StarkWare cuts staff, reorganizes into two units as it targets revenue

StarkWare is cutting staff and reorganizing into two business units as the zero-knowledge rollup developer expands beyond infrastructure to build its own products and capture “meaningful revenue.”

The changes were announced by co-founder and CEO Eli Ben-Sasson during an all-hands meeting on Monday, according to a transcript seen by The Block. Ben-Sasson did not specify how many employees would be let go or provide a timeline for the reductions, but noted that downsizing was necessary to return to a "startup mode" mindset and accelerate product-market fit.

Affected staff were told they would receive an email shortly after the meeting inviting them to one-on-one conversations with their managers, he said in the transcript, adding that in many jurisdictions, StarkWare will provide severance beyond legal and contractual requirements.

Ben-Sasson cited a need to "move fast" and said a smaller headcount would make StarkWare more flexible. The CEO also said the firm will take "full ownership” of the whole blockchain proving stack, including Cairo, Sierra, and quantum-secure STARK cryptography, to reduce dependencies on external Layer 1 blockchains and external application teams.

"We're going to shift from doing many things well to doing fewer things excellently," Ben-Sasson said. "We're going to have emphasis on things that have immense potential and immense potential revenue, immense potential value, and which can be built only on our stack. We want to focus on things that can be done by no other team, in no other way."

New business units 

As part of the restructuring, Ben-Sasson stated that StarkWare will create a revenue-focused applications unit led by current CPO Avihu Levy as general manager and a revamped Starknet development unit led by current Head of Product Tom Brand as general manager. 

Levy, a StarkWare researcher who recently proposed a method for enabling quantum-resistant bitcoin transactions without a soft fork, will oversee the development of applications designed to generate revenue on the company’s technology stack.

Ben-Sasson also outlined additional leadership changes. The company's CFO, Ran Grinshtein, will now oversee finance, human resources, security, and IT, he said. 

Current StarkWare Head of Core Engineering Gideon Kaempfer will assume the role of chief architect, reporting to Ben-Sasson. Legal will continue to be headed by General Counsel Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, also reporting to Ben-Sasson. Ben-Sasson said COO Oren Katz has requested to leave but will remain through the end of April.