So, right now there's been tons of

layoffs happening. The last big four

that I can think of are Facebook,

ClickUp, Web Flow, and Cloudflare. And

each one of them are citing AI. And

honestly, I'm not uh really good at the

business side of things. And so, today

I'm bringing on with me Big A. If you're

not familiar with Big A, you can always

go check out his YouTube videos or the

video that me and him even did together

just not too long ago. But today, I

wanted to go through four layoffs of

increasing absurdities. And I wanted to

hear his thoughts kind of more from a

business angle because typically on, you

know, on this channel, we're we're

pretty deep into tech. And so having

somebody that's not necessarily on the

tech side, but on the business side can

help kind of think through some of the

problems. And honestly, some of the

insights that he brought, I've never

even once thought of before. I'm like,

I'm still reeling from just like, oh my

gosh, this even makes it worse. Or, hey,

this just makes it so ridiculous to

think this way. All right, so I hope you

enjoy this. Okay, so today I have Atriok

with me. he is going to kind of help me

reason through maybe more of the

business side of all these layoffs. Uh,

and so I've kind of ordered these

layoffs, if there is a Yeah, that's

true. Is there even a reason reason here

at all? But I've ordered these layoffs

from kind of least surprising to most

surprising and each one gets more

egregious in a certain dimension one

after another. So it will get it will

get rather wild towards the end. And so

the first one I wanted to talk about is

this Facebook one. And so starting at

about 5 minutes and 10 seconds into some

leaked audio, we hear Mark Zuckerberg

talk about why he's doing what he's

doing with AI. To give a little bit of

preface, it has come out obviously that

he's recording everybody's device. He

says, "Hey, we have super smart people

that work here. We have the highest IQ.

I know much I know a lot of IQ. We have

the highest." And so he he goes and says

this and then right here he says

something very surprising.

>> Listen,

>> knowing the physics of the situation is

that that stuff is going to leak. So I I

think you will

to um we're just going to have to

navigate that. It's going to be a little

bit different on a thing by thing basis

in terms of how we communicate, but I I

actually think it is like not

strategically in your interest for us to

communicate everything like in all.

>> So, if you got to the point where he

says it's not in your strategic interest

for us to communicate everything, what

he's referring to is he doesn't want to

tell his employees why he's recording

their uh motions.

>> Yeah.

>> Because it's not strategic for it to

leak. cuz it might leak

>> and it's for their best interest.

>> I'm only looking out for you. That's

That's

>> And so then a day later they fire 8,000

people.

>> That's a really insane line of thought.

Mark Zuckerberg, do

>> you know he's also been doing the uh

>> he he recorded his own his own data and

made like a Zuck CEO AI that you could

ask questions to. Did you see that?

>> No, I didn't. Okay, that's

>> I did not see this. Okay, that I mean to

me that's like kind of you have to have

some level of psychosis to believe that

>> if you take only your data your 50%

answer is good enough. That just feels

kind of nuts.

>> Uh yeah, this is pretty I mean I I

hadn't heard this leaked audio but that

is a uh interesting way to phrase it to

see you as the savior or as the nice guy

on this situation that you're looking

out for their interests.

Is there is there any like because his

whole argument goes something along the

lines of if the competitors get how

we're doing things, they're going to be

able to beat us to it because AI is the

most competitive thing in the universe

right now. There's arguably no more

competitive landscape than AI in the

history of mankind.

>> Sure. I I guess what I'm saying is I

think it it's not like it's a seems to

be a big secret. If you're recording all

your employees data, it's because you're

trying to train an AI to do those

things. What's the What is the big

Everyone understands what you're doing.

It's not I we can't possibly tell you

that and then tomorrow you do a layoff.

He's not he's not a dark mastermind.

It's pretty obvious. So yeah, I don't I

don't I don't know.

>> I actually didn't even think about it

from that one-dimensional angle of like,

oh, you just recorded every single thing

they did.

>> Yeah, that's the value is you can

recreate what the employee does and then

sell that intelligence to another or or

cut the jobs. What's the what other

benefit could there be? I do think one

thing he was right about though, he said

in that leaked call that, you know,

everything we do leaks and us watching

this proves that he's right. He is

correct that like if he says whatever he

says is going to get out there because I

don't think he has a lot of uh

institutional loyalty right now. All the

all the leaks coming out of Meta are

that the vibes there are truly atrocious

prior to this layoff, but especially

post. People just feel like it's every

man for themselves. It's uh siloed

departments grabbing whatever power they

can and trying to make whatever money

they can out of this this uh this

machine. But there's no like larger

mission they seem to be pushing forward.

>> All right. So, this is a I I told you I

was going to do this towards the end,

but I actually want to hear it now,

which is

>> is there like they say that this is

going to be kind of dystopian that

everybody gets fired yet Meta's making

record profits

in this kind of situation given Meta's

current outlook.

Should they be able to, you know, I know

that's kind of a loaded question,

>> right?

>> Do you think it's wise, good, or they

are allowed to fire 8,000 of their staff

while making record profits? And is

there like a good justifiable reason

like a reason that would make the

average person not feel a bit cringed to

buy it?

>> No, I think I mean it's a loaded

question in that the safe YouTube answer

is like of course not you know never

they have profits never but I'll try to

steal man it a little bit just because I

want people to understand. I think what

makes here here's one thing I'll say

about Meta and I'm not a defender of

Zuckerber or Meta here but they do a a

remarkably generous severance. I I don't

know the exact data on me, but it's like

one of the best packages if you're if

you're getting laid off. And so I think

what makes this particularly hard on

people is that the job market broadly is

so negative. It's so down. Normally a

company, I mean, theoretically, they

should be able to hire and fire who they

want. It's it's like if they lose great

talent because they have a bad culture

where they're hiring and firing a lot,

that's their loss and the great talent's

going to go elsewhere. Like I really the

idea that it should be restricted or

that you know they could hire a bunch of

people for one division and then not be

able to lay them off to hire somewhere

else. It's like they should be allowed

to do that. It's just that the broader

context is that these hyperp

profofitable companies are laying people

off into an environment where there's no

other jobs or there there's like there's

a lot fewer jobs for their skill set. So

that's what makes it feel so egregious

and negative. I I think in a different

higher growth environment it would seem

like this is just a stupid idea from

Meta. They're going to take a big L from

this. But instead, it feels like more

like the employees are taking the big L

because they have nowhere else to go.

So, I I'm it's a I think that's my

nuanced answer. I do think that um

you know, some of this is is postcoid

overhang where everyone hired a ton and

now they're like slowly trying to

rightsize that and that is going to be

layoffs even if they're having profit.

And it's worth saying that some

companies can have record profit one

quarter and then soon after be in a much

worse position and they're trying to get

ahead of that. I don't know if Meta is

one of those. They have such a cash

printer with all the social media

companies.

>> Yeah, they're actually uh I believe

2027, early 2027 or late 2026, they're

set to overtake Google for advertisement

revenue.

>> Oh my god. Yeah. So, I

>> So, I think they're going to keep on

making money. I don't think that's the

uh

>> I think it's more of where they're

putting their money is what they're kind

of banking on here.

>> Yeah. And again, it does seem to be, you

know, you talked about AI layoffs. What

it seems to be with these big

hyperscaler companies, not they're

laying people off because they can

replace the job with AI. They're laying

people off because they need more money

to spend on AI capex. They're like

they're spending absurd amounts of money

on these buildouts of data centers and

that is where they're trying to find

cost savings and so they're they're

cutting staff to make that more

palatable to investors which I think is

probably the worst possible reason to do

it. But again, I think this is a tough

one to defend, but in a different

environment, it would be like more of

their loss than the employees.

>> No, it is interesting about the

competitive landscape. I So, I haven't

heard a lot of these internal

discussions about Meta being a terrible

place to work. I just I've always just

made that assumption from my, you know,

my earlier interactions while in the

valley. It was uh there was a lot of

rumors going around about their company

that were

>> shocking to say the least. And so I

would not be surprised if that is in

fact the case that they're breeding a

more and more toxic culture that it kind

of sounds like Microsoft. If you ever

seen the org chart for Microsoft, it's

just a big like kind of triangle with

guns pointed at everybody because it's

just like everyone's just land grabbing.

That's all they do. They don't actually

build stuff. They just land grab.

>> So when I was at Nvidia, uh I sat next

to a bunch of these engineers and they

would talk about the Facebook brand tax.

It was before it was Meta. And the idea

was like if any of them were to accept a

job at Meta, they would have to get paid

more for the same role. Like they have

to pay extra because people don't want

to work there. Not just for the vibes,

but for the like the there's like a

stink of working at of of Facebook or

Meta. It's like

>> the inverse Apple would pay historically

lower because people loved it.

>> Exactly. It's the inverse Apple. And so,

uh, I feel like that's only gotten worse

with time. It's becoming meta and, you

know, the the decline of I'd say their I

think there was a time when they seemed

to be a bit of a more of a

forward-thinking company where social

media was less hated by everybody, but

now it's now it's it's tough to sell.

>> Yeah. I don't I don't think you can win

easily. Like even Mark Zuckerberg's

rehab from Lizard Man to Tanned Lizard

Man. Like even that is just you know you

like him more, but you know that is

still like in the grand scheme of liking

it is still uh very disproportional. All

right, so I wanted to get that one out

of the way cuz everyone kind of knows

about this. This happened weeks ago and

for me this was or weeks ago. Gosh, that

was actually eight days ago.

>> Time is flying. Every week is a month

right now. But uh so with that kind of

in mind, I I wanted to lay that because

that is the most reasonable of all the

layoffs that I could find.

>> Really,

>> you're probably thinking that can't that

can't be true.

>> For something cuz that's 8,000 layoffs

on a quarter of record profits from one

of the biggest companies in the world.

So I'm excited to see how it goes from

here.

>> Yet again, this is called ClickUp. Uh, I

actually have no idea what ClickUp does.

>> It's like a productivity soft. It's like

a sauna or something, right am I

correct?

>> I assume I assumed it's some sort of

it's it's some product. I just thought

it was a productivity software. That's I

mean I always think that the most

productive AI workspace. I don't

>> I actually don't know what those things

mean anymore cuz there's so many of

them. I'm like is this just like Google

Meets with like Clippy? Like what

exactly do you mean here? They say

they're going to reduce headcount by

22%. The business is the strongest it's

ever been. So again, they're saying

we're making money. Like things are

fantastic. We're absolutely doing it.

It's super great. And so here's the two

big contentions. Okay.

>> So the first thing he says down low is

that he wants to make the 100x

organization.

>> He wants to restructure and make his or

have a 100x the output.

>> Okay.

>> Also, he's going to be introducing $1

million salary bands for those that can

make giant AI impact. Here's the thing

that I I I I don't believe about these

statements and I want you to just try to

explain to my P-sized brain. Uh so if

you have 365 days in a year,

>> Uhhuh.

>> if you were to make yourself 100x

efficient, that means in 3.65 days, you

can do what you did in one year. Now,

obviously, if you're in Europe, that

means in about 1.8 days is what you do

in a year. Good joke. Europe joke. Got

him. Uh no. Uh or maybe I got myself on

this one. Can't really tell. But the

thing is is when I hear these statements

from these people like this is why we're

firing people because we're going to

make 100x work. Even if let's pretend

you could actually make all the work you

would work in a year appear in 3.65

days. Is it even physically possible to

make the decisions you make over that

course of a year boiling down to 3.65

days?

>> Uh can you actually even like think

through problems that fast? That is a a

problem for someone smarter than me

because it's not happening. That's 0%

chance that they're 100xing output. No

company's reported any level of

productivity gain like this. I think if

you go back I mean to his first line

they all say that. That's the thing is

that

>> yes

>> that is the the standard opener is we

just had our best month ever. Things are

so strong. Don't worry that we're laying

off a lot of bad people. Sometimes I

would say in like Meta's case they are

in a good financial position when

they're doing layoff but many times

companies will say this when they are

not when they are declining especially

if they're I mean this is a again I'm

not an expert on what ClickUp does but

if it's in the software as a service

sector all those companies are getting

hammered all of those companies are

stock down uh competitive pressure

investors pulling out because they're

worried about AI eating their lunch. So,

the idea that this guy is like the the

super strong business who's not worried

about any of that, but we're just

happening to lay off a quarter of our

company. I I don't know. I I would I

would more easily attribute this to uh

business worries trying to get cost

under control than anything like, oh, we

have a 100x in the pipeline that no one

else has seen. And yeah, and again, I I

mean, I don't know. It reminds me of

like um Twitter when Twitter would hire

a bunch of engineers and then the

product wouldn't change at all. Like

what is ClickUp doing that is what what

is the what is their plan? Yeah. For the

100x what is their what are they

100xing?

>> Like well yeah even if you could 100x

what are you even 100xing like that

would mean oh I accidentally invented

search that's as good as Google. I also

did Netflix. I also did Yeah. We built

everything. We built the whole universe

actually.

>> Yeah. It's not like a factory where

you're increasing the output 100x. It's

a it's a product that is you have to

design something new or important

feature. And I don't know what they're

doing with ClickUp that is so innovative

or different. Yeah, I don't get it. But

>> maybe.

>> Yeah. So, for me, even if I took this

and we reduced it down to like a 10x

>> this slice right here, I don't even know

if that's possible to do 10x the amount

of output in, you know, 36.5 days that

you would do in a year. Because again,

for me, it's just like good decisions

take time. So even if theoretically you

could and I honestly I've never even

thought about your point to uh that it's

not a factory. You can't just simply

you're not increasing output of a

physical good like what does it even

mean?

>> Yeah.

>> So like but even this at 36.5 days like

I can't even envision a world in which

this is true. Like I don't know how

someone would make those you'd have to

be so like such a good downhill skier on

decision-m to be able to ride out that

wave cuz you're going to make one wrong

decision and then you're just straight

in the trees, right? because you're

going so fast.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You need a truly

world-class executive team with a really

sharp vision. And I don't think this

guy's that guy, but I'm not I'm not an

expert on ClickUp. Maybe they are. I'm

not gonna

>> You're not that guy, pal.

>> I don't.

>> Okay. So, I say I So, you're probably

thinking, "Okay, how could this one be

as ridiculous as the Mark Zuckerberg

one?" Yeah, like the 100x thing is

pretty ridiculous.

>> Sure.

>> Well, seven days before they released

this video. Watch it. So, he's walking

with his boss. They see AI dancing.

They're confused

and then the employee is like, "What is

this?" Boss is gone. Now dancing with

the AI, he's confused. Boss kicks the

cup and splashes it into the employes

face.

>> Crazy.

>> What the

>> literally like like literally one week

before firing everyone from AI, they

released a video like, "By the way, the

boss lets the employee hold the bag."

Like,

>> that is actually I I have not I'm

surprised I haven't seen that. I'm

surprised my chat hasn't sent me that.

That is horrible.

>> Yeah, this was bad even before they did

the layoff. Like when you see this like

>> that is of

>> it's pretty tongue and cheek. Like some

some companies could get away with that.

Like I'd expect someone like George H.

Hot who's been largely uh and Tiny who's

been largely going against a lot of the

AI stuff despite making AI processing in

small data centers.

>> They're like, "No, a lot of this stuff

is wrong. If they made this video, I'd

be like, "Oh, I totally get it."

>> Sure. But this is wild to release right

before laying off a bunch of people.

>> That No, that is I mean I'm not kidding.

That's one of the worst I've ever seen.

That's crazy. That literally is the CEO

kicking a couple in his eyes in his

face. That's

>> Can you believe I'm about to make it

even more crazy?

>> You I thought what was going to happen

is that they were going to cut again and

then the employee would be dancing with

him and like then the CEO got him on

board and it'd be like kind of cheesy,

but it's like that's the idea. The fact

that he turns around and [ __ ] kicks

him is crazy.

Oh, never I never saw it coming.

>> I never saw it coming. That is uh that's

I'm on guard.

>> Uh yeah,

>> and when this happened, literally for

days, people are like, "Dude, you just

released a video of destroying your

employees with AI." Like, what is this?

How could you do this?

>> I mean, they better hope. A CEO like

this needs to hope that AI is going to

make their five remaining employees

super productive because if not,

nobody's going to want to work there,

bro. If if you know if the shoe is ever

even slightly on another foot and it's

more of a

>> um employees market like this is this is

a horrible culture. No, nobody's going

to choose this unless they absolutely

need it for their paycheck and even then

they're just a mercenary.

>> Like just even back to the 100x thing.

>> Yeah.

>> What I hear this what I really hear is,

hey, you're working when you're at work.

When you go home to your kids, you're

working. When you're about to go to bed,

you better be kicking off agents and

working. Like you better be work. You

better wake up at three in the morning

and make sure your agents are still

running because when you wake up by 6, I

expect three more days of effort coming

out. Like it it would have to be such a

toxic culture going on there.

>> Well, I mean the CEO bus has to film the

Tik Toks. Like they're all they're both

they're all staying busy.

>> Okay. True. True. I mean that's that's

hard. I know how hard it is to film a

good Tik Tok. That's that's true. All

right. So this next one

>> I'm surprised it gets worse than that.

That's literally one of I'm not kidding.

That's one of the worst things I've ever

seen to make that video and then lay off

a fourth year company. It's crazy. All

right,

>> I think this one's worse. Okay, so Web

Flow cuts I forget how many people they

cut. Uh they cut a good percentage of

people. I know there's a number

somewhere.

>> Okay,

>> and someone responds on LinkedIn tagging

both the CEO and their boss saying the

following. Hey, Linda Tong, I'm locked

out of my Web Flow laptop since 7 a.m.

this morning. Rumor has it we've been

laid off, but I don't have an email or

any message to confirm that. And I

actually said I don't think Linda would

lay people off again without letting

them know first, especially if they're

on a closed work permit in a foreign

country and it would mean relocating

their whole family. I'm certain she

would have the dignity to let folks know

in a better way given the last debacle.

Tell me it's not true. Also, take my

manager. Do I have any news? Do I have a

job? And then hours later, the company

Web Flow releases this document where

she says, "Yeah, we made a difficult

decision to restructure Web Flow and

we're laying off a bunch of people." And

then 24 hours after that, she has still

made no public announcement and people

have no idea.

>> Oh, wow.

>> They're just like, "Oh, I guess I guess

I'm fired."

>> Wait, when you say people, you mean

employees? The employees still don't

know.

>> The employees did not know

>> for hours upon like there's 24 hours for

some people that they didn't even know

they were fired. They just couldn't

work. And so then they're like, "Oh, I

guess I guess I'm fired."

>> Uh, what is the how big is Webflow?

>> I don't know what Web Flow does, but

this has to be the just for me. This was

even worse because the other one was bad

just by pure looks of it.

>> This one is she's done this once before

and fired people without letting them

know, which by the way is illegal in

virtually every country. Even at will

California, that's actually illegal. You

can't fire someone,

>> especially for European employees or

anything. She's going to get absolutely

>> and the fact that this person's like,

"Hey, I'm here on a work permit." It's

called a they called it a uh closed,

it's I forget what it's exact term, but

it's like a closed work permit, meaning

that you can only work for one company.

>> And so if they fire you, you have to

move away.

And so it's like this person doesn't

even know he's getting fired,

locked out. All these people don't know,

and she's just not responding.

>> Okay, so I didn't know um the size of

Web Flow based on this story. I thought

they were really small, but they have up

to 1,600 people globally. I don't know,

prior to this layoff, that that is too

big of a company to behave like this.

You you like I mean, it wouldn't be good

for anyone, but if it was a very small

startup, I could see like maybe they

just didn't have the funding or it ran

out or whatever. This is crazy. This

>> again, I I guess

>> it it just shows to show that the job

market is in a rough spot right now

because

>> you wouldn't be able to get away with

this. Like, previously, this would just

be absolutely death sentence for your

culture in terms of people wanting to

work there. I mean, it's it's it's like

there's taking advantage of a moment

where people are really hungry for a

job, but that that is not an

inevitability.

>> Yes. I I'm just shocked that this is not

even the first time. Like, how do you

even operate as a company? Like, how do

you get away with this once? I I would

assume you'd get like sued into oblivion

by so many people just for it to happen

like again. Like, how do you make the

same mistake twice?

>> Yeah. I don't get what I don't get is uh

it's not that hard to do the the the

corporate layer of this to put out the

blog post ahead of time to tell people

you're reading like send the mass email

like it's not the the bare minimum is

not hard and it's not even much to

celebrate like the idea that you're

going to like surprise people with it is

so crazy. It's like uh you know people

do this in real life when they don't

want to give bad news and they just

avoid it and avoid it and avoid like you

have to do it you have to say something.

>> This is literally like a kind of like a

toxic breakup. Yeah. where they just

literally don't talk to you anymore and

you're like, "Are we still dating? I

don't actually know." Like,

>> uh, that's funny. It that's that's like

a bad attitude for someone who's been

through a couple rounds of interviews,

let alone somebody who works at your

company.

>> So, I just found this Yeah. So, I found

this one the most egregious of them all,

just just due to the fact that it's so

direct in kind of like the awfulness of

it all cuz the other ones were like

indirect, I guess, in some sense,

whereas this one is uh in a very direct.

we just don't care about you and no

matter what you think, we're saying it

with our actions like directly.

>> Like the other side of this coin is when

companies are way into the whole we're

family and everything. I I there's a

middle ground where you could just treat

someone with respect and understand that

it's a job. I I don't it doesn't have to

be uh the CEO is your best friend or

whatever, but I think there's a middle

ground where you tell someone what's

going on. Ideally, have some warning on

things like this. Ideally, plan ahead so

you're not doing things like this. I

mean that that would be the ideal. I I I

think uh I don't know too much about Web

Flow, so I can't say what their business

situation is. They could be I mean going

under I mean they could be like in a

near bankruptcy situation. I I don't I

don't know what's going on. So

>> that's true. I don't think they I'm not

sure if they said a lot about them

making record profits at this point. Uh

they're saying how they're you know a

big pivot is needed and they need to

kind of figure out what they're doing.

But I guess from a like from the

business side of point, it is a good a

good point. Like if you have 1,600

employees, you have the apparatus to do

these things, right? You're like you're

no longer in that kind of scrappy

startup phase where you're like, I have

five employees

>> and well, even then it doesn't make any

sense. I I'm not sure what the number of

employees makes sense where you could

make this mistake, but it's certainly

not.

>> I just mean like if it was a small

enough team, you would have like no

department for like handling this. And

maybe it just doesn't I I I I'm not I'm

trying to I'm I'm bend over backwards to

give him some charity. I did look it up.

I think Web Flow is a no code website

builder. So no one I think they are

probably really struggling that that is

getting completely destroyed by I mean I

know that the one of the the largest

market cap falls of a big company

recently was Wix which does the same

thing. They lost like 50% of their

value. So all these like no code website

builders are getting eaten by by Claude

and and Chad GBT and um yeah I would not

be surprised that they they can't raise

money anymore and they need to lay off

but to to do it without an email is

crazy.

>> All right so I show you those those ones

because this last one is very surprising

but in a in a in a unique way. So this

is Cloudflare. Uh if you're not familiar

with Cloudflare they do like a third of

the internet runs through their

infrastructure. they have a very very

large infrastructure and he starts off

the email saying hey we're gonna uh let

go of a effectively 1100 employees okay

>> and we're doing that while Cloudflare's

usage of AI has increased more than 600%

they're having the best quarters they've

ever had things are all headed in a very

very positive direction but then they

add this at the bottom which I thought

was uh interesting at least uh it's

important to us that we treat departing

team members right and in a way that

exceeds what we've seen from other

companies we believe acting With empathy

isn't about avoiding hard decisions, but

rather about how you treat people when

those decisions are made. If we are

asking our team to be world class, we

have to reciprocal. We have a reciprocal

obligation to be world class and how we

treat them.

>> Okay.

>> We are uh pairing the directness of

those measures with severance packages

that lead the industry. The package for

departing employees will include the

equivalent of their full base pay

through the end of 2026. This was in

April.

>> Okay.

>> Healthcare coverage is different across

the globe. 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

members haven't hit their one-year

cliff, we are going to wave those and

vest their PR-rated equity through

August as well.

>> That's pretty good. That's that's pretty

awesome. To be honest, that's worth

celebrating. I got no problem with that.

>> So, this is where I want to ask the same

question again, which is, is it okay to

let go of employees while having record

profit? Yeah, I think it goes back to my

original answer again. I think most

people would be super happy with this in

an environment where it was easier to

find a larger uh find find a job with

their same skill set. The fact that it's

not is not necessarily Cloudflare's

fault. Again, I I I can't I think the

idea that every company has to be

hamstrung to every employment decision

forever is will lead to some negative

outcomes long term. So I think I'm more

broadly on a societal level. I want the

country to head towards a a growing

economy so there's more jobs available

rather than have to chain everyone to

one company that could be failing or

growing. That's my broader idea. I do

think that in these cases um I think

this is actually the best example. I'm

literally I think this is April through

the end of the year is a pretty

significant

severance package. full pay plus vest

and cliff that I don't know. I'm sure

I'll get some flack in the comments, but

that seems to be like pretty good that

that that I think what it does it

maintains the culture that allows you to

continue to hire top talent. That is

like, okay, I think I'll be okay to work

there because you're not going to screw

me over if the wins go a different way

and you have to change this department

or whatever. That's that's not bad.

>> Yes. And the the re and by the way, if

you look at their stock, I thought this

was kind of important. Their net

earnings is negative 22 million this

last quarter. So, it's not like they're

um

>> So, there you go. Net income.

>> So, unlike Facebook, they're losing

money and yet they still managed to find

Yeah, that's crazy.

>> Yet, they still managed to do like a

pretty dang good job uh I guess

employee-wise. And so, the reason why

I'm bringing up this one specifically is

that this is the first company that I

actually believe when they say, "Hey, AI

is making us make some new decisions and

so we are going to be doing some level

of a pivot." Because the reason why I

say that is that they're actually

putting their, at least from my

perception, again, I'm not I'm not a

business guy. I like codes. I like the

ones and zeros, as they say. Uh they're

putting their money where their mouth

is. They're saying, "Hey, yes, like we

like the people that we're letting go.

We're just simply changing what we're

doing. So therefore, we want to do right

by those people because we didn't fire

them for bad behavior. We fired them for

like accidentally being on the wrong

side of the fence during some sort of

economic change, I guess."

>> Yeah. Again, I I I

it's I'm glad you brought this. It's

actually a really interesting segment

because I haven't seen these things and

this blog post is one of the first ones

I've read where it feels like there's a

there's a a strong connection between

the words and the actions that feels

like there's some followthrough. I I'm

I'm generally pretty impressed. And

Cloud is one of the uh the software

companies that has like you mentioned

the stock that has done pretty well out

of this. If if you scroll back up, there

was something I wanted to say about the

um yeah, this. So, I I I'm I'm quite

sure that they're using AI more than

ever. All these tech companies are, and

I'm sure there is some connection here,

but it's funny that they kind of are

required to say this right now. You have

to say AI is going up when you do the

layoffs. So, it seems like you are

>> um in no trouble. A good example of this

is Intuitit uh Turboex just had a same

announcement where they did a big

layoff, but they said specifically this

is not for AI. there is no AI related to

this because Intuit is scared of AI

eating Turboax's lunch. And when they

said that, they're stuck cratered

because it's like, oh, you're laying

people off and there's no AI. You're

just failing. You're just in a bad spot.

And they got completely punished. So,

it's like they're almost forced to be

like, we're doing these layoffs. It's

because of AI. We understand it. We're

ahead of the game. Um, there's this song

and dance you have to do. I'm not sure

CloudFare is doing this. Again, I wish I

knew more about Cloud for a specific

business, but um it does feel like

there's a little bit of that in there.

But I I again, I commend them for it's

in their best interest long term to not

be a place that people hate to work or

are afraid to work or don't want to

work. As long as we believe human talent

has value, which I still do obviously,

uh you you want to build a culture where

that matters.

>> Okay. The followup question I have which

I

I don't personally have a great answer

but I I get this one every single time

which is okay then why couldn't they

have repurposed the 1100 employees

like they're saying hey we're firing all

these people and then a lot of them like

Cloudflare also hired 1100 interns

approximately I think 1,11 interns

>> did they really

>> just in the last little bit? Yeah. And

so why couldn't they repurpose the

workforce? Like why let everybody go?

Why not just redo this? Is there any

risk? Because I I think I have some

answers to that one, but I'm not

actually really sure.

Is there a world where it's better to

keep the employees and attempt to

retrain them,

>> or is there a better reason why you

should fire people and hire new people?

>> Listen, I'm steel manning here, right? I

have I have like three employees and I

retrain them to do a variety of

different things. We're we're not

>> Yes.

>> But

>> we're not the same. I don't have

>> I have 1100 employees that I'm trying to

shift around. I guess the the idea would

be I mean it is sort of difficult to

take someone who's entrenched in a

certain role for many many years and put

them on something else rather than

hiring someone who's an expert at that

role. That that that seems to be um

pretty obvious on its face. Again,

I it's not that I necessarily think the

decision couldn't work. It's just that

you have to balance it with the fact

that all your employees, if they feel

there's a culture where they're going to

get cut at a moment's notice, will not

give you their best effort. They're not

excited to work there. And so that's the

balance is yet is if you can find a way

to retrain them, then you've created a

culture where it's like, oh, this is a

this is a company that truly actually

values my experience and my being part

of this mission. And when you do

something like this, you're undermining

that. So that's the balance they have to

strike. Again, I don't know how diff

you're the guy on the programming side.

I wouldn't know how different someone

who's like doing one thing versus doing

AI related tasks. I what is the skill

set crossover is it take a lot of

retraining? I I couldn't answer that but

I'm just saying like yeah

>> well I've I've said this a lot which is

you've you've probably you've at least

I'm sure you've at least read this like

in 2022 2023 people are like hey you

better use AI now because if you don't

you're going to be left behind. In 2024

came across they said the exact same.

2025 they said the exact same. If you

look at how people used AI in 2024,

there's almost like no overlap to how

you use it today. Like there's a very

funny tweet that I know I I have pulled

up somewhere, but it effectively goes

like, if I want to get JSON output, like

structure to JSON output from a model, I

have to threaten to kill myself to make

it happen. And this was an OpenAI

employee saying this. Like just the

world we live in is vastly different

than it was 2 years ago. And so this

idea that oh all of your like if you

don't go right now you will be

completely skillless and you're not

going to be able to do all these things.

Well no it's just like it changes so

fast and in such ways you don't expect

that it's just like to me I don't see

like I see both sides. I think there's

way less risk hiring, 1100 people that

you know fit the role versus attempting

to train, 1100 people that you don't

know could fit the role because some

people just are very successful in one

and can become very unsuccessful in

another even though it's super super

close. And sometimes it's like shocking

how like that can happen. You're like

this is the same thing pretty much. How

are you not successful? And so to me it

makes sense that even if you could

theoretically in this world retrain,

1100 people, which you have to add an

additional what 100 people to help like

facilitate the training, like even

though you'd have to expand all this to

actually make this possible,

>> your hit rate,

my guess is going to be different than

hiring the person that can already do

it. And that's why this makes sense.

Like at least that's that's kind of like

my argument. And so it's like sure you

could retrain and I don't think there's

a great cost or honestly I don't even

think it's that great of a cost. I don't

even know if it's seven and a half

months of severance cost to retrain all

these people to be excellent. They

already were excellent. They have a good

track record of it. So that I mean

there's many conflicting feelings that

they're spending quite a bit on

severance and if you took that money and

spent it on retraining you might have a

much better outcome that everyone feels

better about. So I think that's a really

good point. I will say that like if

they're replacing 1100 employees

globally with 1100 interns that's a

massive from a business side that's a

massive cost savings because the interns

way cheaper. So that part of it could be

that they're just like getting rid of

senior employees or like top you know

mid-level high level that cost a lot and

they're trying to save money on interns.

You're right basically one to one. That

is a

>> Yeah, that's an interesting uh

>> Yeah, that probably does change. So it

does sound like what they're saying is

they believe that a AI plus intern can

be the exact same as experienced person.

>> Yeah.

>> Without AI.

>> Yeah. Exactly. They seem they're making

a bet that they can undercut the cost of

experienced talent. Which is by the way

I hopefully not true. I think this is

like one of the big question marks in

the job market right now. Obviously a

lot of companies are trying it, but I

haven't seen concrete evidence that it's

working yet. It seems like a big

question mark. So maybe you're closer to

me. Yeah, I I got I got the perfect

tweet for you. You're going to love

this. Okay, this is Mitchell Mitchell

Hashimoto. If you don't know who he is,

he is the one that created uh Terraform

and Hashi Corp. Uh my favorite joke, of

course, is that he named his last name

after his company, Hashi Corp. Crazy. I

can't believe he did that. Uh really

committed. But he writes this somewhat

long tweet and it's it's very

impressive. He says, "I've got an agent

in a loop optimizing a renderer with the

go with the goal to minimize frame times

uh and test to measure. It got times

down from 88 milliseconds to 2

milliseconds. Meaning like you know in a

video game you present the video game

every 16 milliseconds, 8 milliseconds

depending on your refresh rate. He's

saying, "Hey, he had one that was at 88

milliseconds to go from compute the

world, put it onto the screen." And so

that's how fast it was going. So that

would be approximately 11 frames per

second, 12 frames per second down to 2

milliseconds. So now we're talking what?

500 frames a second.

>> So a lot faster.

>> So pretty fast.

>> A lot faster. And allocations went from

150k to 500. This sounds good, right?

Wrong. This is exactly why Asian

psychosis is a big [ __ ] problem. So

he talks about how he wrote this all in

go to kind of see how far he could take

something. He's already written a

terminal before. He's really really good

at it. Then he said, I kickstarted the

Ralph loop. Ralph is just something that

keeps on running until some goal is

effectively it's just a it's literally

just a while loop. While not done, try

again. Keep doing it. Right.

>> Yeah. To bring the frame times down. I

told it it can't modify input data

structures or public API or tests. Uh,

but it can do anything else it wants to

do. 4 hours later, around $350 spent.

This is the results. 88 to 1.5, $150 to

500. Incredible, right? No. My

handwritten renderer I ported has frame

times of 20 microsconds, zero

allocations in the update path. This is

the problem with psychosis and lacking

systems understanding. If you don't

understand the system, you're going to

accept this is an incredible result. If

you understand the system, you'll see

better solutions immediately and can do

roughly 75x better. People who blindly

trust agent output are in the former

camp. They're sheeple overdrinking from

a fountain of mediocrity.

>> It is about so and so when he says this,

it's just like that's the problem about

quote unquote 1100 interns is that they

don't have the experience to know what

is like what is

>> what could be better. What is the Okay,

I see.

>> Yes.

>> Yeah.

>> And so that's like the huge danger is

that this is kind of why I've I've said

that we are in the worst software ever.

we have the most software ever and the

worst software ever is because so many

people can now create stuff but they

don't have that like fundamental

understanding of no actually 2

milliseconds is bad. This is going to

slow the whole system down because it's

just taking so much of your time your

CPU whatever you're doing like it's just

going to be way more resource hungry.

You can't keep on having resource hungry

stuff. I would imagine if you compound

that across all the different features

and everyone doing this, you end up with

a pretty buggy or slow or inefficient

piece of total software. Yeah, that that

that makes sense to me.

>> Yeah. And so that's kind of like the

interesting idea is like can you can you

agentize experience? I don't know if you

can because somebody has to make the

call what right looks like. And so if

you don't even know what right looks

like, this would sound amazing, right?

Like if I were to tell this to anybody,

they'd go, "Oh, that's really good

results." That's like that's massively

faster, right? That's like 40 times

faster. And you're like, well, actually,

no, it's massively slower than what it

could be.

>> Yeah. It's an interesting thought

experiment. I mean, cuz

an intern before this couldn't do

anything close to that. I mean, this is

like this is it's an improvement in the

skill for the intern, right? But it's a

degrading of the skill of the expert.

So, it's interesting. I don't I I guess

>> I I I don't know how it shakes out. I I

I

>> here's the opposing viewpoint, which is

it was also 350 bucks in four hours of

work.

>> Yeah.

>> Which is the better trade-off.

>> Well, I wonder how long it took him as

an expert to do the to do his better

version with the 20 microsconds.

>> Yeah, actually that is actually an

interesting point. What would be faster?

That I don't that I don't know. I should

follow up on that one. But it's kind of

an interesting thought experiment, which

is okay, so this costs about the same as

an expert programming, but it only took

four hours. So maybe it's quote unquote

better because you get better results,

you don't get best results or you don't

get great results or maybe not even

considered good results with compound

like you know if you have a hundred

things doing this then it really sucks.

>> Yeah, it's tough. I again you're more

the expert on this than me. The people

that I've talked to that work in

programming say that for anything where

the best doesn't matter. It's been such

a game changer. Like if it's like an

internal tool or if it like it it's been

awesome, but everything else it it can

add a lot of uh problems or complexity

or security issues or or etc. etc. But

so, you know, I think Cloudfare is is

playing a a game. They they don't know

yet what the result will be, but they're

taking the risk. I think they're

incentivized by the market. I think a

lot of investors are pushing companies

to just take this risk before we know

what'll happen. And uh we'll have to

see. I I'm not enough of an expert on on

where AI currently is and who the best

people using it are to say, but it seems

to me like people are a little ahead of

their skis.

>> Yeah. I The reason why I wanted to bring

up these four companies and kind of walk

through this with you is a I wanted to

hear someone that thinks more on the

business side of things, but also it is

to highlight a there's a lot of

difficulties with a lot of the jobs, but

not everybody is bad on these things.

Like we can, you know, you could have

probably guessed Facebook would have

been bad. Yeah. you would have been

surprised at some of like the insane

optics of ClickUp or just the crazy

behavior of Web Flow. But also, I want

to try to give a a bit of props to

people who I think are at least

attempting to navigate this new world

the best they can.

>> Yeah. Again, all none of these companies

individually create a system they're in

and they are trying to navigate it. I

do.

At the end of the day, if a company is

doing what Cloudfire is doing and

offering a truly generous severance

package that sets someone up to find a

new job, then I'm like, I'm not going to

I have different targets to aim at than,

you know, I'm not going to spend my time

yelling at that CEO when there's a guy

making Tik Toks of him throwing ice in

someone's face. Like, you know, that's a

worse spot to be in. So, yeah, I think

that that was that's very interesting.

Thanks for sharing these uh these

examples. I didn't know them. We have to

talk about something other than layoffs

prime. Every time we we meet up, we're

talking about layoffs and

>> Okay. Find something that's less

depressing.

>> I'll find something less depressing and

we'll pull it in. But uh that was

interesting.

>> All right. Well, thank you for uh

joining us. What is uh where can people

find you?

>> Yeah, check me out at uh

YouTube.com/biga.

I do like daily uh news and financial

updates. I used to work at Nvidia and

Twitch and then uh went full-time on

this a few years back. It's fun to

cover.

>> Uh Twitters. Are you active on the

Twitters?

>> No, not really. My tweets are terrible.

Don't check me out on there.

>> That's okay.

>> Thanks for the YouTube.

>> Twitter's a refined taste. Okay.

>> All right, Brian. Thanks, bro. Good

talking to you.