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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

#751

Post by Spooky23 »

scott01 wrote: post #451
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…

I’ve seen managers hiring people with an intent to lay them off when winds change to protect themselves and their close circle. I can only imagine they’ve had great KPIs in both cases: first for scaling the team, and then for cutting costs.

Totally.

In companies that routinely layoff people for lulz, executives collect business units for layoff fodder to protect their key players.

It’s the proving ground for the sociopaths who rise up.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#752

Post by konart »

keybored wrote: post #597
konart wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then we must build our own future. Sure. How many of those hated capitalists have started with exactly same thought? People should stop drop this naive act.

I don’t think I’m the naive one if you think those “hated capitalists” had the intention of building a bright future for the collective us.

> if you think ... had the intention of building a bright future for the collective us.

Never said or implied such thing.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#753

Post by jiveturkey »

tlogan wrote: post #625
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…

Why do we need to complicate here? cloudFlare is not making any profit. They are losing money. The board probably wants profit now (they predict less growth) so the management needs to cut the costs. This AI story is a just an excuse. If there is not AI they will say “high gas prices”. Or “inflation”. Or whatever … It is true that the companies like Meta, Oracle and Microsoft are laying off due to AI but because they…

> They are losing money.

They have $4b in cash and Q1 FCF $84m, and 70% gross margin. They can become profitable anytime they want.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#754

Post by embedding-shape »

s_dev wrote: post #542
scott01 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen managers hiring people with an intent to lay them off when winds change to protect themselves and their close circle. I can only imagine they’ve had great KPIs in both cases: first for scaling the team, and then for cutting costs.

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…

> This is completely acceptable.

I dunno, treating people with cattle kind of feels like the less good option here. These people who get hired have their own life, with plans and outlooks and what not, and basically hiring someone just to have someone to fire later, feels really shitty and flat out ignoring that they're human too.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#755

Post by yalogin »

ggoo wrote: post #18

> The packages for departing employees will include the equivalent of their full base pay through the end of 2026. Healthcare coverage is different across the globe, and if you’re in the United States, we’ll continue to provide support through the end of the year. We are also vesting equity for departing team members through August 15th, so they receive stock beyond their departure date. And, if departing team member…

The question is are they being good to their employees or do they severe headwinds in the job market going forward

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#756

Post by romaniv »

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…

This seems to be the new normal in Big Tech. They regularly announce massive layoffs, but if you look at their size over time it stays stable or grows. Cloudflare size grew every year. Microsoft size was stable for the past 4 years despite all the layoffs. Google had lost some (4%) employees in 2023, but has grown back to 2022 size last year. Meta shrunk by 22% in 2023, but has been growing in size since then and is probably back to 2022 size right now.

These companies overhire and then downsize. This is covered up by the moronic narrative about AI.

Side note. You know who is steadily shrinking, though? Intel. Wild, eh?

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NET/cloudflare/num...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/num...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOGL/alphabet/num...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/META/meta-platform...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/INTC/intel/number-...

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#757

Post by enahs-sf »

stego-tech wrote: post #32

I'm going to start calling these "Canary" moments. Assuming we take everything at face value for these sorts of cuts, it creates the following scenario: A company finds itself with surplus labor capacity due to the efficiencies in AI while also posting substantial profit or revenue growth. The company could downsize the workforce to capitalize on short-term efficiencies and increase margins, though this will come at…

This was kind of my read as well. We are increasing our AI usage but not in a way that meaningfully affects our ability to deliver on our product roadmap, so the solution is to cut opex on people so we can devote more to compute. The last bit is obviously speculation but it doesn’t feel like a far leap.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#758

Post by lbrito »

s_dev wrote: post #542
scott01 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen managers hiring people with an intent to lay them off when winds change to protect themselves and their close circle. I can only imagine they’ve had great KPIs in both cases: first for scaling the team, and then for cutting costs.

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…

It's the other way around. Why do employees try to game the companies in the first place? Because most, or at least a very large portion, don't give a shit about their employees.

It's not just cloudflare. Amazon had been doing this shit forever (probably decades at this point), to cite an egregious example. As a mere mortal employee, its not like you have a lot of choices.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#759

Post by ai-x »

ironmagma wrote: post #728
ai-x wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your snow plower and landscaper don't get judged for having 5+ different customers in 5 years. They don't show up in ATSes as job hoppers.

I haven't met any truly skilled person constantly being fired. Sure they may get unlucky once or twice, but talent shines through

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#760

Post by gosub100 »

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"

I'm also interested in the proportion of H1B vs US citizens in this layoff vs the last 1100 people they hired (minus overlap)
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