You would think a company as large as Apple could acquire a business of about 500 people for $3 billion and manage to find jobs for all of them, but alas, it isn't so. 9to5mac is reporting that as many as 200 of the employees from Beats have been let go or are being asked to stick around only until January 2015.
Consolidation was to be expected, especially in areas of overlap like marketing and human resources. And Apple does things their own way, so it's not automatic that every Beats employee would make the transition. At least Apple is said to be offering severance packages to those affected. Still, it must be quite a roller coaster ride to learn Apple is acquiring your company, but not you.
Apple will, however, be keeping the Santa Monica offices of Beats open, and Beats Music will continue to be based there. Apple plans to retain many of the engineers from Beats, with the hardware folks transitioning to Cupertino. High profile Beats executives like Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Dre, and Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) will have new roles at Apple.
I guess the moral of the story is, either be an engineer or a famous musician!
