First things first, there are differences to note of between Cyanogen and CyanogenMod. Cyanogen is the company that makes the commercial version of CyanogenMOD known as CyanogenOS which is already pre-installed in various smartphones like Oneplus One while CyanogenMod is the XDA community version and it is said to be popular compared to CyanogenOS itself. Unfortunately, there was a huge controversy surrounding Cyanogen Inc. and especially that certain companies like Microsoft were really interested in Cyanogen OS. The users part of the CyanogenMod community were pretty much aware of the controversy over the fact that some features are not used by CyanogenOS and some others were illegally implemented or used. Even worse is that various technical promises were broken in CyanogenOS in which users' privacy would be vulnerable to being compromised.
In the end, it is a massive disappointment to the CyanogenMod community about the Cyanogen Inc. and CyanogenOS and especially that there were phones making use of CyanogenOS in which nobody would buy them or something. Another major impact to Cyanogen Inc. is that the Android and IOS today have improved features and security although the security level was like too strong to be frank like it's one different controversy after another.
There were layoffs of staffs at Cyanogen Inc. after the fact that the newly recruited Chief Operating Officer came on board at the company after leaving Facebook last month. The layoffs may not affect the business operation that much that the CyanogenMod will still continue to be worked on and supported.
