GoPro

GoPro’s announcement that it plans to cut 23% of its workforce this week didn’t come as a complete shock to anyone who’s been following the wearable camera maker over the past few years.

GoPro will cut 23 percent of its global workforce by the end of this year, as the action camera pioneer looks to reverse its fortunes in a competitive market.

GoPro's announcement that it plans to cut 23% of its workforce this week didn’t come as a complete shock to anyone who’s been following the wearable camera maker over the past few years. Once a leader in the action camera market, the company has seen its stock fall from highs of more than $93 in 2014 to just 80 cents today. The $10 billion valuation it once boasted is a distant memory. (GoPro’s current market cap is just under $122 million.) Now it’s betting on an ongoing turnaround plan to stabilize the business. Part of that plan involves becoming an even leaner operation. GoPro will lay off 145 of its 631 employees starting in the second fiscal quarter. That will result in charges of between $11.5 million and $15 million. Prior to this week's cuts, the company said it had reduced its costs by 26% from the previous year. That hasn’t been enough to restore profitability. While the company had targeted a return to the black by the end of 2025, it instead posted a $9.1 million loss in the fourth quarter. A long history of troubles GoPro faces plenty of challenges today. Tariffs have slowed its turnaround, rising memory costs are eating into margins, and supply issues have weighed on the bottom line. But many of its problems predate those pressures. At the height of the company’s popularity in 2014 and 2015, founder and CEO Nicholas Woodman pushed to expand beyond cameras, launching both a media division and a drone unit meant to compete with DJI. The move drove a surge in head count, which peaked at 1,600 employees, and in R&D spending, which shot as high as $358.9 million in 2016, more than double what it had been just two years earlier. Neither bet paid off. The media division shut down in 2016, and the drone was pulled

The Bay Area-based camera maker GoPro plans to lay off 145 workers, or nearly a quarter of its workforce, to curb spending, according to a federal filing.  The layoffs are expected to roll out starting in the second quarter of 2026 and be completed by the end of the year, a form 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows. (The document is usually required for major announcements to company shareholders.) The company, which is based in San Mateo, said it expects to spend between $11.5 million and $15 million on severance and health care benefits for terminated employees.  California’s Employment Development Department and GoPro did not immediately respond to SFGATE’s requests for information. GoPro has faced financial challenges for several years now, with a round of layoffs in 2024 that cut jobs for 135 workers. And in 2025, CEO Nicholas Woodman gave up his $850,000 salary to help the struggling company. This story will be updated.  — Calif. town votes against tax plan to save its own beaches— SF police raid notorious Sea Cliff mansion, 7 dogs removed— Calif. husband and wife plead guilty to killing wife's boyfriend— 11 arrested, 45 ejected from 49ers-Raiders game marred by fan fights Get breaking news sent straight to your inbox.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — A law firm filed a class action lawsuit against GoPro, accusing the company of keeping $20 million in tariff refunds that should have gone back to customers. Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy filed the case in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of consumers nationwide who bought GoPro products at inflated prices.

Survival does not necessarily mean success, though, and GoPro has struggled of late. Sales are down, losses are up, and its stock price essentially flatlined at about $1 two years ago. So, surprise, last month GoPro announced a plan to “explore defense and aerospace market opportunities.”

But things are certainly now more dire for the company. Not only are its financials deteriorating, but also the company announced last month that it’s laying off a quarter of its workforce, which has already shrunk to fewer than 600 workers after once employing as many as 1,500.

The founder and longtime CEO of camera maker GoPro just took a decidedly unusual cost-cutting step: He gave up his massive salary for the rest of the year.  Nicholas Woodman, 49, volunteered to go without his base pay until the beginning of 2026, the San Mateo company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. The waiver agreement the CEO signed clarified he wouldn’t be paid extra later for ditching his salary now. Woodman’s base salary in both 2022 and 2023 was a whopping $850,000. So why the giveaway? GoPro is struggling, badly. Despite decades of brand building, which made GoPro essentially synonymous with wearable and action cameras, the company is no longer profitable. Revenue slumped 20% in 2024 from the year prior, and net losses for the year topped $432 million. In Tuesday’s SEC filing, GoPro wrote that Woodman’s move is meant to help the company cut its operating expenses for 2025 — not a fresh idea. As SFGATE reported last year, the camera maker announced layoffs in March and August, explaining that the second cut of approximately 135 employees was part of a push to reduce operating expenses by around $50 million in 2025. Like its revenue, GoPro’s stock price has dwindled in recent years. The company’s value boomed after its 2014 initial public offering and fell back to reality soon after. But as recently as 2021, GoPro’s market cap topped $1.6 billion. On Thursday, the company was worth a comparatively paltry $115 million. That valuation drop helps explain Woodman’s volunteered salary waiver. He owns company stock and has continued to earn millions of dollars in stock-based compensation. If he can nudge up GoPro’s market cap with an era of austerity, his net worth will balloon, and nine months of lost salary will look like a rounding error. He’s taking a page out of Mark Zuckerberg’s book. The Meta CEO, for years, has taken only a $1 salary. But thanks to stock-based payments, the social media giant reported Zuckerberg’s compensation as $24 million in 2023. Woodman’s move is also reminiscent of one by Zoom CEO Eric Yuan: The Zoom executive cut his salary by 98% when he laid off staff in 2023, as SFGATE reported. GoPro did not immediately respond to SFGATE’s request for comment Thursday. Work at a Bay Area tech company and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452. — Calif. town votes against tax plan to save its own beaches— SF police raid notorious Sea Cliff mansion, 7 dogs removed— Calif. husband and wife plead guilty to killing wife's boyfriend— 11 arrested, 45 ejected from 49ers-Raiders game marred by fan fights Get breaking news sent straight to your inbox.