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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

#651

Post by dboreham »

jurgenburgen wrote: post #630
gk1 wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI tools make great team members even better This is the predominant (public) talking point. And it’s true. But along with that: when you have effective people becoming even more effective with AI, it becomes glaringly obvious who the INeffective people are. At which point it becomes hard to justify keeping those people around. (That often includes people who are otherwise effective but aren’t utilizing agents and…

Before AI, it was impossible to measure productivity. Some tried with misguided metrics like lines of code added but that just incentivized writing obtuse code. What has changed?

Impossible to measure in absolute terms but I think it's clear productivity increases relatively when LLMs are used. At least that's my strong experience.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#652

Post by htrp »

jurgenburgen wrote: post #630
gk1 wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI tools make great team members even better This is the predominant (public) talking point. And it’s true. But along with that: when you have effective people becoming even more effective with AI, it becomes glaringly obvious who the INeffective people are. At which point it becomes hard to justify keeping those people around. (That often includes people who are otherwise effective but aren’t utilizing agents and…

Before AI, it was impossible to measure productivity. Some tried with misguided metrics like lines of code added but that just incentivized writing obtuse code. What has changed?

vibes maybe?

If effective AI enhanced SWEs can ship features in a week, the guys who ship 1 feature a quarter stand out more?

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#653

Post by punkbit »

jdasdf wrote: post #395
krooj wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My man, all these fuckers use the same parasitic management consultancies. That's why all this shit looks the same.

Cloudflare has never made a profit. Is your stance that shareholders should perpetually subsidize it out of the goodness of their hearts?

Cloudflare has never made a profit? The thread commentator said the product he maintained was 95% profit.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#654

Post by punkbit »

bloppe wrote: post #396
headinthesky wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. My hope is selfish - the market is awful

I promise you there are a ton of companies desperate to hire talent right now. It's hard on both sides of the market. Lots of noise, but there is demand for this supply. Unfortunately, that means personal connections are more valuable than they used to be, just to get the ball rolling.

Are you sure? Can you share some of those companies that are desperate to hire talent right now? I'd like serious teams as I need to find work. I do keep an eye on HN, Wellfound, Workatstartup, X, etc.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#655

Post by djeastm »

konart wrote: post #590
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…

11 interns did okay.

The 1% always does ok

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#656

Post by punkbit »

pm90 wrote: post #222
rcatcher wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seeing who is being laid off, especially on my team, it's the people who make things run. How did the company decide who to lay off? They didn't even ask EMs?

Almost 99% sure that They hired a consultant firm (MBB) that told them who to cut; this is pretty standard practice now at public tech corps. Especially if EMs weren’t in the loop. This looks like purely a margin improvement exercise thats hiding weaknesses in the company’s financial performance.

Wow! Is there any good read on that, like even if a "YouTube" show or something? This is quite interesting.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#657

Post by jjulius »

blitzar wrote: post #386
jazzyjackson wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there no one figuring out ROI on AI spend vs human payroll? I can't make sense of this idea that companies are firing productive employees because they're spending too much money on AI that isn't doing anything for them... they still hope chatbots will be worth it in the future?

> ROI on AI spend You say that shit like that at the top table and you will be gone within the hour.

I've said that shit at the top table and I'm still there. In fact it started some great conversations to ensure we're doing just that.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#658

Post by bluGill »

ttul wrote: post #227
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…

They have a reputation to maintain, otherwise it will be difficult to recruit the best people in future. That being said, damn, that is a very generous package by any measure.

First packages tend to be the best. If you work for them beware, the next round won't be as good (if there is one). The economy isn't the best, but if you get an okay job offer anyway you should probably take it rather than risk you will be in the next round that is worse.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#659

Post by bluGill »

gcr wrote: post #585
_heimdall wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For better or worse, it isn't a company's job to pay laid off employees until they find a new role. The industry standard for severance is 1-2 weeks pay per year at the company, paying out roughly 7 months is a big deal (and yes, an acknowledgment of how rough they know the job hunt will be).

Not in tech. Larger severance packages are common. Going forward, I wonder if severance packages should be a point of competitive recruiting advantage

They are for CEOs and have been for decades. We call them "golden parachutes", and a lot of people hate them.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#660

Post by weakfish »

simianwords wrote: post #581
NewJazz wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an investor, it sounds fucking stupid. They aren't dogfooding, they're eating all the dogs' food. They fired some talented folks. Folks who could be retrained. Folks whose experience snd expertise is valuable. Don't kid yourself.

this is a low quality comment that doesn't address the simple explanation: more productivity means fewer people are required.

Disagreement != low quality, and that explanation is incredibly naive and simplistic
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