Sea’s Path to Profit Paved With Layoffs, Single-Ply Toilet Paper
- CEO of Singapore’s Sea says company is now ‘self-sufficient’
- Shift comes after ruthless cost-cutting drive in the past year
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Just over a year ago, Forrest Li was laid up in bed with Covid, fretting about the future of his company, Sea Ltd. So he propped himself up on a pillow to hammer out the latest in a series of memos that would change the course of his business — and perhaps the tech industry.
Sea had been a stock market phenom, racing to a market capitalization of more than $200 billion despite huge losses, but the world had changed. Investors had turned against money-losing tech companies. So Sea had to change with it, Li wrote. With a burning fever and nagging cough, he told his leadership team it was time to focus on profit and exit India.