The pandemic drove Clubhouse to a $4 billion valuation that never looked sustainable

Social audio platform Clubhouse announced Thursday that it was laying off half its staff in order to “reset” the company. It shouldn’t come as a surprise.

If there was a posterchild for the tech industry’s irrational exuberance during the Covid pandemic, it was Clubhouse.

With the physical world closed for business, consumers looked for other ways to congregate and find entertainment. So did celebrities. So did tech executives. So did venture…