Aliph CEO spends $500,000 on new furniture before layoffs
Bluetooth headsets make you look like a rambling idiot, addressing an audience of one. San Francisco startup Aliph solves that problem: Wearing its sleek Jawbone makes you look like a stylish, rambling idiot. An appropriate accessory for CEO Hosain Rahman. Venture-capital news site PEHub reports that Rahman ordered $500,000 in new, high-end furniture for the office, instructed employees to box up their things, and then laid off a third of the company's 75-person staff. The company has raised $42.5 million in funding. Its backers include Sequoia Capital, the VC firm which recently issued a cost-cutting fatwa to its portfolio companies. Whatever one might say about Rahman, one should credit him for good taste: He has also commissioned a mural for the office from DeYoung Museum artist-in-residence Tucker Nichols.