During the last few days, we, on Hive, had a hot shower with the Hivefest and yesterday a cold shower after the announcement from Splinterlands, which was forced into another major downsize and restructuring.
To continue the parallel with the hot shower followed by the cold one, as much as that may be unpleasant at first, especially for those who haven't built up a habit of doing that, it is actually something very beneficial for our organism, building up immunity and our capacity to adapt to rapid drops in ambient temperatures.
People who enjoy having saunas (like I do - I love them!) know that afterward is a great idea to take a quick cold shower. Maybe even go from the sauna into an ice cold water, but I haven't tried that one yet.
The idea is cold after hot is great for your health... except for teeth, lol.
Where did I start? Right... Hivefest = hot. Splinterlands new layoffs and restructuring = cold. At least as news impact, at first impression.
But when we go into details, other than the emotional part of the layoffs and that it might affect the momentum for launching the Land gameplay, what happened at Splinterlands may not be as cold as the first impression could suggest.
The reorganization part of Splinterlands may be something fantastic for the company, in perspective.
What changed? The parent company is split in two, one remaining with Splinterlands and SoulKeep (which is integrated in the platform), the new company company called Invennium Corp will focus on Genesis League Sports (and everything built for it, including Goals) and the Invennium platform. Yabapmatt will be CEO of the Splinterlands side of things and Aggroed CEO of Invennium. Both companies will be under the parent company which has a name that I prefer not reproducing here. :)
Each company will have its own management, its own employees, its own accounting and its separate funding sources, which, despite the layoffs, should be quite important by helping each of them better focus on its own products.
Another potential interesting change of approach going forward compared to before would be the way Matt proposed (for now as a discussion, but it will be an official DAO proposal), that the future Rebellion set to be owned by the DAO and the Splinterlands company be hired to produce and sell it. Proceeds from sales would be split 50/50 between the DAO and Splinterlands, the company.
We also found out something that wasn't hard to guess: that between the two co-founders, Aggroed is the incurable optimist, while Matt is more pragmatic and starts by covering the worse case scenario first.
I also appreciate that when they go through such crucial times, Splinterlands has always been opened and answered lots of questions, even if some may have been painful to answer or to disclose details that normally are not destined for public knowledge (remember Splinterlands is a closed company, not listed anywhere; it's their decision what they want to share from their inside kitchen). Maybe that's another difference between a Web 2 and a Web 3 company, especially when they truly believe in decentralization, and don't use it as a buzz word.
So, maybe we had a cold shower yesterday. But isn't that good? Just like a cold shower after a hot one, it is uncomfortable, at least. But that builds up immunity, so we should embrace the discomfort in this case. On the long-term is for the best.