A SMALLER ASSEMBLY: General Assembly has laid off 50 people, roughly 7 percent of its 765-person staff, the Wall Street Journal reports, as it refocuses its business. In 2015, The coding bootcamp raised $55 million in venture capital to start a program in which employers could provide tuition assistance to employees looking to grow their technical skills. Enterprise clients account for 10 percent of General Assembly's current business, but CEO Jake Schwartz said in an interview with EdSurge that he believes up to half of the company's revenue could come from business training.
"We've grown 5000 percent in the past five years," Schwartz said, "and this is what happens when you need to stay agile and nimble in a new phase of growth, only now it's on a much bigger scale."
Schwartz doesn't see business clients as being much different from individuals on General Assembly's campus. He thinks they are "two sides of the same coin."
The company has also hired new executives as it plans the expansion of its enterprise services: a new chief product officer and a head of its enterprise division. Their names have not been disclosed yet.
Schwatrz told the Wall Street Journal that he aims to make an initial public offering in the future, but he doesn't believe General Assembly will be ready until 2018.
