing an online tutoring system and I got a lot of good Windows experience there (I was developing ActiveX controls in ATL, which I learned on the job). It was a fast-growing startup company, and all of their funding came from one person. We had enough money to continue for 2 years with no income, although we were planning to go online last November. Unfortunately, he died suddenly in an accident, which cut off all of our funding. On the Friday before 9-11, more than half of us were called into the conference room at 3PM and given the news that it was our last day. Only the project leaders remained after that day, and they were hoping to be able to re-hire everyone in a few months if they got new funds. Of course when 9-11 happened a few days later, it ruined their plans (the owners also run a stock market information service, which was hit pretty hard). Over the next few months, the remaining people were gradually let go, and it’s now down to the last 3. Barbara & I are two of the lucky ones – we found jobs right away. A few of the others are still out of work.