Irvin Thevaranjan was blindsided by his layoff. The day before, the head of governance risk and controls at delivery service Grubhub had a stellar performance review with his boss, who told him that he had lots of opportunities in front of him at the company.
Less than a day later, though, he found himself on a call where most participants weren't visible, and no one could unmute themselves. "That's when I was like 'Oh crap, this is the wrong call to be on,'" he said. In the hours afterward, Thevaranjan started piecing together a list of the hundreds of others who lost their jobs at Grubhub that day in February 2025.

Then, he had an idea: What if he created a list of everyone who was laid off that day to help them find new opportunities? One-and-a-half years later, Thevaranjan still runs the Ex-Grubhub Talent Network, which has listed 326 laid-off alumni looking for work after layoffs.
Most have found new jobs, according to the tracker. "Irvin makes it his personal mission to get everybody employed," said Paul de Lucena, a former Grubhub employee and network member. Workers at tech companies from Amazon to Meta to Uber have faced layoffs this year.

Many have to figure out what's next with their own networks — or, perhaps, with some help from a group chat of fellow laid-off employees that goes dark after a month or two. Thevaranjan's network represents something different, according to former Grubhub employees and others who have interacted with it: A grassroots effort to provide the support that's typically lacking after a layoff.
The most publicly visible part of the network is a tracker that Thevaranjan built to showcase laid-off employees and their experience to potential employers. There's also a Slack workspace where laid-off workers commiserate over the job search, share links to open roles, and post about their hobbies.

Grubhub workers who were more recently laid off can also join the group by filling out a Google Form that Thevaranjan and other administrators review. Thevaranjan said he got the idea from Kristen Ubaldi, the former chief people officer at Groupon. Ubaldi created a similar list and promoted it with the help of Groupon's executives after the company laid off employees in 2020.
Originally, the Ex-Grubhub Network was mostly about helping folks navigate the days after the layoff, Thevaranjan told Business Insider. He recalled introducing a laid-off colleague to a recruiter at Reddit, where Thevaranjan had previously interviewed, the same day as they were laid off.

"It's not even about getting him a job," Thevaranjan said. "It's the fact that he feels supported." Thevaranjan said he drew on his skills as an auditor to create the list of laid-off employees. To get more eyes on it, though, he tagged some of Grubhub's executives in a LinkedIn post days after the layoffs.
"I call it the empathy window, this short period of time where people feel bad for you," he said. As Thevaranjan kept promoting his effort on LinkedIn, the network attracted more laid-off Grubhub employees — as well as others interested in what he was doing.

Katie Cavote, a former recruiter at Grubhub, said she advised Thevaranjan on how to make the network more attractive for recruiters at other companies to use. The two never knew each other when they were still at Grubhub. People who oversee hiring are often looking for candidates from a specific company or with a specific background, Cavote said.
The tracker sorts laid-off workers by specialty to make that easier. "Recruiters are getting creative these days in finding the right talent," she said. C. J. Cross, who worked in workforce analytics at Grubhub, lost his job in the same 2025 layoffs as Thevaranjan.

That summer, he started a new job at Uber thanks to a referral he got from the Ex-Grubhub Network. When he got laid off again earlier this month as part of Uber's cuts, he rejoined the community. "The very first thing I did was go back to the Grubhub group chat," he said.
Anne Stamer, a career transition coach who led webinars for the ex-Grubhub Network, said that big career networking sites like LinkedIn provide lots of potential connections for recently laid-off workers. With millions of members, though, it can also be overwhelming to devise a strategy that leads to a new job.

"It's a double-edged sword," she said. Tamara Pohle, another career-transition consultant who led webinars for the group with Stamer, said she hasn't seen another layoff support group last as long as the network that Thevaranjan created. A stream of tech layoffs over the last few years shows how weakened the connections between companies and their employees have become, Pohle said.
The layoffs have also made the connections that Thevaranjan's group provides even more important. "Genuine human connection has never gone stale," she said. Ubaldi, the former Groupon chief people officer who created a similar list of laid-off employees, told Business Insider that she wanted to make it clear that the layoffs weren't the workers' fault.

More companies should use their networks to help the people they're laying off, she said. "I don't know why more don't," she said. Have a tip? Contact this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501.
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