Tron is a blockchain platform that has been in the news over the past several days for multiple reasons. One such reason is that of the company’s acquisition of BitTorrent in July 2018. Reportedly, Tron founder Justin Sun was interested in this acquisition for months, and reports regarding his active interest in the company started making the rounds in June 2018. A month later, the deal was finalized. However, following this acquisition, 5 employees have left the company and many more exits might be on the cards.
Out of the five that have left, two have been asked to leave while three have resigned on their own. Out of these five, two employees who have left were managing key leadership roles in the organization, holding the positions of general manager and head of marketing. Other employees such as the company's chief executive, chief financial officer, chief product officer and chief revenue officer have a lock-in period of 18 months and will not be able to leave the company till then.
As of now, the company, which comprised of 49 members, is looking for 30 more jobs as per their LinkedIn job postings. Reports from Coindesk indicate that while five have left, there is an ‘unease’ among the remaining employees too, partly because of this rapid expansion drive. This is likely because of the fact that they are unsure because of the direction that Tron might take BitTorrent to after the acquisition. Employees are expecting that there may be a major change in the company’s working culture following this expansion.
However, BitTorrent is not new to employee exits or firings. In the past, such events have happened multiple times. In 2008, BitTorrent laid off 12 employees following their disastrous online media store. 40 employees were let go in 2015 after the company ‘re-structured’. The Tron acquisition is likely to shake up things once again. Tron had acquired BitTorrent in July 2018 for a $120 Million deal in cash.
Tron: Not New to Controversies
The reason why many BitTorrent employees are uncertain about the company’s future under Tron is that Tron has been a controversial name in the past. The platform, which claims their mission to be ‘to decentralize the internet’ started off in 2017, raising $70 Million from ICO fundraising. Reports then began to emerge that Tron had problems when it came to attributing the codes of their protocols as well as plagiarizing their whitepaper.
In fact, many even believe that Tron has acquired BitTorrent to bring in more credibility to their business. Employees are also reportedly uncomfortable with Tron’s marketing and messaging techniques, stating that despite being at a very nascent stage, the company has been making huge claims when it comes to investors and consumers.