ANANG and his colleagues at Tokopedia felt that the dreaded day had arrived. On Friday, June 14, Tokopedia management held a town hall meeting via a digital meeting application. At 9am, the meeting opened to about 3,000 ‘Nakama’—the term for Tokopedia employees. The online meeting, Anang said, lasted only 10 minutes, but its outcome caused shock and unrest.

At that time, Tokopedia management announced the layoff of 460 wor