Evernote lays off 47 people and closes 3 offices in effort to build a more focused team

Evernote has announced layoffs at the productivity app provider. In a post, newly installed chief executive Chris O’Neill said that today it parted ways with 47 people on its staff and shuttered three offices outside the U.S. as a means of building a smaller, more focused team.

Since taking over for Phil Libin two months ago, O’Neill has been on a mission to better assess Evernote and its users. And now the time has come for him to start making his mark. As part of that, he’s focusing on three of the company’s core strengths: notes, sync, and search. He is seeking to retool the entire staff and concentrate on those team members that could contribute.

“I believe that a smaller, more focused team today will set us up for growth and expansion tomorrow,” O’Neill wrote. “Here are two things that you can expect from us over the next several months: we will launch major foundational product improvements around the core features that you care about most, and we will pull back on initiatives that fail to support our mission.”

A company spokesperson tells VentureBeat that offices affected are in Taiwan, Singapore, and Moscow. The layoffs are from across the entire company. Initiatives that are on the chopping block are those deemed “non-priority,” such as Evernote Food, which will shutter tomorrow.