Clubhouse

Clubhouse is a social network designed to communicate users using voice messages. The launch of the service took place in March 2020, its creators are software developers Alpha Exploration Co. Registration in Clubhouse is available only by invitation, the application is available only for users of iOS devices (by April 2021).

History

2023: Dismissal of 50% of employees

On April 27, 2023, it became known that the social network Clubhouse, based on voice communication, was forced to make a serious reduction in staff. The number of personnel will be reduced by about half.

The upcoming restructuring was announced in a memo by Clubhouse founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth. It is noted that after the lifting of severe restrictions in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, the popularity of the social network began to decline. Therefore, there is a period of change that involves a "reboot of the company." And this provides for a reduction in staff: it is assumed that the number of employees will decrease by more than 50%.

Failed Clubhouse audio chat service fires 50% of employees

We came to this decision reluctantly. However, we believe that a small team will allow us to concentrate on the main task and increase the speed of work, as well as help in launching the next generation product. We will always be grateful for the role each of you played in the development of Clubhouse, and we would hire any of you again in a second if we could, "Davison and Seth wrote.

As of the end of 2022, Clubhouse had approximately 100 employees. Thus, the layoffs will affect at least 50 people. Reduced workers will receive severance pay, as well as wages for four months. At the same time, they will be able to keep corporate laptops and other provided computer equipment.

At the peak of popularity, the Clubhouse social network was estimated at $4 billion. According to information, the Bloomberg purchase of this service was studied by the microblogging platform (Twitter before the acquisition). Elon Musk Clubhouse management has already begun implementing the Clubhouse 2.0 project, but details about it have not been disclosed. The timing of the announcement of the new product is also not reported.^[1]

2021

Attracting investment, including from DST Global

In mid-April 2021, Clubhouse announced the closure of a new Series C funding round led by Andrew Chen of the Andreessen Horowitz Foundation. Tiger Global, entrepreneur Elad Gil, as well as Yuri Milner's fund DST Global also invested in the startup.

Clubhouse does not disclose the assessment and size of the attracted investments, but a source familiar with the results of the investment round noted to Reuters that the startup's valuation rose to $4 billion. This is four times the figure that Clubhouse had in January 2021.

Yuri Milner's DST Global Fund invested in Clubhouse

The funds raised will allow the startup to expand its team to support international growth, invest in localization and accessibility features, and launch more programs such as the Creator First accelerator, Clubhouse said. The startup intends to provide authors with opportunities to receive rewards, improve the quality of the content provided, as well as scale efforts to support public health.

It is important for us to create all this through people who are involved in the community and represent a wide variety of backgrounds and opinions. Our investor base now has about 200 authors, angels and foundations, including members of the Clubhouse community, institutional investors, professional musicians, athletes and comedians, and many you may not have heard of outside Clubhouse, the startup said.

Representatives of the startup report that despite the fact that in 2021 the startup quadrupled the size of the team, stabilized the infrastructure, launched the beta version of Clubhouse Payments to help developers with monetization, and also prepared for the launch of the Android version of the application, the team has more to do, since the startup is focused on providing Clubhouse to more people around the world.^[2][3]

Data breach of 1.3 million users

In early April 2021, a database of 1.3 million users of the social network Clubhouse appeared on one of the hacker forums. The data includes names from accounts, links to photos, data on accounts from other social networks, as well as details about people who invited a particular user to the social network.

Clubhouse said that the service did not encounter a violation of the functioning of security systems, the published database is probably compiled on the basis of publicly available information that any user has access to. They can be obtained through the application or through the API.

The database of 1.3 million users of the Clubhouse service got into open access

According to Cyber ​ ​ News, attackers can use published data for phishing attacks, as well as, for example, for guessing passwords.

Attackers can combine this information with other data breaches to form detailed profiles of potential victims. With such information, they can organize much more serious phishing attacks, the source notes.

Experts recommend that Clubhouse users conduct a regular security check, in particular, change their password and enable two-factor authentication for their accounts.

Clubhouse has quickly achieved popularity since its launch. Experts attribute this to the fact that the social network is actively used by such famous people as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Kanye West, Jared Leto. Given the specifics of Clubhouse, this means that theoretically any user of the social network can talk with these people, being in the right negotiation room at a certain time.^[4]

Notes