Barry Silbert, CEO of the firm that's allowed equity-holders of private companies to trade amongst themselves, has some bad news: it's firing time. Or as he'd like to put the layoffs, an "org change."

In a staff blog post, Silbert says "I admit it, I screwed up," saying that "as a result, there are a number of high quality, hard-working SecondMarket family members who are now looking for their next challenge." That's a fairly Fuck You way of describing layoffs. Silbert's "next challenge" should be keeping those who weren't canned calm: last year, after a previous layoff round, the company said it didn't plan to trim anyone else. [Betabeat]

Update: We're hearing as many as 40 people have been dropped from SecondMarket.

Update 2: SecondMarket says the number was "absolutely not 40," but won't elaborate beyond that.