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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

#971

Post by davebren »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #319
bananamogul wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A company finds itself with surplus labor capacity due to the efficiencies in AI" That is one possible interpretation, though I don't think it's supported by any facts. A competing explanation: companies are spending a ton of money on AI in search of efficiency, and then laying people off in order to offset these investments. That's certainly what's been happening at Microsoft, Oracle, Meta, etc.

AI is a fraction of cost of an employee though right? I have an 1000$/mo AI budget which is a fraction of my salary, and most people don’t hit their limits.

Not everywhere, and this is the year where the price per token will go up closer to the supply cost.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#972

Post by davebren »

ianm218 wrote: post #157
pier25 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If using AI had a "substantial profit or revenue growth" wouldn't it make more sense to hire more people so they can use more AI and increase revenue?

It depends if your market has room to grow. If it’s saturated it’s just about COGS.

That shouldn't apply to tech where there's generally always more market to capture and competitors looking to offer a better product and take your market share.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#973

Post by davebren »

punkbit wrote: post #631

Gosh... The job market is already brutal for many candidates, especially people who aren’t social media personalities and don’t have names like Cloudflare, Meta, Amazon, or Google on their CVs. Some people will end up homeless... At least having Cloudflare on their resume will likely help many of these people land new opportunities, so I wouldn’t be too worried about their long-term prospects... What I don’t fully un…

> What exactly is so fundamentally difficult in 2026 that someone with years of experience can’t learn?

It's having the experience to point out all the issues in the generated code that's the issue. The interns they hired won't have the experience to push back and slow the slop machine down.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#974

Post by dghlsakjg »

cmiles8 wrote: post #893
badc0ffee wrote: post #862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like Amazon isn't a FAANG anymore. (What's the new A? Anthropic?)

Well FAANG is now MANGO and yes Amazon dropped out of the top tier of tech companies on the market per these acronyms. Theres a few others other there gaining popularity which also now exclude Amazon as a top tier tech company. Amazon is successful on the boring utility stuff (logistics, building data centers) but is broadly seen as unable to execute on higher value add things, which keeps it out of the top tier. The…

Isn’t AWS a massive value add operation on top of what is otherwise just rental servers?

It isn’t sexy, but they are selling their proprietary technology to just about everyone. That and their market cap puts them in league with the rest of the big boys.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#976

Post by RevEng »

ok_dad wrote: post #867
draftsman wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately I think we’ll see more and more of this as companies continue to encourage their employees to use LLMs everywhere and for everything. Eventually they will have to come to terms with the cost of such mandates, and it’s either ask your employees to “use AI less,” or it’s let some percentage go and continue to let the rest burn tokens.

I am perplexed at how it can cost so much. I have been using AI every day, all day for a few months now and I have not even gotten to spending $300 a month. I use Cursor for teams, so we get ~$80 of usage for our ~$40 per member, then we pay Cursor's upcharged API rates from there, and I STILL don't spend more than $300 a month, if that. What the hell is everyone doing with their fucking tokens?

Most of our employees don't hit their $50/month cap. Others end up into the hundreds. It depends on how you use it.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#978

Post by alsetmusic »

bluGill wrote: post #658
ttul wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

True. I wasn't surprised when I was let go when my previous company had a first round. I'd clashed with management pretty openly for a while and knew if anyone had to go, I'd painted a target on myself. The people who were let go in rounds two and three were probably caught by surprise.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#979

Post by jurgenburgen »

MITSardine wrote: post #924
jurgenburgen wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Stuff just gets done, I guess? Projects move faster, people onboard faster with less intervention, etc. The speedup seems noticeable enough that it doesn’t need precise measuring.

If the speed up is noticeable enough then coming up with a metric should be easy?

I haven’t noticed a speed up in my own org though the feeling of engineers rushing to implementation has become more pronounced. Team members no longer understand what others are doing and siloing has become intense even within my team.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#980

Post by encrypted_bird »

K0balt wrote: post #956
encrypted_bird wrote: post #936

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A LOT of people don't make enough money to put away 6 months of savings. You can be the most financially responsible person in existence, but if you don't have the money, you don't have the money. Seriously, just how privileged can you get?

Yeah, employers should not hire people that can’t afford to put away 6 months of livings expenses, because that puts the employer in a questionable ethical position. Or maybe a living wage with savings should be the legal minimum wage? Oh wait, nope, can’t have that lol.

It would certainly be nice to have a living wage, I can tell you that much! Haha. I could actually afford to spend more than $40 a week on food! :D
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