GoKawiilI visited deno.com yesterday. I wanted to know if the hundreds of hours I’d spent mastering Deno was a sunk cost. Do I continue building for the runtime, or go back to Node?
Alt deno.com 404 not found error page stating: Sorry, there was an issue loading this page
Well I guess that pretty much sums up why a good chunk of Deno employees left the company over the last week.
Layoffs are what American corpo culture calls firing half the staff. Totally normal practice for a sustainable business. Mass layoffs are deemed better for the moral of those who remain than a weekly culling before Friday beers.
The Romans loved a good decimation.† If I were a purveyor of slop and tortured metaphors, I’d have adorned this post with a deepfake of Ryan Dahl fiddling as Deno burned. But I’m not, so the solemn screenshot will suffice.
† I read Rome, Inc. recently. Not a great book, I’m just explaining the reference.
Deno’s decline
A year ago I wrote about Deno’s decline. The facts, undeterred by my subjective scorn, painted a harsh picture; Deno Land Inc. was failing.
Deno incorporated with $4.9M of seed capital five years ago. They raised a further $21M series A a year later. Napkin math suggests a five year runway for an unprofitable company (I have no idea, I just made that up.)
Coincidentally, after my blog post topped Hacker News — always a pleasure for my inbox — Ryan Dahl (Deno CEO) clapped back on the offical Deno blog:
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