Well yeah, they blame AI. They laid of employees so they could fund their AI data centers.
this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
186 points (98.9% liked)
Technology
85080 readers
3945 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
This story reminds me of something else I have been pointing out for a very long time. It is not so uncommon to see layoffs after McKinsey drops by the building for a while (could also be bein or other consultancies in the same field), and more often than not, ceos like to say " they made me do it!!". So.... To be clear, you do not have agency and you are not control whatsoever about these layoffs? Really? Sounds difficult to believe.
While I agree that the consulting firms usually come up with the layoff plans, I've never heard of any CEO ever saying they MADE him do it.
CEOs have been blowing smoke for as long as CEOs have existed.
The one thing I am gleefully waiting for is the inevitable price gouging.
I am refusing to use AI as much as possible, I work hard to keep my skills independent of AI, so when the pivot happens I am not dependent on it.
I do the opposite. Managers only understand money. So I show them how expensive AI is.
I use ChatGPT for free so it costs OpenAI money. Soon as they charge money I bail out. In fact, I could bail out earlier because they are asking for ID to keep using it. Fuck that.
Same, trying to ride that line between becoming a brain dead AI-zombie and a luddite..
Reminder - AI does not need to be able to replace anyone to lead to layoffs. All it needs to be able to do is increase productivity in some sector by some measurable or perceived, or expected amount.
Or just eat up all the budget.
In an healthy company with a long term outlook, increased productivity is used to increase revenue, not to cash in by reducing short term expenses.
In a healthy company not beholden to shareholders
most of them think like PE firms now, unfortunately. get in, mess everything up to extract as much profit, and get out before you end up holding the bag, or in prison.
currently it hasnt acheived any of that, except make people LAZY, even to the point its hurting education(k-12, and college students)
Like outsourcing/offshoring development of software. (The problem with this isn't that people in cheaper places are dumber - they aren't - but that good software requires an enormous amount of coordination and communication, which is hampered by outsourcing).
Wow who could have guessed?
I don't get it, why is Lemmy obsessed with tech company layoffs?
Why are people, who populate the mainstream forward edge of the tech to regain collective ownership of online public spaces, "obsessed" with tech company layoffs? Why are all of these people, maybe a majority of them currently or formerly employed by that industry, following that industry? Is that your question, friend?
Maybe because they keep happening?