01
What was announced
In a post on the Airtable newsroom on 12 October 2026, product lead Alessandro Savarese wrote: "We're parting ways with a large portion of the pre-acquisition team, who will be leaving by the end of the week with substantial separation packages."
In the same post, published 12 October 2026: "At Bending Spoons, we've seen firsthand how smaller, faster-moving teams with streamlined responsibilities can have an outsized impact, and we have the same ambitions at Airtable." And: "We've embedded some of our most experienced engineers, product managers, and designers into Airtable to carry our plans forward."
Business Insider reported on 12 October 2026 that Bending Spoons product leader Federico Simionato said the cuts reflected the company's "deep belief that small teams ship more and better," and quoted him: "To everyone leaving: thank you. If you're hiring, these are excellent people and worth a call."
Business Insider also reported on 12 October 2026 that a Bending Spoons spokesperson was "not able to share additional details on the number of individuals impacted." This article makes no claim about how many people are affected.
02
The small-team model in one example
The Airtable newsroom post (12 October 2026) describes a "Speedy Squad" formed to work through customer requests and says: "In the past three weeks, this small team has put out more than 30 improvements."
TTR's read: a small team, one clear owner of the request queue and short cycles. That is a product owner shaped job, whatever the title on the door.
03
How a product team under 50 people should hire next
TTR's view: choose the next product hire around the work that needs an owner, not the operating model of a larger company.
- A product manager who owns direction usually comes first. See hiring your first product manager and product manager searches.
- A product designer belongs early, once customers touch the product every day. See product designers.
- A product owner earns a seat when engineering capacity grows faster than the person writing and ordering the work, or when the PM spends most of the week on tickets instead of customers. See how to hire a product owner.
- Product operations earns a seat later, when there are several product squads and request intake, release process and tooling have become a job in their own right. Before that, the PM or product owner covers it.
04
What experienced product people from a larger company bring to a startup under 50 people
TTR's view: they have usually shipped inside an established release process, triaged a large volume of customer requests and worked closely with design and engineering.
Screen for the gap: can they work without support layers such as a research, data or operations team; will they order the backlog and say no to a stakeholder; can they show work shipped in short cycles; do they separate their own work from the team's results.
Ask for a real example of a request queue they ordered and what they deliberately left out. Do not generalise about any one company's former employees; assess every candidate against your brief.
05
Before you open the role
Write down the problem the hire owns, who sets priorities, the team they work with and the first 90 days. TTR's free hiring tools help draft the brief and scorecard.
If you are deciding between a PM, a product owner and a designer as the next hire, book an intro call with Emily Landon (opens Calendly in a new tab).