Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 1001 posts

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#391

Post by Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe »

AloysB wrote: post #135

This is awkward. Exhibit A - September 2025 - "Help build the future" - Cloudflare hires 1111 interns to "help build the future" [ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-1111-intern-program/ ] Exhibit B - May 2026 - "Building for the future" - Cloudflare lays off 1100 people, about 20% of their workforce to "continue building the future" [ https://blog.cloudflare.com/building-for-the-future/ ] I'll finish on this quo…

Didn't know about Yogi Bera's quotes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra#%22Yogi-isms%22

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#393

Post by simianwords »

everfrustrated wrote: post #44

There was an recent article on X with an interesting take - it could be that companies are doing layoffs not because AI is making them more productive but because it hasn't . Their costs have gone up paying for expensive AI but haven't seen any revenue benefits to offset it. Article https://x.com/championswimmer/status/2051807284691612099

this is such a cope take i don't even know what to say. how can people believe in obviously false things like this? like what's the mental model here?

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#394

Post by bloppe »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #326
Snoozle wrote: post #69

"We are our own most demanding customer. Cloudflare’s usage of AI has increased by more than 600% in the last three months alone. Employees across the company from engineering to HR to finance to marketing run thousands of AI agent sessions each day to get their work done. That means we have to be intentional in how we architect our company for the agentic AI era in order to supercharge the value we deliver to our cu…

I will reply here assuming that you posted with good intent. I think that their PR statement is reasonable from an investor perspective. Try to detach yourself from the personal effects of layoffs. In short, they are saying: Thanks to AI, we don't need as many people to run our business. It is pretty clear to me. Sure, you can be angry about the layoffs, but the economics are clear: AI is increasing profitability fas…

> AI is increasing profitability faster than the business is growing

I don't understand how this could be the case for Cloudflare specifically. They made their name with DDoS protection and sandboxed hosting. These are exactly the products whose demand rises in lockstep with agent adoption. How could they possibly be allowing all the growth opportunity to slip past them? In times like this, with rising productivity to boot, you increase headcount, not decrease.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#395

Post by jdasdf »

krooj wrote: post #242
j2jj wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Secretly hoping they'll have to rehire." They will just expect a lower wage rate. There's some tacit collusion going on here.. they are using LLMs as a vehicle to address the price that comes with the true shortage of software engineers. You seriously dont think they talk about this behind closed doors? of course they do.

My man, all these fuckers use the same parasitic management consultancies. That's why all this shit looks the same.

Cloudflare has never made a profit.

Is your stance that shareholders should perpetually subsidize it out of the goodness of their hearts?

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#396

Post by bloppe »

headinthesky wrote: post #116
j2jj wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Secretly hoping they'll have to rehire." They will just expect a lower wage rate. There's some tacit collusion going on here.. they are using LLMs as a vehicle to address the price that comes with the true shortage of software engineers. You seriously dont think they talk about this behind closed doors? of course they do.

Absolutely. My hope is selfish - the market is awful

I promise you there are a ton of companies desperate to hire talent right now. It's hard on both sides of the market. Lots of noise, but there is demand for this supply. Unfortunately, that means personal connections are more valuable than they used to be, just to get the ball rolling.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#397

Post by pcdevils »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #111
pcdevils wrote: post #8

When you announce 639m USD revenue for q1 Then lay off a thousand people because you love the smell of your ai farts.

Are you trolling or just trying to avoid saying they didn't make any money and actually lost over $20 million?

Flippant sarcasm that they're pretending this wasn't a financial decision, and was entirely about being ready for the amazing productivity gains of ai they've already seen, expanding across the business.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#398

Post by jdasdf »

argee wrote: post #290
kristjansson wrote: post #271

> Cloudflare expects second-quarter revenue of $664 million to $665 million, obviously $2.5e9ish/yr is substantial in absolute terms ... but that's it? They intermediate half the internet and only capture $7m/day?

I think about investing in Cloudflare but that P/E ratio scares me off every time.

They don't have a PE ratio. They have never made a profit.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#399

Post by baq »

tempest_ wrote: post #240
AloysB wrote: post #135

This is awkward. Exhibit A - September 2025 - "Help build the future" - Cloudflare hires 1111 interns to "help build the future" [ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-1111-intern-program/ ] Exhibit B - May 2026 - "Building for the future" - Cloudflare lays off 1100 people, about 20% of their workforce to "continue building the future" [ https://blog.cloudflare.com/building-for-the-future/ ] I'll finish on this quo…

Both of those are true assuming the lay offs come from different demographics. You lay off 1100 who are late in their career for younger people who will work more hours for less. You're building the future with new fresh people instead of the "dead weight"

Laying off people with experience which only 1% of their younger colleagues will learn because LLMs made it redundant enough is misguided today. If I were a CEO I’d hold on to my 15-20 yoe engineers for my dear life; can lay them off in 2028.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#400

Post by stevenhuang »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #316
piperswe wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CV link: https://piperswe.me/cv.pdf

[flagged]

When someone has already demonstrated they can do the work, what additional value do you think them getting a degree will bring to a company?
Post reply on HN