Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mark Zuckerberg is no longer the kingmaker that he was during Facebook's peak, and he is desperately trying to create the next platform to be the one in power once again. It would be sad if it wasn't so unbelievably destructive to everything it touches.
Llama should be mentioned in the same conversations that ChatGPT, Claude, and DeepSeek dominate. If only it wasn’t so inaccessible…
2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
131–140 of 164 posts
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#132The money tree is over. Companies now have to pick between gpus and employees. They picked gpus.
Lots of different companies argue with the AI for some time before they call me, but they always call me. They'll never be able to explain what they want to the AI, and even if they could, it couldn't solve the problem anyway. Nevertheless I'm not going to be contracting much longer, I'm writing software by hand to compete with the garbage shat out of Claude's VibeCloaca. I already have customers, I just need to ...…
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a fools errand to ever believe in job security. Even if you're absolutely right on your importance, management can always remain stupid longer than you can remain employed.
It truly feels like a farce. I've survived a few rounds of layoffs and I've seen both shitty engineers and our best engineers let go. I assume our good ones are too expensive? It seems like HR just does some spreadsheet magic to grab people without any regard for performance or title.
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is never just one cause, but I do think AI is one of them. Not in some AI "dey took er jerbs" kind of way, but because businesses are turning their investment focus towards AI-related ventures, like building data centres, and away from investments that require tech workers. Non-residential construction jobs, for example, have surged.
> Not in some AI "dey took er jerbs" kind of way FWIW, I read this as equating a particular regional accent with stupidity. I imagine it wasn't intentional, but it's something to consider.
What do you think makes you feel unsure if you were intentional or not?
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#135Mangers and executives have better tools now to track a tech workers output/performance, they will cut the useless/low performers/in over their head people who were hired during preceding years. A small tech team with proficient intelligent devs augmented with AI can replace 100's of duds.
No what happens from using those metrics is that you filter out all the people that care more about doing their job well than gaming metrics. Fraudsters tend to do really well in those situations.
All of a sudden all of the terrible, horrifying methods of measuring lines of code, commits, tasks etc. resurfaced, like world was hit with an amnesia meteor.
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of different companies argue with the AI for some time before they call me, but they always call me. They'll never be able to explain what they want to the AI, and even if they could, it couldn't solve the problem anyway. Nevertheless I'm not going to be contracting much longer, I'm writing software by hand to compete with the garbage shat out of Claude's VibeCloaca. I already have customers, I just need to ...…
Your contracting business is done because of AI competition, because money is drying, or because you're finding permanent alternatives due to being sick of it? There's more than one way to interpret your message, and I'm curious.
I can only work so many hours in a day on a contract, but with a product, I can work 3 hours and sell it 200 times, or license it and make money forever.
My customers have said to me point blank "I hate SaaS" and paid me anyway. They've said everything is "so easy with GPT and all now", and paid me anyway.
I think I have a chance.
Maybe I'll be proven wrong and my AI-using competitors will eat my lunch.
Or maybe, I'll drown them and Claude in complexity and attention-to-detail.
We'll see.
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their last success was acquiring Instagram in 2012. Every new effort since then has been hemorrhaging money. They get away with it because they have two limitless money faucets in Facebook and Instagram, but their product strategy as a whole has been a disaster.
It would be incredible to think that Mark Zuckerberg genuinely thought their Metaverse/VR investment was going to be akin to Xerox's bayarea PARC campus (developer of modern networking / GUI &c). I guess both were ultimately profit-negative financial disasters.
I do think virtual interfaces will be a thing when the tech is ready. Not really ready player one style but more like what they have in the expanse for computer tech.
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Llama should be mentioned in the same conversations that ChatGPT, Claude, and DeepSeek dominate. If only it wasn’t so inaccessible…
They have an app for it. I think it's as accessible as any of the other models you mentioned. It's just not as good.
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
They’ve gotten better at addiction-engineering. Like making super-cocaine, it’s not a good thing. Essentially they took a dubiously ethical business and ramped it into, “actively harmful to almost everyone”. Any reasonable country would ban half the ads that make it onto FB/Insta. FB themselves admit 10% of their ad traffic is literal scammers.
Sure, but youre just talking about semantics here. When Mark asks himself "have we been successful" your definition of success is irrelevant. If the lay offs were because of the company had no successes as the OP posits you have to reason from the decision makers definition of success.
Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
#140Unemployed people, what are you doing?