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Oracle slashes 30k jobs

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Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#451

The bulk of the comments in here are focused on comparing Larry Ellison to a lawn mower, so I'll try a new tack and say that I'm genuinely confused at what the value prop of Oracle is. Given the history of their business model being licensing of important databases that are hard to switch off of, I've actually made a point to avoid using Oracle as much as possible (even so far as to leave MySQL when they acquired it,…

I actually sat through an Oracle sales presentation around 1999 (I was the product engineer, along with company executives) and honestly it sounded pretty good. At the time we were using Lotus Notes for a database so even pencil and paper would have been better. Oracle absolutely was the market leader and there was no doubt about its technical chops. Oracle Parallel Server could run active-active across two sites separated by many miles of fibre, which was a remarkable thing to do back then.

Oracle came back with a quote that was so far outside what our company could afford that we went with Informix (not a cheap database). Pretty lucky escape.

A year or two later I ported the whole stack to PostgreSQL and it worked absolutely fine since we didn't have that much scale. Unfortunately when I left the guy who took over was a huge Informix fan so he deleted all the PG code and went back.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#452
> The layoffs are directly tied to Oracle’s aggressive and debt-heavy expansion into artificial intelligence infrastructure. According to analysis from TD Cowen, the job cuts are expected to free up between $8 billion and $10 billion in cash flow — money the company urgently needs to fund a massive buildout of AI data centers.

Interesting that they admit that the layoff off is due to a pivot from software to hardware.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#453
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also DB2. DB2 was (still is) an excellent database that IBM has completely fumbled.

There are three different Db2 databases. I believe the mainframe version was first. There is a version baked into the os/400 operating system (i series). Then unix/windows Db2 came last, if memory serves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Db2

I only ever worked with the Linux/Windows variant. I can’t believe I am saying this about an IBM product, but I found it to be actually rather pleasant to work with.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#454

Full text of e-mail: We are sharing some difficult news regarding your position. After careful consideration of Oracle’s current business needs, we have made the decision to eliminate your role as part of a broader organizational change. As a result, today is your last working day. We are grateful for your dedication, hard work, and the impact you have made during your time with us. After signing your termination pap…

> As a result, today is your last working day. As a European, I never realized that this is allowed under US labor law. That is absolutely insane. EDIT: some commentors have pointed out that the workers collect severance and unemployment --- I was not aware this is law in California, and that changes matters. I would, though, still find being suddenly out of a job fairly traumatic.

The at-will firing is just how it is in the US, but I do find it odd how accepting we've become with these corporations massively overhiring.

If they have to fire twenty percent of the company, shouldn't that be a signal to investors that the people in charge are morons for overhiring thirty thousand people in the first place? Software engineers aren't cheap; assuming an average compensation of $250,000/year (which I think is pretty conservative if you count total comp like insurance and stock) then that's 7.5 billion dollars of investor money they're wasting per year.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More victims of AI According to the article as well as blind, the main teams hit were associated with Cerner (EHR) and NetSuite (ERP). Oracle's AI spend is part of Oracle Cloud. That said, I guess it can be argued that Cerner and NetSuite being on the chopping block can be attributed to AI because now procurement has the choice to either build in-house via an Anthropic or OpenAI SI like Accenture or TCS or they can…

> That said, I guess it can be argued that Cerner and NetSuite being on the chopping block can be attributed to AI because now procurement has the choice to either build in-house via an Anthropic or OpenAI SI like Accenture or TCS or they can negotiate better purchasing terms from a best-in-breed product in HRM and ERP like SAP instead. Cerner isn't an EHR, it's an EMR. EHR == Electronic Health Record. Your FitBit da…

Minor nit - enterprise EMRs brand themselves as EHR because they consider it more encompassing than just medical records.

I agree on other points.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> this whole fascist, AI, far right nationalist takeover Well that's a new take I haven't heard before. That the AI is actually a far right nationalist takeover.... That's an interesting perspective.

Are you not aware of the techno-authoritarian ambitions of the silicon valley tech bros? It isn't much of a secret these days, after they published a few books detailing their aspirations, a bit like Project 2025. There are even public videos where they express their disdain for competition and democracy. A few prominent individuals in this cabal are publicly known. Mr. Lawn Mower here is at the forefront of it and it also includes the owners of many AI and surveillance companies. And they're all actively associated with extreme right wing governments.

Look at the known uses of AI by governments these days. Targeting of immigrants in Minnesota and selection of targets in Gaza and Iran to blow up. And look at the companies contributing to them. Some of the usual suspects are all present and contributing models, data centers and intel inputs.

Is it possible that some of the richest people are collaborating to subdue the rest of the population for their benefit? Does this sound like a conspiracy theory to you? Good! This sounds too fantastic and alarmist even to me. Skepticism is warranted. But the evidences are not mere speculations or leaps of faith. Many are well known facts reported by mainstream media. Besides, this isn't the first time that the greedy and egomaniacal individuals have banded together to consolidate wealth. You already know what they mean when they talk about 'absolute free speech', 'free market capitalism', etc. You've also seen their birth defect of missing empathy in action. And it doesn't help that many of them have an unhealthy obsession with apocalyptic prophecies of several religions (meanwhile, they never seem to notice the nice parts - ever). So a nightmare scenario isn't entirely inconceivable.

Why hasn't the AI bubble burst yet? Why do high profile men engage in cringy public bromance, followed by a messy divorce and then get back together again discretely? What are all their Mein Kampf style fantasy books and outrageous opinions about? Why did doge vacuum up highly sensitive demographic data that seems irrelevant to them? What's with all those shady and convoluted business deals and money transactions that look as if they're scheming a coup? And why the hell are all of them so obsessed with building fortified bunkers under their backyards?

Forget all that. Trump publicly announced yesterday that the military is building a 'massive complex' under that gaudy monstrosity that he calls the ballroom. Apparently, that hideous structure is only a lid for what's underneath. But I wasn't surprised a bit! The reason? A very smart lady had argued the exact same assertion two months ago! She took the details of the 'private donors' of the ballroom, the construction partners and their spending and purchase manifests, to convincingly argue that they're building a massive AI datacenter underground for the military. The costs were too high for the ballroom and many purchases were unconventional, to say the least. She said the exact same thing back then - that the ballroom is just a lid for an underground facility! I mean, if you are a military with a lethal strategic AI, you certainly wouldn't expose it like a traditional datacenter.

I feel like I'm paranoid just saying all these. But the world we live in today was unthinkable more than a decade ago. I don't want to spread confusion and paranoia. But it's also getting too late to ignore the developments. Just keep an eye for what's happening in this area. It's safer to be an unpopular prepper in this political climate, than be caught by surprise if it comes down to that.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think its that easy. Look at their employee numbers over the years: (ai generated): Oracle Corporation Employee Count (2010 - 2025) Legend: Each '' represents approximately 4,000 employees. Year | Employees ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2010 | (105,000) 2011 | (108,000) 2012 | (115,000) 2013 | (120,000) 2014 | (122,000) 2015 | (132,000) 2016 | (136,000) 2017 | (138,000) 20…

> (ai generated) here's a link to an actual source for people who also don't trust ai generated stuff https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ORCL/oracle/number... edit: this source also includes data/graphs on stock price and bunch of other metrics, rather than just one number over time.

I verified it before and generated the graph with gemini for c&p it into hn

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#458

Full text of e-mail: We are sharing some difficult news regarding your position. After careful consideration of Oracle’s current business needs, we have made the decision to eliminate your role as part of a broader organizational change. As a result, today is your last working day. We are grateful for your dedication, hard work, and the impact you have made during your time with us. After signing your termination pap…

> As a result, today is your last working day. As a European, I never realized that this is allowed under US labor law. That is absolutely insane. EDIT: some commentors have pointed out that the workers collect severance and unemployment --- I was not aware this is law in California, and that changes matters. I would, though, still find being suddenly out of a job fairly traumatic.

Dane here. I have had more than one coworker get that treatment.

Sure the company still has to payout salary, as per the contract, but plenty of companies do not want laid of people around.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#459
post #7
post #2

More victims of AI. Not actually of "AI is replacing jobs", more "oh shit we are spending too much and the product isn't good enough for us to ever make a return on our absurd over-investment".

"Oracle leadership" sounds like nobody wants to take responsibility but they do like the share price to go up so say good bye to [auto generated name in header]'s job.

Stock barely moved after this news. Would be surprised if it isn't below 100 by H2.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#460

My Amazon layoff notice came at 5am. Same deal. I thought it was fake because it came to my personal email. Then I logged into my work computer and found that all my email had been erased except for a copy of the layoff notice and an invite to a 10am Zoom with HR. The funny part was the invite had everyone who had been laid off in the To: line. I was able to send internal only emails until 1pm, and then it logged me…

I'm not sure if companies understand the emotional impact on the laid off and the layoff survivors. It almost seems like a terror campaign, whether intended or not.

One of my past employers tried to give laid off employees a dignified send offs including not immediately revoking their access.

The number of people who snap and make rash decisions to try to exfiltrate data, plant backdoor logins for themselves, or sabotage company work in those hours was a much larger number than I would have guessed prior to seeing it.

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