GoPro slashes up to 300 jobs, mostly in its Karma drone division

[Shawn Knight]

GoPro in early 2017 slashed its workforce by 270 employees in what was the third wave of job cuts since the beginning of 2016. Now we’re hearing that 2018 is getting off to a similar start.

Sources reportedly familiar with the situation tell TechCrunch that the action camera maker has laid off between 200 and 300 additional employees. Most of the cuts impact GoPro’s aerial division which is responsible for the company’s Karma drone.

Sources say the impacted employees were relieved of their duties this week but will remain on GoPro’s payroll until February 16. It appears as though GoPro wanted to keep the news under wraps until after CES (and perhaps to coincide with an upcoming earnings report).

A letter to affected employees said the cuts were part of a larger restructuring effort designed to better align resources with business requirements. GoPro cited a desire to reduce operating expenses as the reason for its previous round of cuts.

GoPro launched its Karma drone alongside the Hero5 family of action cameras in late 2016 but recalled the device less than two months later due to a power-related issue. The drone returned to GoPro’s online store in early 2017 where it currently sells for $799.99.

GoPro’s newest action camera, the Hero6 Black, arrived in September priced at $499.99.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/72611-gopro-slashes-up-300-jobs-mostly-karma-drone.html

 

[VitalyT]

Well, it's karma!

 

[QuantumPhysics]

GoPro has been slow to adapt and terrible at producing new products.

#1 They need a pair of 1080p recording glasses with digital image stabilization
#2 Their drone is not as good as what we can get in a Phantom
#3 They could have developed special telemetry/mountable recording cameras for "racecars" so people could more easily make Youtube videos (something like what's in the new Corvette or CTS-V).

I'd recommend a point and shoot recorder that can edit video internally and upload to social media.

If Apple built a touchscreen POS camera with iMovie on board, 4K 60FPS and dgial image stabilization, they'd kill the game.

 

[mbrowne5061]

GoPro has been slow to adapt and terrible at producing new products.

#1 They need a pair of 1080p recording glasses with digital image stabilization
#2 Their drone is not as good as what we can get in a Phantom
#3 They could have developed special telemetry/mountable recording cameras for "racecars" so people could more easily make Youtube videos (something like what's in the new Corvette or CTS-V).

I'd recommend a point and shoot recorder that can edit video internally and upload to social media.

If Apple built a touchscreen POS camera with iMovie on board, 4K 60FPS and dgial image stabilization, they'd kill the game.

1) No one has bought into video glasses yet. I doubt they will catch on.
2) Very, very true. Karma is considered one of the worse aerial photography drones out there. It drifts, its noisy, it doesn't have half of the features of a phantom
3) That would go very wrong. The only people who have the Corvette one are people who have the Corvette. Creating a camera that shows off how fast your going is asking for trouble: just ask Snapchat.

That is all easier said than done - 4K60fps is a lot of data to handle - and even then, they would be late to the game since you just described the Hero 6, if you replace iMovie with Quik.

What GoPro needs to do is go back to their roots. GoPro's initial appeal was that it was a cheap, small, tough camera you didn't mind hitting with a golf club to get an interesting shot. And then they started making $500 cameras instead. The Session was an attempt at that, but the $200~ price tag and non-removable battery made it pretty much DoA for anyone who didn't want/need the absolute smallest action cam they could find.