[htrp]

>we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that's accelerating rapidly.

This is one way of making an all-in bet on AI.

>we're not going to just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here. communication channels will stay open through thursday evening (pacific) so everyone can say goodbye properly, and share whatever you wish. i'll also be hosting a live video session to thank everyone at 3:35pm pacific. i know doing it this way might feel awkward. i'd rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold.

Well that's interesting, wonder if we'll actually get a proper accounting of which departments take which cuts.

[mattbillenstein]

Even if the AI piece isn't really true - smaller flatter teams will move faster anyway. I always wonder having worked in a lot of startups with 10-50ppl, what on earth a business does with 10000.

[michaelt]

> I always wonder having worked in a lot of startups with 10-50ppl, what on earth a business does with 10000.

If a small business needs to send a replacement widget to a customer in a foreign country, they label it "$0 value" (as it's a free replacement part) and mail it with a swipe of a corporate credit card.

If a large business needs to do the same thing, the sender asks the mail room, giving them a budget code and delivery address; the mail room contacts the widget designer for a HTS code, size and weight; then contacts their shipping broker for a quote; then contacts the finance department to raise a purchase order; the finance department contacts the budget code owner for spend approval; then raises a purchase order; then forwards it to the sender who forwards it to the post room who forwards it to the shipping broker who arrange a collection. Later the shipping broker will send the post room an invoice against the purchase order, which they'll send on to finance, who'll query the sender who'll approve paying the invoice.

> Even if the AI piece isn't really true - smaller flatter teams will move faster anyway.

Quite possibly - but you have to remember to remove the bureaucracy, not just remove the people who operate the bureaucracy. If you try to do the large business process with the small business team, it'll be even slower.

[iaaan]

Seconded. My experience has been that -- even while still complying with lots of overhead (e.g. government regulations and compliance) -- smaller teams of 1-3 devs move waaaaay faster than teams of 4-10. Could definitely speak to the overall codebase quality or some other factor, but yeah.

[jcgrillo]

They're still a megacorp, roughly, with like 6k people remaining. That's a huge company. Huge companies need hierarchy to function, the "flat" thing is a really dumb idea. There's no way to make it analogous to that <50ppl team that executes well and moves fast. To do that you actually need to have a small company.

[liuliu]

Every business metrics needs people to safeguard. That's how you get the number of ppl.

[gedy]

Sure but it'll still be a 6000+ team - I doubt nimbleness will occur now.

[svnt]

First you take a 50 person org. Then (for scale) you hire highly motivated performers who, because they came up in big orgs, are used to using 50 people for three years to do a project six people can do in three to six months. Then you create incentives that make them compete for standing. And the standing also depends on their personal scope (ie headcount).

[tootie]

I question how much of this is really AI vs them just regrouping around their core products and shutting down a lot of ventures or tertiary projects. Either way, the messaging we're seeing is a real shift from the ZIRP ear. Tech companies used to use headcount as a metric of growth. They'd be hiring just to say they're hiring because it looks like growth. Now it's in vogue to boast about your AI adoption and how many fewer heads you need to operate. I think both are lot of blowing smoke, but now it's going to hurt a lot of people.

[chilipepperhott]

Their shareholder meeting is later today. Maybe we'll find out.

[willio58]

> i'd rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold.

So deeply ironic considering he claims he’s doing this because AI can do the jobs these people did.

These billionaires will learn one day that removing humans doesn’t stop at the bottom layer. It’ll continue to happen at layers above until their own position starts to be put into question. They’ll realize those people who are removed due to AI taking their jobs still need to put food on their tables. It’ll take time, but ultimately there are only so many ways that can go. The answer will be extreme taxation on the billionaires.

[throwyawayyyy]

I do genuinely wonder about the endgame here. Why would the objective winners of the _current_ system, our billionaire class, want to disrupt that system? Do they really believe that they will necessarily be winners in the new world too, are they that arrogant?

[re-thc]

> but something has changed

i.e. we finally decided to audit head count from post covid-era.

> paired with smaller and flatter teams

i.e. management was axed

[gusmally]

you don't think LLM impacts on productivity were a factor at all?