Tuesday, September 12 09:39 AM
Russell Sells Outs, Tells Employees Get The Hell Out.
Seems like the Dream Team has lost steam and cream. More then 30% of the staff of 360hiphop is being let go this morning in effort to ensure a smooth transition during the BET acquisition. Internet access has been turned off for most employees who are being downsized. The content and marketing people will continue to write articles no one reads and market a site no one visits, for the time being. The acquisition was a desperation deal for 360hiphop. They were burning through their initial financing, faster then Selwyn could change Phat Farm outfits. The monthly burn rate for creative alone was close to 1.5 million dollars a month. Evidently Russell had given Selwyn Hinds carte blanche. Extravagant spending ensued, trips for 20 staff members to fly to Miami for 7 days to cover the Urban Fashion Week conference was the norm. Roughly 24 staff members have been let go today from a staff of 65. And this is only the beginning. Evidently 70% of the staff will be let go before the end of the month. Just some people get more warning than others. BET and 360Hihop executives terminated over 1/3 of the staff today, claiming the need to eliminate redundancies caused by BET's acquisition of 360hiphop. Osman Eralp, interim CEO, spent the morning reassuring fired employees that he fought for their jobs as hard as he could. Russell of course, was nowhere around. The conversation for saving jobs that took place a week ago probably went something like this: Bob Johnson: Russell, get rid of 30% of that staff by years end! Russell Simons: Damn! Who is gonna read my email for me now?. Bob Johnson: Well, either you fire them or we reduce your payout by 2 thousand dollars. Russell Simons: Damn! OK, I'll cut 70% if Kimora gets Rachel's spot on Live from LA. Bob Johnson: Done! Russell Simons: Hey Bob... want some used 2-way pagers? Bob Johnson: Hell yeah, its about saving money boy! My staff uses tin-cans and string to communicate. The legal department has been let go as well as some of the 6 figure marketing people. Many of the high salaried individuals at the company will no be receiving severance packages because BET.com felt they were overpaid. The good news is that the company is allowing them to keep their company bought cell phones if they just sign the waiver to pay their own bill. The bad news, all 2-way pagers from fired employees will be confiscated. Evidently, 360hiphop feels letting them have those would be, "too much flossing". Russell has been heard at many industry functions admitting he wish he never started 360hiphop. We actually blame the Castling group (http://www.castlinggroup.com/) for their early mismanagement of the project. They set up no checks and balances for financial spending and recommended some expensive 3rd party solutions. Urban content can be profitable and will work in the Internet space. It just won't be 360hiphop.

www.urbanexpose.com
urban exposé © Copyright 2003