Medium lays off third of staff, blaming reliance on ads

Medium CEO and Twitter co-founder Ev Williams says a "broken system" of ad-driven media on the internet led to the pullback.

Medium CEO Ev Williams said the publishing platform will close its New York and Washington DC offices.

Photo by Mike Windle/Getty Images

Medium, the web-publishing site run by Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, is laying off a third of its staff because ad-supported digital media is a "broken system," Williams said in a blog post Wednesday.