40% off staff. Like, laid off.

UPDATE: A source familiar with the situation says BuyWithMe founder Andrew Moss based layoffs on a list of employees he liked and didn’t like.

A member of BuyWithMe’s engineering team who had a direct view to the company’s traffic numbers says that it never had any organic growth. “We would buy a new company and see growth from some of their users, but that’s it.”

BuyWithMe acquired six companies in the last six months before surprising the staff with massive layoffs yesterday.  ”It was all for show. We were not bringing on new technology with these purchases.”

Several employees we spoke with said the company had repeatedly told them that Thanksgiving was the deadline for a major announcement. “Yesterday was a total shock to a lot of us.”

There were a few who already smelled fire. “Our VP of engineering left a couple weeks ago, then a senior developer. I should have seen the writing on the wall,” our source said with a sigh.

Our source had been contacted by some recruiters asking if he wanted to work at the group buying giant LivingSocial. “I don’t think I’m going to follow up on that. The whole daily deal model is fundamentally flawed. All these companies are just borrowing money, looking for an exit. And the debts are starting to come due.”

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