Oracle slashes 30k jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#411

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 4:55 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #313

tmoertel wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When laying people off, better companies will often accelerate vesting so that the departing employees get additional stock. For example, Google does this: We’ll also offer a severance package starting at 16 weeks salary plus two weeks for every additional year at Google, and accelerate at least 16 weeks of GSU vesting. https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/j...

OK but for most people a 16-week acceleration is still forfeiting 92% of unvested shares.

[deleted]

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#412

Post by jimbokun » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #131

dafelst wrote: post #2

More victims of AI. Not actually of "AI is replacing jobs", more "oh shit we are spending too much and the product isn't good enough for us to ever make a return on our absurd over-investment".

Blame it on whatever you like. oracle has been a rudderless leech for nearly 30 years now. - overpricing the database led to a predictable exodus and new players with often times better performance. - acquisition of MySQL led to a predictable exodus and new players like maria with often times better performance. - Oracle cloud arrived late to spectacular skepticism and low user turnout from customers who had been bur…

I hadn’t realized their stock price has been cut in half over the past year.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#413

Post by zerkten » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #267

seanhunter wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer: today I think there is genuinely nothing that anyone should use oracle for, but their database used to be seriously far ahead of the competition. A very long time ago (circa 2000) there were basically 2 databases that worked for use cases where you needed high availability and vertical scalability and those were Oracle and Sybase and Oracle was really the only game in town if you actually wanted certain…

Just curious, how was SQL Server perceived at the time compared to Sybase and Oracle? I know it originated as a port of Sybase.

SQL Server 2000 was well received in the segments that mattered as a challenger. Oracle was in first place running on Unix. However, it was viewed as expensive and the procurement experience was regarded as unpleasant. People wanted competition even if they didn't think SQL Server, or another alternative, could unseat Oracle for the most important stuff.

Windows was really picking up steam and there was a move to web development in the Windows-based developer space. Visual Basic and Delphi were popular but desktop development had peaked. ASP was for building your apps and SQL Server was the natural backend. SQL Server fed off this wave. It wasn't dislodging Oracle, but rather than every app being built on Oracle, more apps started to use SQL Server as the backend.

Then ASP.NET appeared on the scene and demand grew even more. It was a well-integrated combo that appealed to a lot of shops. I started my career in a global pharma and there was a split between tech budget. IT was a Windows shop for many reasons and ran as much on SQL Server as possible. R&D was Unix/Linux with Oracle. There was a real battle going on in the .NET vs Java (how about some EJB 1) and the databases followed the growth curves of both rather than competing against each other.

The SQL Slammer worm brought a lot of attention to the product. There were instances running everywhere and IT didn't expect so much adoption. Back then you had a lot more servers running inside offices than you do today. My office was much like my homelab today. This validated the need so the patches got applies, IT got involved in the upkeep, and adoption continued to grow.

Oracle's sales folk and lawyers were horrible to deal with. I had some experience of this directly as they tried pushing Java-related products and my boss dragged me into the evals. One of my in-laws was outside counsel in the IT space doing work with enterprise-sized companies. He claims they are the worst company he's ever had to deal with and wouldn't delegate any decision-making locally which endlessly dragged out deals. They had a good product but felt they could get away with anything. Over time he saw customers run lots of taskforces to chip away Oracle usage. This accelerated with SaaS because you could eliminate the app AND Oracle in one swoop.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#414

Post by jimbokun » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

muskstinks wrote: post #9

dafelst wrote: post #2

More victims of AI. Not actually of "AI is replacing jobs", more "oh shit we are spending too much and the product isn't good enough for us to ever make a return on our absurd over-investment".

I don't think its that easy. Look at their employee numbers over the years: (ai generated): Oracle Corporation Employee Count (2010 - 2025) Legend: Each '' represents approximately 4,000 employees. Year | Employees ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2010 | (105,000) 2011 | (108,000) 2012 | (115,000) 2013 | (120,000) 2014 | (122,000) 2015 | (132,000) 2016 | (136,000) 2017 | (138,000) 20…

So they are returning to 2015 headcount.

(EDIT: or 2021)

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#415

Post by heraldgeezer » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

niek_pas wrote: post #406

chekibreki wrote: post #110

Full text of e-mail: We are sharing some difficult news regarding your position. After careful consideration of Oracle’s current business needs, we have made the decision to eliminate your role as part of a broader organizational change. As a result, today is your last working day. We are grateful for your dedication, hard work, and the impact you have made during your time with us. After signing your termination pap…

> As a result, today is your last working day. As a European, I never realized that this is allowed under US labor law. That is absolutely insane. EDIT: some commentors have pointed out that the workers collect severance and unemployment --- I was not aware this is law in California, and that changes matters. I would, though, still find being suddenly out of a job fairly traumatic.

[flagged]

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#416

Post by steve1977 » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #223

jvanderbot wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oracle and Java are deeply embedded in US gov work. How deep? Let's just say a large number of classified developer jobs hire for Java. Ellison has been a huge proponent of a surveillance state, and that likely ingratiates him with certain three letter agencies. The only developers I know who write Java full time work in systems that take pictures of things from far away.

Apple used Java in a ton of backend stuff. At least the entire backend for iTunes (Jingle) was written in Java and very very small amount of Clojure.

There was a time (around the beginnings of Mac OS X) when Java was considered a first class citizen in Mac OS X, next to Objective-C.

Some NeXT products like WebObjects got ported to Java (and ran not only the iTunes backend but also things like the original Dell online store) and there was something called the Java bridge which allowed you to program Cocoa applications with Java.

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Co...

Oh, and with Yellow Box for Windows, this was also possible on Windows.

If you look at the screenshots here, it's mostly Windows 2000: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Le...

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#417

Post by Verdex » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

mwcampbell wrote: post #392

Verdex wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever the lawnmower thing comes up, I try to also mention dtrace. As far as things to be remembered for, they make some strange bedfellows... although it's better than anything I've managed so I guess congrats.

DTrace was absolutely a product of pre-Oracle Sun, not Oracle.

Hey friend, check the user name of the person I'm responding to (and perhaps check out the people responsible for dtrace and larry ellison lawnmower comparisons). I might appear more coherent afterwards.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#418

Post by jimkleiber » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 4:59 PM UTC

potsandpans wrote: post #357

jimkleiber wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if companies understand the emotional impact on the laid off and the layoff survivors. It almost seems like a terror campaign, whether intended or not.

This is largely the world we've created with litigation practices. Corpo is very careful to show empathy that can be perceived in some way as accepting blame in a way that would open them to litigation.

Yeah, our litigation culture to me is just an inability for individuals/companies to resolve conflicts and escalate it to the legal system. And unfortunately there are many elements in the system that discourage us from reconciling and push us towards escalating.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#419

Post by balderdash » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 4:59 PM UTC

stego-tech wrote: post #309

kyledrake wrote: post #157

The bulk of the comments in here are focused on comparing Larry Ellison to a lawn mower, so I'll try a new tack and say that I'm genuinely confused at what the value prop of Oracle is. Given the history of their business model being licensing of important databases that are hard to switch off of, I've actually made a point to avoid using Oracle as much as possible (even so far as to leave MySQL when they acquired it,…

It's stickiness. Their biggest asset is ERP. That's how they get orgs locked in, because migrating ERP systems after deployment can take decades of work and cost multitudes more than just eating Oracle's renewal increases. Could orgs jettison them into the sun? Totally. Is it fiscally sensible? Yeah, absolutely. Can you sell that to the board? Nope . The best way to kill Oracle - because such a toxic organization abs…

A while ago we were looking at migrating ERP - netsuite was a not a good price proposition and candidly feels a bit dated - but when you mapped features it was pretty impressive and for a lot of business that have some complexity (multi-entity, multi-currency, multi site mfg or inventory), there is not a whole lot of good alternatives because you can't use quicken but you definitely don't want SAP

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#420

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 4:59 PM UTC

wiseowise wrote: post #301

WalterBright wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profit maximization makes for the high standard of living we enjoy.

The one where one trip to ER can leave you on the street and students have six digit debts?

Ironically, you picked two systems that are heavily interfered with by the government.

Back in the Great Depression, my great grandmother got sick and was hospitalized, and they took care of her until she passed. My grandfather did not have enough to pay the bill. The hospital told him not to worry, just pay what he could. It took him a while, but he paid the bill in full.