Employees at Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s Internet start-up are looking for new jobs in anticipation that it’s about to fold, The Post has learned.
Well-placed sources said several staffers, including founding members, have been interviewing for positions at other tech firms since Booker’s company, Waywire, shuttered its lower Manhattan offices and laid off eight people earlier this year.
Some of the job-seekers have been telling people that it’s “just a matter of time” before the video-sharing Web site shuts down, sources said.
Waywire will likely remain in business only until after Booker’s widely anticipated election to the US Senate so that he doesn’t look bad before the voters, sources said.
Polls show that Booker is expected to easily win next week’s New Jersey Democratic primary, then coast to victory in an October special election to replace the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg.
Although Booker’s involvement with Waywire has been public for more than a year, he only last month officially disclosed that his interest in the company was worth between $1 million and $5 million, and a source said his ownership share exceeded 20 percent.
A Waywire spokeswoman declined to say how many people still work for the firm but confirmed that eight people were laid off around the time the beta-test version of its software was announced in April.
“When the company moved its focus from original production to curation, the production team was impacted. Several were given the option of changed, curation-focused roles with the company; they declined,” the spokeswoman said.
The company also confirmed that co-founder and CEO Nathan Richardson “is being considered for a board seat with an organization the company declined to identify.
“That engagement would not impact his ability to meet his Waywire commitments,” the spokeswoman said.
“He does not expect the company to shut down.”
During a debate last night, Booker deflected questions about Waywire, but afterward he denied it was going under.
“This company is in its infancy. Of course it has changed its business model. It’s going through changes,” he said.
Booker also refused to reveal his ownership stake, saying, “I’m a part of an ownership group and we’ve concluded not to discuss that.”