All year in 2023, senior leadership frequently shared overly-optimistic updates on fundraising progress, asking employees to be patient while their pending promotions or pay raises were put on hold as the dates kept getting pushed back, only to fail by the end of the year with another rosy outlook for the year ahead then waiting until the New Year to begin laying off hardworking employees in a sudden U-turn.
The CEO was also apparently unaware that Sales had failed to adapt to selling AppDev's services, which are fundamentally different from those of the wider org. This was made clear to all in a late-2023 All-Hands town hall exchange between the CEO and AppDev's head.
Put these together and the AppDev team, who were acquired by Mission relatively recently, began suffering cuts with more to likely to come. Big changes to their offering are also likely that will negatively impact those remaining due to Sales' inability or unwillingness to adapt, and leadership has yet to take any accountability for the failures themselves.