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Oracle slashes 30k jobs

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Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> feels that it's already tough for Oracle and that many companies betting on AI have finally understood the real risks involved This has nothing to do with AI, whose capex largely falls under Oracle Cloud. The main teams hit - RHS, SVOS, and NetSuite India - are associated with Cerner and NetSuite, both of which are the kinds of legacy SaaS apps that are most likely to see reduced spend in the world today - it's che…

> The main teams hit - RHS, SVOS, and NetSuite India - are associated with Cerner and NetSuite, both of which can serve to reduce some fat. > reduce some fat Yes, but, well... why do they need to do that at all? I mean, what made them make this decision right now? I think it was mentioned in the article - they're in debt because of their AI data centers projects: > Oracle has taken on $58 billion in new debt within j…

> Yes, but, well... why do they need to do that at all

Because the ERP and EHR market is almost entirely dominated by SAP and Epic. Frankly, the Cerner bet was already a bad bet when they took it in the early 2020s as was NetSuite to a certain extent.

No business has an obligation to hire you in perpetuity. Similarly, you have no obligation to remain at a company you don't like.

> Although... >> All of this is happening even as the company posted a 95% jump in net income — reaching $6.13 billion — last quarter.

Which is largely attributed to the growth in spend on Oracle Cloud.

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I work in this industry and once you remove the AI washing, much of Oracle's current strategy is around building a hyperscaler business that is comparable to GCP and Azure in size. Already over the past 2 years I've seen 2 fortune 500s completely shift off AWS or Azure to Oracle Cloud because of better terms and strategic hires by Oracle Cloud.

Edit: can't reply

> Thanks for explanation

No worries! Infra, Enterprise, Cloud, and Cybersecurity has a very different dynamic from other businesses

> And still they were trying to compete, weren't they

Sure, 5 years ago. But not anymore.

> Why have their cloud services are suddenly started to make more money, roughly speaking

Becuase around 2-3 years ago Oracle Cloud began strategically hiring enterprise sales leadership from Azure, AWS, and GCP with preexisting relationships with F1000 accounts who were getting hit by contract renegotiations from the other 3.

> what exactly pushed them to do it right now

The "SaaSpocalypse" [0].

Basically, non-market leading Enterprise SaaS products cannot justify their current prices and valuation because the choice is to now either buy best-in-breed at a significant discount or build in-house working with a systems integrator for Anthropic, OpenAI, or Gemini.

If you weren't already a market leader in your specific segment of Enterprise SaaS you are most likely going to see your dealbook reduce significantly over the next 2-4 years as customers shift to dominant market players who are offering significant discounts to stave off a "build with Accenture/WITCH+OpenAI/Anthropic" disruption.

[0] - https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/01/saas-in-saas-out-heres-wha...

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Google Gemini to confirm before I posted my comment. You're welcome to do the same.

“I used AI to confirm what I said” is not exactly the great comeback you think it is…

I will wait for Netcraft to confirm.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#123
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even at 100k employees I’m still dumbfounded by that number. What do all these people do all day?

I remember reading this post years ago, and it has stuck in my brain ever since: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442941 So I suspect the answer is: they need _at least_ 10x as many engineers to get things done as you would expect. Maybe more like 50x

That is really wild

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even at 100k employees I’m still dumbfounded by that number. What do all these people do all day?

1. They maintain and sell one of the largest relational databases. 2. They're the primary maintainer of one of the largest programming languages. 3. They do tons of HR/ERP type software. 4. They have a supply chain division (my company is a direct competitor, and we have 2000 employees--it's a drop in the bucket, but a few thousand here, a few thousand there and it starts to add up. Afaik, their supply chain org is b…

They also own multiple other huge companies that had tens of thousands of their own employees working in completely different areas (Netsuite, Cerner, Acme, etc)

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but what did those guys do all day? 400 people is a lot of people

Write code to connect this system with that system. Teach people what setting does what. Integrate with Entra ID. Create custom reports that hordes of Executive on our side want. Scale out the system from undersized nodes we originally gave it. That's all I picked up by just listening to them. I wasn't involved in the project, just sat nearby listening to it. This is extremely customizable software that is designed t…

The need to teach people what setting does what is a sort of consulting moat that AI dismantles when it can access the right context.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the ideal things that companies can do is not hire people. A company that never hires someone will never let anyone go and consequently is the only ethical company. The worst thing that a company could do is pay someone to do a job for a while. In fact, one thing we could do is make sure that all jobs should be perpetual. If someone hires you, they can't stop paying you until they die or declare bankruptcy. Th…

It’s not unethical to lay someone off

Actually, it is. You have been blinded by capitalism to consider it ethical.

The tribes usually treat the members as a family. While kicking someone from a tribe can happen, it's considered to be a harsh punishment.

In a tribe, when hard times come, people usually redistribute. That's a normal, human way of dealing with that situation. Not a layoff.

The other aspect is the economic crises. When a central bank decides to increase interest rates, it decreases lending to new investments in favor of lower inflation. This can lead to layoffs, instead of having inflation inflicted on everyone (especially the rich with huge savings). So that decision is essentially some random guys get kicked out of economic (and societal) participation in order to prevent more redistribution of existing wealth.

If you think about it, yes layoffs are deeply immoral. But we can understand, why they happen in capitalism, as a sort of big tragedy of the commons.

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