SiriusXM will lay off just over 1% of its current workforce.Īttempting to motivate its current staff following the job cuts, Meyer concluded, The combined companies have around 4,600 employees. “ We made these changes to better align our resources with business needs.” Meyer wrote that due to the acquisition, “both organizations knew that there would be changes to the workforce as we realigned departments, formed new teams, and found we had a greater visibility on the roadmap for the combined companies.” So, according to a memo from Meyer, the satellite radio company will let go around 60 staff members. SiriusXM attributed the steep drop to its Pandora Radio acquisition, completed on February 1 st. The satellite radio company confirmed its net income experienced a sharp 44% decline, totaling $162 million compared to $289 million year-over-year. Not everything was good news for SiriusXM in its Q1 2019 report.

Now, following its financial report, the satellite radio company has announced new layoffs. It’s still the first inning, but I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made so far.” “ We’re right where we want to be and moving very fast. Mike Keefe-Feldman is a writer in Berklee’s Digital Strategy and Communications Department.Speaking about the report in an earnings call with investors, SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer said, “Hearing him talk about helping get new artists discovered gave me even more hope.” “We hear a lot about the music industry going downhill, but I think the music industry is going to be fine,” Hart said. Mel Hart, a seventh-semester songwriting student, was encouraged by Westergren’s words. Each person should ask themselves if they feel prepared to go through that.”Īt the lecture’s conclusion, Berklee students swarmed the Pandora founder to ask additional questions. I don’t think entrepreneurship is for everyone. Then he added, “It’s about your personal tolerance for insecurity and risk. Westergren knew that he would regret trying something and failing less than he would regret never having tried. Westergren told the audience that potential entrepreneurs must take a long, hard, and honest look at themselves before plunging ahead. Now the company aims to “replace broadcast radio with a better experience,” and the numbers suggest it is well on its way to doing so. With a new CEO, Pandora retooled itself as a personalized radio platform, and then connected with Apple and rode the wave of smartphone growth into the ubiquity it now enjoys. A turning point came in the fall of 2005.

Still, he knew his company had a compelling product, even if it hadn’t fully figured out the business model yet. “I pitched Pandora to investors 348 times before getting to yes, and that’s no fun,” he said. While Pandora now stands as the biggest radio station in every market of the country, Westergren said, his goals were achieved only after many tough years in which he maxed out his credit cards and struggled with doubts and stress-induced insomnia. Pandora’s employees, many of whom are skilled musicians, curate that system, which Westergren compares to “DNA profiles of music.” “You really need a grounding in music theory to be able to extract this information,” Westergren said of the work behind mapping the relationships between similar or dissimilar songs. A big part of that job entailed presenting directors with options that he could then use to home in on their taste for a project-a precursor to the process behind the Music Genome Project, the system of algorithms that powers Pandora. As a leading music and podcast discovery platform, Pandora aims to create a. Westergren’s Pandora experience partly grew out of his days working as a touring musician living in a van-where he saw “a lot of talented trees falling in the forest” due to lack of radio airplay-as well as his work in film scoring and composing for feature films. salary information, interview tips, referrals from employees at Pandora. “I had the brochure and I had my ideas for courses picked out, but I wound up deciding to stay in the Bay Area.” Westergren kicked off his talk by noting that, prior to founding Pandora, he nearly studied at Berklee. Introducing Westergren, Don Gorder, department chair, noted that Pandora, a personalized radio service with 81.5 million active listeners and 250 million registered users, “is clearly the leader in digital consumption of music via streaming.” Zafris Distinguished Lecture for Berklee’s Music Business/Management Department. Pandora founder Tim Westergren spoke to a packed house of students at the 22nd annual James G.

Pandora radio employees