(Textio Image)Textio laid off 14 employees this week, or 16% of its workforce, as part of a restructuring. The company confirmed the cuts to GeekWire on Thursday. It has now has 71 employees. Textio said it is shifting resources to support Textio Lift, a product it released last year which helps managers write feedback and avoid bias while providing reports to leadership.Founded in 2014, Textio uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help remove bias from workplace language for hiring and performance feedback. Customers include Bloomberg, Cisco, Hulu, Oracle, Spotify, and Warner Music Group.The company went through a small round of layoffs a year ago.More than 200 tech companies have laid off more than 50,000 employees so far this year, according to Layoffs.fyi. Last year, nearly a quarter million tech workers were laid off amid a tightened venture capital market and increased interest rates

Augmented writing startup Textio lays off 14 employees, or 16% of staff.

Kieran Snyder. (Photo courtesy of Kieran Snyder). Kieran Snyder, the co-founder and former CEO of Seattle-based Textio, has launched her next project, less than two months after stepping back from the augmented writing startup.In an email announcement on Wednesday, Snyder shared her new website, Nerd Processor, and said she plans to explore “the impact that AI is having on workplace communication, leadership, and team dynamics.”Snyder, who has a PhD in linguistics, founded Textio in 2014 with her husband, Jensen Harris, who took over as CEO in January. The startup uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help remove bias from workplace language — in job postings or performance evaluations, for example. Customers include Bloomberg, Cisco, Hulu, Oracle, Spotify, and Warner Music Group.Among her plans, Snyder said she will be updating research that she first published in 2014 on interruptions in the workplace, which found, among other things, that women are much more frequently interrupted in workplace meetings than men, men interrupt others more often than women do, and senior women were the biggest interrupters of all.Snyder wants to revisit the research and expand her data set to consider race, ethnicity, and if possible, more than two genders. “I’m also looking at something that wasn’t even on my radar in 2014: whether there is any difference in patterns when meetings happen in person vs