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Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

reuters.com

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Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#431

Post by user_7832 »

noobermin wrote: post #426
Haven880 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time, management don't even know what they don't know. As a result, entire America lost engineers and builders and now don't even know how to build rails, factories and rockets to moon.

I'm very sympathetic to this standpoint, but an obvious retort is why don't the engineers become their own boss and do better? What's stopping them?

I'd imagine it's access to capital and resources. I suspect many engineers/professionals (especially in eg consulting or manufacturing) would start their own business if they have the financial stability to do so.

A lot of market forces tend to "naturally" create monopolies/oligopolies. For eg if you're the biggest steel plant you can operate efficiently and keep moderate margins, beating any plants not as big (economies of scale). An independent guy (or even the entire team) can't just open a new steel plant shop down the road, even if the current one sucks.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#432

Post by FartyMcFarter »

strongpigeon wrote: post #232
alyxya wrote: post #14

I dislike the title because it doesn't clearly state it's a layoff. "Building for the future" gave me the impression that it's about some major new initiative with a roadmap outlining plans.

I’ll never forget how when I was at Google, every email with subject line “An update on X” meant X was getting axed. Like, just say so in the subject line…

It got to the point where people were sarcastically posting "An update on " when sending goodbye emails.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#433

Post by otikik »

ricardobayes wrote: post #417
misswaterfairy wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You lay off 1100 who are late in their career for younger people who will work more hours for less. Yet management always seems to miss the institutional knowledge, and experience, that also walks out the door laying off those 1,100 people 'late in their career'... It's not possible to cram 25 years of experience into two.

Lately it feels like it's possible. Freshers in their first job are now capable of taking ownership and shipping full stack features in a few weeks. The feedback loop is definitely shortened - noone appreciates the years spent "googling and looking at stackoverflow" anymore, and frankly, they shouldn't be. Experience matters now mostly at the architecture, and decision-making levels, not at implementation.

Freshers certainly can give the appearance of taking ownership and shipping full stack features in a few weeks.

The problem is that "I copied the issue on claude code and then committed the code it produced" is not actually taking ownership.

> noone appreciates the years spent "googling and looking at stackoverflow" anymore, and frankly, they shouldn't be.

Well, I do, and I hard disagree with you there. If the human does not understand what the machine is producing, then I need a different human.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#434

Post by zelphirkalt »

brailsafe wrote: post #360
throwaway2037 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Seems like a somewhat traditional suggestion with a potentially massive financial and time commitment. Not that it's not something to do, but why do you think that's the move right now , especially since they're clearly established in their career and nobody cares about it after a few years?

Not the GP, but I think the reason is, that right now it's super hard to get a new job, because of so many things, but mostly, because of AI craze and tanking economies. Bridging that time with a degree is not the worst idea, if you can afford it.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#435

Post by throawayonthe »

noobermin wrote: post #426
Haven880 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time, management don't even know what they don't know. As a result, entire America lost engineers and builders and now don't even know how to build rails, factories and rockets to moon.

I'm very sympathetic to this standpoint, but an obvious retort is why don't the engineers become their own boss and do better? What's stopping them?

what?

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#436

Post by organ1cwast3 »

locknitpicker wrote: post #373
organ1cwast3 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liquidity in the currency market. Need to propagate a lot of dollars fast, 24/7 as a moat on it remaining a reserve currency. 99% of these software startups are basic software that can be handled by a single dev; see Reddit apps and such. But that money printer was running hot and heavy. Needed to funnel it somewhere. Why not that favorite political cudgel of the elites; pointless busy work jobs! Let's invest in a bu…

> 99% of these software startups are basic software that can be handled by a single dev; see Reddit apps and such. This sounds like specious reasoning, similar to the tired old interview question "how would you design Twitter". Twitter is just a table in a RDBMS, isn't it right? Any fool implements that in an afternoon. Except it isn't, and the actual complexity of real world software often lies in festures you are c…

> you are completely oblivious.

Sounds like specious reasoning similar to the tired trope of "someone is wrong on the internet and I must correct them".

Twitter is in the 1% not the "99% of these..." but don't let reading comprehension get in the way.

I was a phonics kid not a 3-cuing student. Reading scores have nose dived since phonics was phased out. So I understand it's not entirely your fault.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#437

Post by user34283 »

cyanydeez wrote: post #136
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…

The skeptical assumption is they need to pay for the AI bills, not that the AI use is actually providing the promises CEOs are making.

If you listen to people on HN you could think AI is not increasing productivity or is even having a net negative effect.

I think the reality is different.

In this thread I saw the resume of an engineer affected by this Cloudflare layoff. In the resume he claimed that adopting opencode in his workflow, he shipped an integration in half the time it took peers without AI assistance for similar projects.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#438

Post by throwaway2037 »

lancebeet wrote: post #347
throwaway2037 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think GPs point is that this is how they're trying to spin it, but they're not explicitly saying it, and there are doubts whether it's actually true. For outside observers it's difficult to simply ignore all the embarrassing outages that cf has experienced recently and just accept that the company has suddenly solved all their issues by using AI and firing people.

    > For outside observers it's difficult to simply ignore all the embarrassing outages that cf has experienced recently
I don't know what to think when I see comments like this. Everyone makes mistakes. And no one provides flawless service. If their recent issues are so damaging in your opinion, why is their business continuing to expand at more than 20% per year?

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#439

Post by 5ahsgf »

faangguyindia wrote: post #245
throaway234221 wrote: post #86

[flagged]

So you suggest they give out free money to people they don't need? If you believe it negatively impacts Cloudflare, feel free to start a competing company and hire all those; it's free market after all, anyone can raise money if you can show there is any point in your vision. What's funny is software guys have forever automated jobs of others. Remember? Automating e-commerce logistics? Automating taxis? Automating va…

Feel free to start an Indian company. But you don't do that. You come to the West like Nadella and Pichai and take away the jobs in Western companies, genius.

And in the case of Nadella, ruin said companies.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#440

Post by zelphirkalt »

misswaterfairy wrote: post #288
tempest_ wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

> You lay off 1100 who are late in their career for younger people who will work more hours for less. Yet management always seems to miss the institutional knowledge, and experience, that also walks out the door laying off those 1,100 people 'late in their career'... It's not possible to cram 25 years of experience into two.

Can't wait for the next couple of outages! Let's see how long it will take.
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