Open letter to the Gatsby community

To the Gatsby Community,

We want to start by specifically thanking Nat Alison. We support her and commend her bravery in speaking out. It is not easy to stand alone. What she experienced at Gatsby was unacceptable and speaks to wider issues. We thank her for putting pressure on the company to fix them. We vow to double down on those efforts.

While we have worked hard to give feedback and help create a healthy work environment over the past few years, change has been far too slow and the consequences have been real. The previous weeks have intensified the need for rapid change by increasing employee communication and allowing us to collectively connect some dots. We are just as outraged. As a result, we have posed a series of hard questions to management as well as a list of concrete actions they need to take.

Kyle Mathews' public apologies to both Nat Alison and Kim Crayton are small actions swiftly taken that signal the possibility for change but don't speak to the systemic issues that must be addressed. We cautiously welcome plans for larger improvements but acknowledge they will remain just words until concrete changes are made. In recent days, leadership has shown a willingness to work with us. We will monitor that progress in the coming weeks.

It never should have come to this. We cannot overstate how much we appreciate the external voices of the community that helped add pressure and urgency to the internal voices. Our community is everything to us and why we do this job.

We understand that Gatsby has already done too much damage to salvage itself for some people, both internally and in the community. Know that we are still going to try to push for it to be better for whoever stays and whoever comes next.

Trust is not earned back overnight. We'll be watching and expecting consistent demonstration of progress. We feel a sense of responsibility to the Gatsby community. The community deserves our full-throated efforts.

We are pushing for change but these are critical times. The choices made in the next few days and weeks will determine whether Gatsby can regain the trust of its community and employees.

Signed, Gatsby Staff

Abhi A, @abhiaiyer91

Aisha B, @aishablake

Amberley R, @amberleyromo

Blaine K, @blainekasten

Caitlin C, @caitlinthefirst

Flo K, @fk

Jarmo I, @jamo

Jason B, @jasonbahl

John O, @johno

Julien P, @julienp

Kim M, @kmaida