The stock pump for AI layoffs is dead. Meta, LinkedIn, and Cisco just announced cuts this week, but the real story is what Amazon and American Express are doing instead: pushing the firings down to managers as forced annual targets, no public announcement, no backfill. Same outcome, none of the optics. I worked at Amex as a director of engineering. I have sources at Amazon. This is already happening. 00:00 The new layoff paradigm 01:15 Meta, LinkedIn, and Cisco this week 04:30 Why the AI-washing stock pump stopped working 07:00 What Amazon and Amex are actually doing 10:30 Why executives used to avoid this (and why they don't care anymore) Sharper, less polished takes on tech, AI, and neurodivergent work life, straight to your inbox: 👉 https://newsletter.drjoshcsimmons.com/ Follow me on X: 👉 https://x.com/@drjoshcsimmons ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SPONSORS & GEAR 🧠 Magic Mind, the productivity shot I actually drink. 48% off subscriptions with code DRJOSH20: 👉 https://www.magicmind.com/DRJOSH20 Secure your money, get TANGEM wallet: https://tangem.com/invite/DRJ 🔒 Proton, the privacy suite I use for mail, VPN, and drive. They don't sell your data to train someone else's model: 👉 https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=16421&url_id=397 🕶️ Shwood Eyewear, the glasses I wear in every video: 👉 https://alnk.to/9bxCLdt
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I thought there was a tech worker shortage that required importing H1Bs? Hmmm.....
These companies are doing "quiet layoffs" of smaller numbers of people at a time distributed among different departments throughout the year. They do this so they can avoid various state and government rules (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN)) on reporting requirements. By laying off small groups at a time, they fly under the radar of these reporting requirements. Another example of slimy corporations skirting the laws with the help of their bought and paid for State and Federal Representatives - who put these loopholes in these laws so the corporations can take advantage of them.
“The layoffs will continue until morale improves”
Laid off from CIsco today, kinda sad kinda happy.. At least no more TAC treadmill
Depressing times indeed. Just to lighten the mood, here's a dad joke: What happened to the thief who stole a calendar? He got 12 months.
YEAH AND THEY ARE HIRING FOREIGNERS
This is the end of Merica.
You know whats crazy? That number on the thumbnail is higher than the population of the city i did my ugrad in 😢
Along with a 20% increase in hiring at GCCs in India. That's where your jobs are going. And they only want to hire people with Indian passports in the US, so they can easily shuttle back/forth between India and the US. Moving even more departments, offshore.
I work in AWS and I see that this is already happening. Management invents new pressure points to either force people to leave because of Idiocracy of demands, or because of bad annual performance evaluation.
All these are record revenues and profits so either they are cooking books or every human should be ready for. the reckoning on the working class
cisco stock poppin tho
This is the American Tech Bloodbath, thanks to all the money spent supporting the visa programs and in turn feeding outsourcing to India (80/20 model). 80% in India, 20% (or less) here. 20% increase in hiring at India based GCCs.
I appreciate your supposition but Cloud flare was a one-off Cisco went up 20% when they announced their layoffs
This is not new, this is know the Goldmansacs way, Banks and finance have been doing it for at least 20 years, I worked 15 years in finance and every year there was a clean up. Tech is only following their CFOs advise
Revolution asap
Thank you! I really enjoy your viewpoint. Quite excellent!
I really think the whole AI thing is over-hyped and I'm really good with it and I think that there's a lot of compute power and brainpower and it can do some really cool stuff but it's not replacing a human being. I mean maybe some human beings that are using AI can automate a lot of things and be more productive. Well you're talking like maybe one and a half two times. They're not talking 20 acts so 5 percent kind of makes sense but I doubt there is productive. I really do. It's a fancy chatbot. That most people can't even use right.
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Commenting for the algo