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That's 2 major layoffs this week (Coinbase being the other). Is there an underlying common reason for this? And is it indeed AI-driven productivity as both comp

That's 2 major layoffs this week (Coinbase being the other). Is there an underlying common reason for this? And is it indeed AI-driven productivity as both companies claim?

tardedmeme 5mo ago
Employees cost money. The ZIRP free-money era has ended. Companies have been laying off tech people for the last few years. Also the US economy is collapsing, that probably has some relevance.
- sssilver 5mo ago
  You couldn't tell this by looking at the stock market.
  - XorNot 5mo ago
    Which is the point. There's been a concerted effort by the government to make this the story. Layoffs and cost of living problems but you must discount the evidence of your eyes and ears and remember it's over 50,000! The PE ratio of Tesla should tell you everything you need to know about the stock market representing actual economic conditions.
  - jazzyjackson 5mo ago
    To me, it just means a dollar doesn't buy as much of IBM as it used to.
  - citrin_ru 5mo ago
    Stock market is up only because investors bet on AI, if you'll exclude AI and AI supply chain at best it would be stagnant.
- blingbot9 5mo ago
  Whenever someone brings up ZIRP, especially someone with a username like yours, it's an indicator that they have no clue what they are talking about and like to regurgitate things they read on the internet. > Also the US economy is collapsing, that probably has some relevance. Right...wait, what?
  - Havoc 5mo ago
    >especially someone with a username like yours, > -- blingbot9 2026
    - jwpapi 5mo ago
      a new level of ad hominem
- lijok 5mo ago
  Zirp ended over 4 years ago, what are you talking about, the us economy is collapsing? What? Care to elaborate on any of this?
sjZqahg 5mo ago
Coinbase for sure is driven by declining Bitcoin fundamentals and entry of other big players in the Trump inner circle. The AI narrative is a lie. Cloudflare was overvalued and missed extreme expectations (down another 12% now). By this time I wonder which investor still believes the AI excuse.
stego-tech 5mo ago
There's multiple simultaneous narratives: the industry-wide one of slashing well-paid tech talent under the guise of AI productivity boosts, and what's actually going in at each company. Cloudflare is an outlier because the company doesn't actually make money at present; their past three annual statements show net losses in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Not hemorrhaging cash per se (their cash reserves alone could cover ~9 more years of losses), but still enough to warrant some cutbacks - and AI is the current scapegoat, thus they finger AI and throw folks out the door. Coinbase's story is different: they're making good money, but their industry is inherently volatile. Again, recent volatility in the crypto markets related to...things...is dragging down long-term prospects for currencies, while ongoing trades are broadly just insiders doing insider things or exiting their positions for liquidity. Still, their share price is down 27% over 5 years and 18% YTD, so they also need to pump their share price so the executives get paid; layoffs are consistently rewarded by the shareholders, thus they axe part of their workforce for the bump and fingerpoint to AI. Never take what a company says at face value, and always check their balance sheets. What Cloudflare did sucks but could be warranted to some degree; what Coinbase did has no justification whatsoever beyond naked greed.
- 13a07e686ca5 5mo ago
  [dead]
- j2jj 5mo ago
  Its quite filthy but it benefits them all to lay off lots of people to reset the wage rate in the market... Im sure we will see a wave of re-hiring when this stuff starts to blow over but many initially will be at a much lower wage rate.
- BirdieNZ 5mo ago
  > Cloudflare is an outlier because the company doesn't actually make money at present; their past three annual statements show net losses in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Their free cashflow is high; they're choosing not to report a profit. I don't think it's useful/accurate to say they don't make money. Don't get me wrong, they may be doing a layoff to boost margins or enter GAAP profitability but the company revenue exceeds its operating cost by quite a bit. See in their latest quarterly report: https://cloudflare.net/news/news-details/2026/Cloudflare-Announces-First-Quarter-2026-Financial-Results/default.aspx https://cloudflare.net/news/news-details/2026/Cloudflare-Ann... > First quarter revenue totaled $639.8 million, representing an increase of 34% year-over-year So they're growing 34% annually. > Free cash flow was $84.1 million, or 13% of revenue, compared to $52.9 million, or 11% of revenue, in the first quarter of 2025. Cash, cash equivalents, and available-for-sale securities were $4,163.9 million as of March 31, 2026. ...and they have $84 million free cash flow in one quarter, and it's consistently pretty good cashflow. And they have $4b of cash or cash equivalents stockpiled. It seems pretty healthy to me.
saos 5mo ago
Is Coinbase that major though? they're always doing lay-offs.
strange_quark 5mo ago
I think there's also a certain permission structure that once one sufficiently large org does a big round of layoffs and doesn't get punished, a bunch of others will run the same playbook. We've seen this before -- back in 2022 when Elon fired like half or more of Twitter and the service didn't immediately implode, it gave other CEOs permission to do massive layoffs in the guise of "efficiency" even though the real reason was ZIRP was over. Now they're claiming it's because of AI when it's really that their margins are eroding because the overall economy is slumping and they need to offset AI spend.
wrqvrwvq 5mo ago
[dead]
brazukadev 5mo ago
Meta's layoff was also last week, much bigger than both.
throwatdem12311 5mo ago
AI productivity is a lie. It’s AI spending because the revenue hasn’t gone up.
Overpower0416 5mo ago
Coinbase lost 40% transaction revenue. The AI thing is just smokescreen https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/coinbase-shares-slide-crypto-giant-212436404.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACpqiWFsWU1KpBypvrlc6mKPhf7y9_UdK9Z1M3S1C2TVy16z7EXg3TbvJGOUjxF_CmYtXO4Dc82qyAYUd4HDht2HIH_6H0agCEhrW_F6JnMFTWKqULwPfngafrQH_ahuYt1n6Xh9A8ccrbyjYu2GvAWhgp4p6OWW19StSD9EqITG https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/coinbase-s...
punkbit 5mo ago
It seems that Bill.com and UpWork, too!

That's 2 major layoffs this week (Coinbase being the other). Is there an underlying common reason for this? And is it indeed AI-driven productivity as both companies claim?

tardedmeme 5mo ago

Employees cost money. The ZIRP free-money era has ended. Companies have been laying off tech people for the last few years. Also the US economy is collapsing, that probably has some relevance.

sssilver 5mo ago
You couldn't tell this by looking at the stock market.
- XorNot 5mo ago
  Which is the point. There's been a concerted effort by the government to make this the story. Layoffs and cost of living problems but you must discount the evidence of your eyes and ears and remember it's over 50,000! The PE ratio of Tesla should tell you everything you need to know about the stock market representing actual economic conditions.
- jazzyjackson 5mo ago
  To me, it just means a dollar doesn't buy as much of IBM as it used to.
- citrin_ru 5mo ago
  Stock market is up only because investors bet on AI, if you'll exclude AI and AI supply chain at best it would be stagnant.
blingbot9 5mo ago
Whenever someone brings up ZIRP, especially someone with a username like yours, it's an indicator that they have no clue what they are talking about and like to regurgitate things they read on the internet. > Also the US economy is collapsing, that probably has some relevance. Right...wait, what?
- Havoc 5mo ago
  >especially someone with a username like yours, > -- blingbot9 2026
  - jwpapi 5mo ago
    a new level of ad hominem
lijok 5mo ago
Zirp ended over 4 years ago, what are you talking about, the us economy is collapsing? What? Care to elaborate on any of this?

sjZqahg 5mo ago

Coinbase for sure is driven by declining Bitcoin fundamentals and entry of other big players in the Trump inner circle. The AI narrative is a lie. Cloudflare was overvalued and missed extreme expectations (down another 12% now). By this time I wonder which investor still believes the AI excuse.

stego-tech 5mo ago

There's multiple simultaneous narratives: the industry-wide one of slashing well-paid tech talent under the guise of AI productivity boosts, and what's actually going in at each company. Cloudflare is an outlier because the company doesn't actually make money at present; their past three annual statements show net losses in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Not hemorrhaging cash per se (their cash reserves alone could cover ~9 more years of losses), but still enough to warrant some cutbacks - and AI is the current scapegoat, thus they finger AI and throw folks out the door. Coinbase's story is different: they're making good money, but their industry is inherently volatile. Again, recent volatility in the crypto markets related to...things...is dragging down long-term prospects for currencies, while ongoing trades are broadly just insiders doing insider things or exiting their positions for liquidity. Still, their share price is down 27% over 5 years and 18% YTD, so they also need to pump their share price so the executives get paid; layoffs are consistently rewarded by the shareholders, thus they axe part of their workforce for the bump and fingerpoint to AI. Never take what a company says at face value, and always check their balance sheets. What Cloudflare did sucks but could be warranted to some degree; what Coinbase did has no justification whatsoever beyond naked greed.

13a07e686ca5 5mo ago
[dead]
j2jj 5mo ago
Its quite filthy but it benefits them all to lay off lots of people to reset the wage rate in the market... Im sure we will see a wave of re-hiring when this stuff starts to blow over but many initially will be at a much lower wage rate.
BirdieNZ 5mo ago
> Cloudflare is an outlier because the company doesn't actually make money at present; their past three annual statements show net losses in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Their free cashflow is high; they're choosing not to report a profit. I don't think it's useful/accurate to say they don't make money. Don't get me wrong, they may be doing a layoff to boost margins or enter GAAP profitability but the company revenue exceeds its operating cost by quite a bit. See in their latest quarterly report: https://cloudflare.net/news/news-details/2026/Cloudflare-Announces-First-Quarter-2026-Financial-Results/default.aspx https://cloudflare.net/news/news-details/2026/Cloudflare-Ann... > First quarter revenue totaled $639.8 million, representing an increase of 34% year-over-year So they're growing 34% annually. > Free cash flow was $84.1 million, or 13% of revenue, compared to $52.9 million, or 11% of revenue, in the first quarter of 2025. Cash, cash equivalents, and available-for-sale securities were $4,163.9 million as of March 31, 2026. ...and they have $84 million free cash flow in one quarter, and it's consistently pretty good cashflow. And they have $4b of cash or cash equivalents stockpiled. It seems pretty healthy to me.

saos 5mo ago

Is Coinbase that major though? they're always doing lay-offs.

strange_quark 5mo ago

I think there's also a certain permission structure that once one sufficiently large org does a big round of layoffs and doesn't get punished, a bunch of others will run the same playbook. We've seen this before -- back in 2022 when Elon fired like half or more of Twitter and the service didn't immediately implode, it gave other CEOs permission to do massive layoffs in the guise of "efficiency" even though the real reason was ZIRP was over. Now they're claiming it's because of AI when it's really that their margins are eroding because the overall economy is slumping and they need to offset AI spend.

wrqvrwvq 5mo ago

[dead]

brazukadev 5mo ago

Meta's layoff was also last week, much bigger than both.

throwatdem12311 5mo ago

AI productivity is a lie. It’s AI spending because the revenue hasn’t gone up.

Overpower0416 5mo ago

Coinbase lost 40% transaction revenue. The AI thing is just smokescreen https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/coinbase-shares-slide-crypto-giant-212436404.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACpqiWFsWU1KpBypvrlc6mKPhf7y9_UdK9Z1M3S1C2TVy16z7EXg3TbvJGOUjxF_CmYtXO4Dc82qyAYUd4HDht2HIH_6H0agCEhrW_F6JnMFTWKqULwPfngafrQH_ahuYt1n6Xh9A8ccrbyjYu2GvAWhgp4p6OWW19StSD9EqITG https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/coinbase-s...

punkbit 5mo ago

It seems that Bill.com and UpWork, too!