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Dickerson read from a script, his voice shaking as he made an announcement: He was laying off 80 employees - the largest cuts in Etsy’s history. Dickerson called an emergency meeting in the Etsytorium, a cavernous conference room inside headquarters.

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Dickerson brought, the board wanted someone with experience in marketing, software and e-commerce, someone who was comfortable at a big public company. We needed somebody to take it to the next level.”

“Chad got the company about as far as he was going to get it. “The house was burning and nobody was paying attention,” said Fred Wilson, the co-founder of Union Square Ventures, which was an early investor in Etsy, and the board chairman. Among members of the board, a consensus emerged that Mr. Soon after that, TPG and Dragoneer, two powerful private equity firms, bought into the company’s stock. Black and White Capital, a small hedge fund, took a stake in Etsy and sent a private letter to the board, saying it was insufficiently focused on sales growth, that operations were inefficient, and that the company should “explore strategic alternatives” - a euphemism for selling the company. Sales on the site were up, but the rate of growth was slowing. Expenses were growing faster than revenues. But in the Etsy boardroom, seated around a large custom-made table featuring gold inlay, a large owl sculpture looming over the directors, he said he was troubled by what he heard from Mr. Silverman said he came to his first board meeting prepared to listen. Silverman, who is now 48, said he wanted to take on one more big job, but was waiting for the right opportunity.

After leaving an executive role at American Express in 2015, Mr. Silverman had been a senior executive at eBay and chief executive of Skype. 15, 2016, with little fanfare, Josh Silverman joined the Etsy board. Inboxes were stuffed with unnecessary emails, which dragged on productivity. With everyone empowered to express themselves, there was a lot of sharing going on. The emphasis on go-it-alone craftsmanship meant Etsy managed its own data centers, instead of using more efficient options like Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud. The emotional, individualistic culture had its drawbacks. Etsy was certified as a B Corp by a nonprofit called B Lab, denoting its particularly high social and environmental standards.

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Perks included generous paid parental leave, free organic food and a pet-friendly workplace.

Employees shared their emotions freely, often crying at the office. Etsy’s founders believed its business model - helping mostly female entrepreneurs make a living online - was inherently just.

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It was a dizzying series of events at a company that has long held itself up as a paragon of righteous business practices. Not long after that, he fired another 140 employees. Silverman shut down several projects that had been in the works for months. On the same day as the chief executive changeover, the company announced its first layoffs. The board was under pressure, and in early May abruptly fired Mr. Then powerful private equity firms began buying shares, stoking fears of a takeover. Soon after that, an activist investor took a stake in Etsy and called for the sale of the company.

Silverman joined the Etsy board and began asking tough questions of management.