19 ms·

AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees

106 points by petethomas 3mo ago

not_your_vase 3mo ago
The article seems to be more about Oracle being forced to cough up $7B as collateral for one of their new shiny (future-) data centers - even though apparently they tried to make this requirement go away, but the regulators weren't touched by their crocodile tears.
- arm32 3mo ago
  I'm shocked regulators didn't budge. Good.
  - ryandrake 3mo ago
    There must be something else going on. It's 2026. How in the world could a local government in the USA just... fail to let a corporation break the rules and do anything it wants? It defies belief.
    - johnnyanmac 3mo ago
      It's what happens when the people speak up and policy makers realize they can't sweep the potential PR blowback under the rug. Never let people say your voice doesn't matter. That's the one thing the Boomer generation was really good at that fell by the wayside over subsequent generations.
  - jamesfinlayson 3mo ago
    I'm in Australia and in my experience gambling regulators don't budge. Other ones might not be as strong.
    - jmalicki 3mo ago
      This is the US. You can just throw a UFC party or something for Trump then you're good.
      - abrookewood 3mo ago
        God I wish you were joking ...
  - lovich 3mo ago
    I am also shocked. As a second tier citizen for being merely a human instead of a corporation I am used to having to put up collateral to get big loan deals. I am amazed that our betters are being held to the same standards. Maybe they forgot to pay a few million in lobbying to get the preferred treatment plan.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
ChrisArchitect 3mo ago
[dupe] Recent related: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48993488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48993488 S&P Global has lowered Oracle’s creditworthiness from BBB to BBB- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48909768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48909768 And 3 months ago: Oracle slashes 30k jobs https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47587935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47587935
NotMichaelBay 3mo ago
> By the end of fiscal year 2026, the company's workforce was slashed by about 21,000 employees – a decline of roughly 13% – from 162,000 to 141,000 workers. Is this article from the future? > Story by WALLA! MONEY Who?
- toast0 3mo ago
  Oracle's fiscal year is June through May. And they enumerate their years so that the year number matches the calendar year when the year closes in May. I'd guess their fiscal year is trying to align with fiscal years of schools and governments, which are major customers and often have budget cycles aligned july-june or similar.
DonHopkins 3mo ago
I love the smell of freshly mown grass in the morning! When I joined the grass cutting lawnmower party, I didn't think it would mow my lawn!
mawadev 3mo ago
You kinda think senior management knows what goes on, but if you ever got in touch with senior management, you just know they have no idea and go off of vibes, as soon as the vibe shifts around them, its time to socialize the consequences... downwards
- PearlRiver 3mo ago
  To be fair some of those CEOs will have trouble finding golf buddies for a few months.
- etempleton 3mo ago
  There are maybe 1 in 10 that really truly know what they are doing.
Diogenesian 3mo ago
[dead]
mgdev 3mo ago
Never bet against Clay.
BikiniPrince 3mo ago
They just deleted some TPM positions.
sinuhe69 3mo ago
Best part: “Oracle petitioned the court against the requirement, arguing that these financing costs would deter future investment in the state, while emphasizing its commitment to the project, […]. Regulators, on the other hand, remained firm in their stance, clarifying that existing customers should not subsidize data centers. This issue is not limited to Wisconsin: At least 24 US states have already approved special rates, minimum conditions, exit penalties, and collateral requirements for heavy electricity consumers.
wraptile 3mo ago
It feels like the end is near for Oracle, and good riddance? I'm not an American, so I'm not familiar with Oracle's database tech but looking through history of what good/bad Oracle has done for the world: - good: btrfs for linux - good: mysql (inherited) - good: openjdk (inherited) - good: virtualbox - bad: oracle v google (copyrighting APIs) - bad: mass surveillance (i.e. BlueKai) - bad: aggressive value extraction - bad: general mega corporation bullying Sad that 21,000 people lost their jobs, but I don't think many people are shedding tears for Oracle itself.
- martheen 3mo ago
  Virtualbox is inherited too, originally by Innotek, then they got bought by Sun, and later Sun bought by Oracle. Oracle also let OpenOffice languish, restricted Solaris, restricted the Java framework (it was already open sourced by Sun before their acquisition, we got tons of OpenJDK build precisely because of Oracle hobbling Java licensing) and sit on the Java language development long enough that JetBrains comes up with Kotlin (is that "good"? Probably bad, just like if someone let a good restaurant crumble and others got fed up and start their own)
- Cider9986 3mo ago
  I don't understand why Oracle is hated more on HN than other large companies. I saw that whole "don't anthropomorphize Oracle" but I suppose it's hard to understand if you weren't there.
  - tonyedgecombe 3mo ago
    Apple gets a lot of hate here (mostly unjustified in my opinion).
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - trentor 3mo ago
    Killing sun was unforgivable for most old timers like me.
  - 3mo ago
fsuts 3mo ago
>According to the annual report of the computing giant published this week, the company had 141,000 employees as of May 31, 2026. This is a significant downsizing compared to the corresponding period last year, when the number of employees at Oracle stood at approximately 162,000 people. The report further reveals that the company paid a massive fortune of $1.84 billion for severance pay and other retirement expenses accompanying the restructuring moves in the current fiscal year. Workforce remains huge at 141k so perhaps a non story and just normal big company rounds of redundancies that were the case pre-ai
- chrisandchris 3mo ago
  Didn't know they had 20k developers. I thought Oracle is just lawyers. Or did they replace lawyers with AI? /s
- johnnyanmac 3mo ago
  20k layoffs is still humongous, something that easily shows up on a monthly labor report. Put another way, this is 13% of their workforce. It may be trying to be normalized, but it is in fact not normal to remove over an 8th of your business at once.
t0mpr1c3 3mo ago
I am told that Oracle's main business activity is suing its own customers. Hopefully they fired 21,000 lawyers.

106 points by petethomas 3mo ago

The article seems to be more about Oracle being forced to cough up $7B as collateral for one of their new shiny (future-) data centers - even though apparently they tried to make this requirement go away, but the regulators weren't touched by their crocodile tears.

arm32 3mo ago
I'm shocked regulators didn't budge. Good.
- ryandrake 3mo ago
  There must be something else going on. It's 2026. How in the world could a local government in the USA just... fail to let a corporation break the rules and do anything it wants? It defies belief.
  - johnnyanmac 3mo ago
    It's what happens when the people speak up and policy makers realize they can't sweep the potential PR blowback under the rug. Never let people say your voice doesn't matter. That's the one thing the Boomer generation was really good at that fell by the wayside over subsequent generations.
- jamesfinlayson 3mo ago
  I'm in Australia and in my experience gambling regulators don't budge. Other ones might not be as strong.
  - jmalicki 3mo ago
    This is the US. You can just throw a UFC party or something for Trump then you're good.
    - abrookewood 3mo ago
      God I wish you were joking ...
- lovich 3mo ago
  I am also shocked. As a second tier citizen for being merely a human instead of a corporation I am used to having to put up collateral to get big loan deals. I am amazed that our betters are being held to the same standards. Maybe they forgot to pay a few million in lobbying to get the preferred treatment plan.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

ChrisArchitect 3mo ago

[dupe] Recent related: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48993488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48993488 S&P Global has lowered Oracle’s creditworthiness from BBB to BBB- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48909768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48909768 And 3 months ago: Oracle slashes 30k jobs https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47587935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47587935

NotMichaelBay 3mo ago

> By the end of fiscal year 2026, the company's workforce was slashed by about 21,000 employees – a decline of roughly 13% – from 162,000 to 141,000 workers. Is this article from the future? > Story by WALLA! MONEY Who?

toast0 3mo ago
Oracle's fiscal year is June through May. And they enumerate their years so that the year number matches the calendar year when the year closes in May. I'd guess their fiscal year is trying to align with fiscal years of schools and governments, which are major customers and often have budget cycles aligned july-june or similar.

DonHopkins 3mo ago

I love the smell of freshly mown grass in the morning! When I joined the grass cutting lawnmower party, I didn't think it would mow my lawn!

mawadev 3mo ago

You kinda think senior management knows what goes on, but if you ever got in touch with senior management, you just know they have no idea and go off of vibes, as soon as the vibe shifts around them, its time to socialize the consequences... downwards

PearlRiver 3mo ago
To be fair some of those CEOs will have trouble finding golf buddies for a few months.
etempleton 3mo ago
There are maybe 1 in 10 that really truly know what they are doing.

Diogenesian 3mo ago

[dead]

mgdev 3mo ago

Never bet against Clay.

BikiniPrince 3mo ago

They just deleted some TPM positions.

sinuhe69 3mo ago

Best part: “Oracle petitioned the court against the requirement, arguing that these financing costs would deter future investment in the state, while emphasizing its commitment to the project, […]. Regulators, on the other hand, remained firm in their stance, clarifying that existing customers should not subsidize data centers. This issue is not limited to Wisconsin: At least 24 US states have already approved special rates, minimum conditions, exit penalties, and collateral requirements for heavy electricity consumers.

wraptile 3mo ago

It feels like the end is near for Oracle, and good riddance? I'm not an American, so I'm not familiar with Oracle's database tech but looking through history of what good/bad Oracle has done for the world: - good: btrfs for linux - good: mysql (inherited) - good: openjdk (inherited) - good: virtualbox - bad: oracle v google (copyrighting APIs) - bad: mass surveillance (i.e. BlueKai) - bad: aggressive value extraction - bad: general mega corporation bullying Sad that 21,000 people lost their jobs, but I don't think many people are shedding tears for Oracle itself.

martheen 3mo ago
Virtualbox is inherited too, originally by Innotek, then they got bought by Sun, and later Sun bought by Oracle. Oracle also let OpenOffice languish, restricted Solaris, restricted the Java framework (it was already open sourced by Sun before their acquisition, we got tons of OpenJDK build precisely because of Oracle hobbling Java licensing) and sit on the Java language development long enough that JetBrains comes up with Kotlin (is that "good"? Probably bad, just like if someone let a good restaurant crumble and others got fed up and start their own)
Cider9986 3mo ago
I don't understand why Oracle is hated more on HN than other large companies. I saw that whole "don't anthropomorphize Oracle" but I suppose it's hard to understand if you weren't there.
- tonyedgecombe 3mo ago
  Apple gets a lot of hate here (mostly unjustified in my opinion).
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- trentor 3mo ago
  Killing sun was unforgivable for most old timers like me.
- 3mo ago

fsuts 3mo ago

>According to the annual report of the computing giant published this week, the company had 141,000 employees as of May 31, 2026. This is a significant downsizing compared to the corresponding period last year, when the number of employees at Oracle stood at approximately 162,000 people. The report further reveals that the company paid a massive fortune of $1.84 billion for severance pay and other retirement expenses accompanying the restructuring moves in the current fiscal year. Workforce remains huge at 141k so perhaps a non story and just normal big company rounds of redundancies that were the case pre-ai

chrisandchris 3mo ago
Didn't know they had 20k developers. I thought Oracle is just lawyers. Or did they replace lawyers with AI? /s
johnnyanmac 3mo ago
20k layoffs is still humongous, something that easily shows up on a monthly labor report. Put another way, this is 13% of their workforce. It may be trying to be normalized, but it is in fact not normal to remove over an 8th of your business at once.

t0mpr1c3 3mo ago

I am told that Oracle's main business activity is suing its own customers. Hopefully they fired 21,000 lawyers.