The mother of two was one of the first employees at Airbnb in Germany and has been living in San Francisco for eight years.
(Photo: private [M])
Dusseldorf It was a Wednesday morning in March in her home office in San Francisco when Kati Schmidt spotted a meeting on her calendar: with the CEO of Course Hero, her direct boss and the head of human resources. It was only in February that she took over the management of international expansion after three years at the educational technology provider.
“I thought optimistically for a moment: Maybe I can present my strategy,” she says in the new episode of Handelsblatt Rethink Work. But after a few minutes, the meeting was over and the 39-year-old lost her job – as did 15 percent of the workforce at Course Hero and tens of thousands of other tech companies in Silicon Valley.
Despite an appreciative conversation and a generous severance package, it was a shock at first, says Schmidt, who was seven months pregnant at the time. But it wasn’t her first layoff, and “it’s kind of part of it,” she says. “Silicon Valley is very dynamic. It happens to the best. Don’t take it personally.”
In Germany, such a short-term dismissal would be unthinkable, and there is also special protection against dismissal for pregnant women. Schmidt, who has lived in San Francisco for over eight years and was one of the first employees at Airbnb in Germany, does not miss the supposed security.
“I’ve always felt that to be a bit of a limitation,” she says. Just as you can be standing in front of the door in Silicon Valley overnight, you can also knock on the door of the next employer.
Her daughter was born three weeks ago, and Schmidt is now happy that she had two months to herself due to the termination of her pregnancy. If she hadn’t been pregnant, she would have immediately looked for something new, she says. And if she had not been fired, she would have worked until a week and a half before the birth.
Schmidt believes that the wave of layoffs at corporations such as Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Google will lead to even more being founded and more people giving smaller start-ups a chance and getting involved. Especially in the areas of artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, climate technologies and cybersecurity – less in the crypto area.
“It’s very pleasant with the big ones, you earn more every year, you get a bonus, you get something to eat,” says Schmidt. It’s difficult to give yourself “this push” and start a business, even if you have a good idea, because you’re giving up a lot.
She herself wants to get back on board in the fall and is open to everything, including founding a company. However, she does not believe “that my next employer will be my last”.
More: Listen to the previous episode of Rethink Work here