Last Thursday, millennial-focused digital news site Mic laid off most of its editorial staff and was subsequently bought by the Bustle Digital Group for $5 million, reports Recode. Mic co-founder and CEO Chris Altchek announced the layoffs at an all-employee meeting. Approximately 30 staffers of more than 100 will remain at Mic, including Altchek and co-founder Jake Horowitz, says Recode. As severance, most employees will receive one month of pay and health care. They were told to clean out their desks by the end of the day and that their computer access would be shut off at 2 p.m. on Thursday, says The New York Times.

“We are proud of the work the team produced and its impact on the world over the last seven years,” said Altchek in a statement to The New York Times. “The recent developments have been incredibly difficult and our focus has been on finding a solution that preserves as many jobs as possible and maximizes our abilities to care for impacted employees.”

Some blame the layoffs on Facebook’s cancellation of Mic’s Facebook Watch video series, “Mic Dispatch,” estimated to bring in $5 million annually. Two employees who spoke anonymously said the company had come to rely heavily on the Facebook revenue.

The Mic Union, which formed earlier this year, posted a scathing response to the layoffs and subsequent sale on Twitter. Mic employees feel they were lied to and deceived, as a new buyer was sought to take what was left of Mic and rebuild it.

Recode, who was the first to report on Mic’s sale to Bustle, noted that publisher Cory Haik left the company just prior to the layoffs. In an email to colleagues shared by Recode, Haik assured her fellow journalists that their work has been and will always been important, and their voices need to be heard. Here is an excerpt:

“What you hear less about the truth is that it is expensive. Our business models are unsettled, and the macro forces at play are all going through their own states of unrest. If anyone tells you they have figured it out, a special plan to save us all, or that it’s all due to a singular fault, know that is categorically false. Like the truth, it is indeed complicated,” Haik wrote.

The NewsGuild of New York made a statement about the layoffs at Mic.com, shared on Twitter by tech reporter Kelsey M. Sutton.

Insider Take:

Founded in 2012, the Mic Network had raised nearly $60 million in seven rounds of funding, according to Crunchbase (editor’s note: Crunchbase already shows that Mic was acquired by Bustle for $5 million). That funding was not enough to sustain the operation under its current structure. Was the unionizing of its staff part of the reason for the layoffs and sale, or was it the cancellation of the Facebook contract?

More likely, the early demise and sale of Mic as it existed last week were due to a combination of factors. As Haik, a well-respected journalist and digital expert, said, business models for media operations are complicated, and no one has it quite figured out yet. In spite of that, it seems there are a number of ways Mic could have handled this differently and/or better. Its treatment of its staff alone shows a lack of compassion and transparency. Unfortunately, Mic is not the first news outlet to reinvent itself on the backs of its former staff, and it won’t be the last.