Multiple staffers at The Ringer were laid off on Monday as Spotify reportedly cut 15 staffers from its podcast division.
The cuts affected about 3% of the staff in the podcast group, mostly at The Ringer—the sports and culture website founded by Bill Simmons in 2016, which Spotify purchased in 2020—and Spotify Studios. Those impacted include Ringer pop culture writer Miles Surrey and special projects lead Andrew Gruttadaro, according to posts on their respective accounts on the social platform X. The Ringer is also ending “New York, New York With John Jastremski,” a podcast about New York City sports, according to Variety.
“Spotify does not comment on staffing shifts,” a spokesperson said. Variety first reported the news.
The cuts were not cost-cutting measures but rather stemmed from a desire to streamline teams and improve execution, a source told TheWrap. The company still plans to invest in podcasts, including multi-format content, the source said.
Gruttadaro said in his X post that it was “impossible to sum up nine years in a tweet” but that he was proud of his work on profiles, theme weeks and special projects. “I was also honored to work with some of the best writers (and people) I’ve ever met,” he added.
“It was a rewarding eight and a half years and I’m proud to have literally written the most articles in the site’s history,” Miles Surrey wrote in his own X post.
Spotify’s podcasting division has gone through years of job slashings both large and small. It previously laid off 15 employees in its podcasting division last June, including staffers at The Ringer, and in 2023 it laid off 200 staffers as part of a broader reorganization. Spotify as a whole laid off about 1,500 employees, or about 17% of its workforce, in 2024.
