As an ex-employee with a significant tenure under my belt when I left (from pre-IPO times), I occasionally check in on things Riverbed including the odd scroll though here. I haven't seen anyone offer this up and I thought I'd do just that so here goes.
Riverbed has one sole reason for existing today; paying down the debt that Thoma and Teachers loaded onto the company in the leveraged buyout. These institutions are in this till they get their money back which can only happen in two ways:
- Riverbed brings in the revenue off its own back to pay down the debt to zero with profit left for the investors. Or.
- A buyer can be found for all or part of Riverbed with enough upside to get the investors whole again.
RVBD has been courting buyers for a few years and nothing has come from that suggesting it isn't an attractive pickup for anyone at the money that would be needed to complete the investors.
As revenues fall, and they have been falling for years from their $1B peak then there is pressure on the EBITDA number too, this downward pressure is what leads to layoffs and the non-replacement of folks who leave because that is the way you reduce costs to bolster EBITDA.
Riverbed has no growth engine, the market is going away from them and the folks running the company and the key departments for many years (back to the days when the founder was still running the show) just don't understand how to adapt to that situation and it is now too late to make any kind of meaningful pivot.
I have a lot of affection for what Riverbed was and for a lot of the people I met and worked with over my time there but much to my sadness, I cannot see a way back to true profitability and leadership or even a viable longer-term future beyond asset milking to pay down debt.
Lastly, to those who are either institutionalised or scared for whatever reason to take your destiny into your own hands, I say this. Get yourself out in the market, even if only to practice interviews and the process of getting a job because the trend to a skeleton crew keeping things ticking over is likely to continue and you don't want to be left at the end fighting with everyone else in a competitive job market.