Last year, a new startup entered the US with big plans. That startup was LeEco. The company had huge plans for the US, that ultimately fell short, and the company ended up laying off nearly 325 employees from its US business, its CEO also resigned. Now its offices in Silicon Valley sit empty, as Engadget’s Richard Lai snapped some photos of the office in San Jose, CA. According to TechCrunch, who reached out to LeEco, there are only a handful of people still working for LeEco in the US and out of that San Jose office, while the rest of it is empty. LeEco had also purchased Yahoo’s office building in Santa Clara, which is likely also empty too.
LeEco had grown to become fairly popular in China, and it was actually referred to as the “Netflix of China”, since it had a fairly large video distribution network available. LeEco was actually the company that helped stop piracy in China – at least reduce it drastically. Since then, LeEco had moved into smartphones, TV’s and even autonomous cars. Which means it was looking to take on the likes of Google, Apple, Samsung, LG and even Tesla all at the same time. Earlier this year, when LeEco had opted to lay off around 325 employees in the US, the company had also decided to shift its focus. And move its niche to Chinese-speaking users in the US. Which, as you would expect, is a pretty small market.
Sources at LeEco have also told TechCrunch that many employees have left their positions at the company’s headquarters in Beijing, with the anticipation of even more bad news from the company. This was even before LeEco had to pull out of its acquisition of VIZIO – one of the largest TV makers in the world, that is located in the US. LeEco had wanted to pick up VIZIO and use them to help them gain market share in the US, particularly with its TV business. But LeEco no longer had the funds to actually purchase VIZIO and ultimately had to kill the deal. Which was really the straw that broke the camels back for LeEco here in the US.
