just finance things. nothing to see here...
Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
741–750 of 1001 posts
Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
#742"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…
corporate lawyers tend to do the same shit. s
say a lot - while saying nothing.
Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
#743[dead]
Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
#744Earlier quoted context omitted.
How exactly would you ask this in an interview setting? I'm baffled by the idea.
"Why is this role open"? Either they will answer directly with something solid like "We're growing the team" or they will evade it which is still a meaningful answer for you. You could probe further with questions like: "How has the team's headcount changed over the last 18-24 months?" Basically you're alluding to 'employee turnover' without saying it.
There is no case in which they wouldn't say they're growing the team. It would also be true in all cases
Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
#745Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is completely acceptable. When was the last time you saw any job seeker seriously enquire about such practices in interviews or at the application stage? A lot of people here and in the industry in general seem to optimise for compensation package and put blinkers on themselves for other factors that are definitely relevant. Companies aren't penalised by candidates for such practices. I'm not saying it's good bu…
> When was the last time you saw any job seeker seriously enquire about such practices in interviews or at the application stage? There’s some kind of reverse-survivorship bias here. I’d never apply at Meta because their management does the “hire a bunch of excess people in the good times, so when Zuck‘s next inevitable efficiency-drive happens, the team is able to layoff lots of people while still staying operationa…
In my experience Meta is more selective and in interviews software people Meta pushes them to their limits.
Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
#746Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the natural result of "fire the bottom 10% every year". If that's the rule in your organization, and you have a core group of people that actually know the systems and get the work done, you better make sure you have 10% padding every year, lest you layoff someone important and their friends all quit in disgust. And since competence and institutional knowledge is built over time, that implies a revolving door of…
You may knock this system but it's what made General Electric the company it is today!
Which is a F500 company.
Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
#747Another thought I had:
Companies are starting to realize they have a very captive consumer base. The consumers can't just move. They're collecting money.
It'll take a LONG time for a new competitor to pop up, for them to build out and start to steal customers.
Equally the cost for customers themselves to move is very high.
So in the meantime these large companies realize that by slowing down development they're not actually losing anything.
Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
#748This 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…
First politics. Now businesses. This sounds like a wildly poorly written parody by teenagers. "reduce Cloudflare’s workforce by more than 1,100 employees globally." Are they 1) halting all the 1111 interns, 2) keeping the 1111 interns, now armed with AI, to replace mid-level/senior institutional knowledge or 3) a mix?
[dead]
Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
#749Earlier quoted context omitted.
*a recession did infact come*
I've been told that a recession is coming since 2009, when I started investing - there has never been one since then despite all the dire predictions - therefore, my investments are safe
I've lived through both 2000 and 2008. They do happen. And typically not when everybody says there will be a recession, but when almost everybody finally agrees there won't be one.
Not that us plebs can do anything about it anyway... :(
Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
#750Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back in the late 90s a senior Microsoft exec explained this to me, they had acquired staff and continued to operate entire divisions which he described as "ballast". In the future, once the stock price increases slowed, they would be heaved over the edge of the balloon basket so that it could continue to rise. I often think about that.
old sysadmin trick: create large file on a disk and in a dire situation when DB runs out of space delete it.
old defence against unreasonably demanding manager: add deliberate pockets of slow processing as insurance so that when things get too hot about performance, you unclog a few of those to acquiesce management.