AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees • Hacker News Board

Re: AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees

#21

Post by wraptile » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 6:01 AM UTC

It feels like the end is near for Oracle, and good riddance?

I'm not an American, so I'm not familiar with Oracle's database tech but looking through history of what good/bad Oracle has done for the world:

- good: btrfs for linux

- good: mysql (inherited)

- good: openjdk (inherited)

- good: virtualbox

- bad: oracle v google (copyrighting APIs)

- bad: mass surveillance (i.e. BlueKai)

- bad: aggressive value extraction

- bad: general mega corporation bullying

Sad that 21,000 people lost their jobs, but I don't think many people are shedding tears for Oracle itself.

Re: AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees

#22

Post by martheen » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 6:23 AM UTC

wraptile wrote: post #21

It feels like the end is near for Oracle, and good riddance? I'm not an American, so I'm not familiar with Oracle's database tech but looking through history of what good/bad Oracle has done for the world: - good: btrfs for linux - good: mysql (inherited) - good: openjdk (inherited) - good: virtualbox - bad: oracle v google (copyrighting APIs) - bad: mass surveillance (i.e. BlueKai) - bad: aggressive value extraction…

Virtualbox is inherited too, originally by Innotek, then they got bought by Sun, and later Sun bought by Oracle. Oracle also let OpenOffice languish, restricted Solaris, restricted the Java framework (it was already open sourced by Sun before their acquisition, we got tons of OpenJDK build precisely because of Oracle hobbling Java licensing) and sit on the Java language development long enough that JetBrains comes up with Kotlin (is that "good"? Probably bad, just like if someone let a good restaurant crumble and others got fed up and start their own)

Re: AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees

#23

Post by fsuts » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 6:35 AM UTC

    >According to the annual report of the computing giant published this week, the company had 141,000 employees as of May 31, 2026. This is a significant downsizing compared to the corresponding period last year, when the number of employees at Oracle stood at approximately 162,000 people. The report further reveals that the company paid a massive fortune of $1.84 billion for severance pay and other retirement expenses accompanying the restructuring moves in the current fiscal year.

Workforce remains huge at 141k so perhaps a non story and just normal big company rounds of redundancies that were the case pre-ai

Re: AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees

#24

Post by Cider9986 » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 6:41 AM UTC

wraptile wrote: post #21

It feels like the end is near for Oracle, and good riddance? I'm not an American, so I'm not familiar with Oracle's database tech but looking through history of what good/bad Oracle has done for the world: - good: btrfs for linux - good: mysql (inherited) - good: openjdk (inherited) - good: virtualbox - bad: oracle v google (copyrighting APIs) - bad: mass surveillance (i.e. BlueKai) - bad: aggressive value extraction…

I don't understand why Oracle is hated more on HN than other large companies.

I saw that whole "don't anthropomorphize Oracle" but I suppose it's hard to understand if you weren't there.

Re: AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees

#25

Post by tonyedgecombe » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 7:47 AM UTC

Cider9986 wrote: post #24

wraptile wrote: post #21

It feels like the end is near for Oracle, and good riddance? I'm not an American, so I'm not familiar with Oracle's database tech but looking through history of what good/bad Oracle has done for the world: - good: btrfs for linux - good: mysql (inherited) - good: openjdk (inherited) - good: virtualbox - bad: oracle v google (copyrighting APIs) - bad: mass surveillance (i.e. BlueKai) - bad: aggressive value extraction…

I don't understand why Oracle is hated more on HN than other large companies. I saw that whole "don't anthropomorphize Oracle" but I suppose it's hard to understand if you weren't there.

Apple gets a lot of hate here (mostly unjustified in my opinion).

Re: AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees

#26

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 9:00 AM UTC

Cider9986 wrote: post #24

wraptile wrote: post #21

It feels like the end is near for Oracle, and good riddance? I'm not an American, so I'm not familiar with Oracle's database tech but looking through history of what good/bad Oracle has done for the world: - good: btrfs for linux - good: mysql (inherited) - good: openjdk (inherited) - good: virtualbox - bad: oracle v google (copyrighting APIs) - bad: mass surveillance (i.e. BlueKai) - bad: aggressive value extraction…

I don't understand why Oracle is hated more on HN than other large companies. I saw that whole "don't anthropomorphize Oracle" but I suppose it's hard to understand if you weren't there.

[deleted]

Re: AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees

#27

Post by trentor » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 9:00 AM UTC

Cider9986 wrote: post #24

wraptile wrote: post #21

It feels like the end is near for Oracle, and good riddance? I'm not an American, so I'm not familiar with Oracle's database tech but looking through history of what good/bad Oracle has done for the world: - good: btrfs for linux - good: mysql (inherited) - good: openjdk (inherited) - good: virtualbox - bad: oracle v google (copyrighting APIs) - bad: mass surveillance (i.e. BlueKai) - bad: aggressive value extraction…

I don't understand why Oracle is hated more on HN than other large companies. I saw that whole "don't anthropomorphize Oracle" but I suppose it's hard to understand if you weren't there.

Killing sun was unforgivable for most old timers like me.

Re: AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees

#28

Post by chrisandchris » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 9:42 AM UTC

fsuts wrote: post #23

>According to the annual report of the computing giant published this week, the company had 141,000 employees as of May 31, 2026. This is a significant downsizing compared to the corresponding period last year, when the number of employees at Oracle stood at approximately 162,000 people. The report further reveals that the company paid a massive fortune of $1.84 billion for severance pay and other retirement expenses…

Didn't know they had 20k developers. I thought Oracle is just lawyers. Or did they replace lawyers with AI?

/s

Re: AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees

#29

Post by Imustaskforhelp » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 10:43 AM UTC

Cider9986 wrote: post #24

wraptile wrote: post #21

It feels like the end is near for Oracle, and good riddance? I'm not an American, so I'm not familiar with Oracle's database tech but looking through history of what good/bad Oracle has done for the world: - good: btrfs for linux - good: mysql (inherited) - good: openjdk (inherited) - good: virtualbox - bad: oracle v google (copyrighting APIs) - bad: mass surveillance (i.e. BlueKai) - bad: aggressive value extraction…

I don't understand why Oracle is hated more on HN than other large companies. I saw that whole "don't anthropomorphize Oracle" but I suppose it's hard to understand if you weren't there.

> I don't understand why Oracle is hated more on HN than other large companies.

My personal opinion is that HN and the tech/genera community treat it as more as being a lawyer company (or having a very large amount of lawyers in general) and actively hostile to many aspects of tech.

It has very Microsoft-y vibes (minus Github/any goodwill that Microsoft has ever earned or past nostalgia like windows xp/7) while at the same time as @trentor said, they killed sun so they actively harmed the nostalgia aspects/goodwill (ironic how both of it is about Operating systems and for all its faults of Microsoft, they have handled the nostalgia part much better than Oracle)

Re: AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees

#30

Post by MrDrMcCoy » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 5:47 PM UTC

Cider9986 wrote: post #24

wraptile wrote: post #21

It feels like the end is near for Oracle, and good riddance? I'm not an American, so I'm not familiar with Oracle's database tech but looking through history of what good/bad Oracle has done for the world: - good: btrfs for linux - good: mysql (inherited) - good: openjdk (inherited) - good: virtualbox - bad: oracle v google (copyrighting APIs) - bad: mass surveillance (i.e. BlueKai) - bad: aggressive value extraction…

I don't understand why Oracle is hated more on HN than other large companies. I saw that whole "don't anthropomorphize Oracle" but I suppose it's hard to understand if you weren't there.

Larry Ellison is the closest thing the world has to a real James Bond villain. He has his own volcanic island, thinks himself a martial artist, spends most of his corporate money on litigation rather than innovation, and did who knows what to scrub the internet of news surrounding the litany of noise complaints from his private flying at all hours of the night (and I recall he just bought some airfields that complained too much, but that was a long time ago and I may be misremembering).