Oracle sheds 21,000 roles over the past year amid wave of AI layoffs from tech giants

324 points by TACO_Orange_3098 12 hours ago on reddit | 41 comments

Remote-Resource1172 | 12 hours ago

Swaps on Oracle’s debt are priced as though the firm’s creditworthiness is degrading rapidly. The firm’s market cap is half of what it was roughly 8 months ago. Perhaps these are layoffs related to Oracle’s massive overspend on AI.

waitmarks | 12 hours ago

Oracle has tied itself and larry elison’s personal wealth directly to openai. To the point where if openai dies, so does oracle. They will try to make this work at any cost. Their credit worthiness is degrading rapidly which is why larry elison had to backstop some of their loans with his own personal oracle shares. Layoffs are just a cost cutting measure because they cant take out more loans.

teshh | 11 hours ago

Isn't majority of oracles staff actually revenue generating via cloud or hardware/software sales along with service contracts. At some point there's only so many non revenue personnel that can be cut.

21000 screams that they laid off those that generated revenue as well. They're betting the farm that openai stays relevant and reaches its absurd valuations.

waitmarks | 11 hours ago

I'm sure they were. Though a lot of oracle's revenue is captured with vendor lock in. I once worked for a company that used oracle database and were trying desperately to migrate to something else the whole 6 years I worked there because it was too expensive. That was their whole business model just try as hard as you can to prevent your customers from migrating and jack up the prices.

Contren | 9 hours ago

They are also ruthless about auditing your licensing.

I heavily recommend any organization never get into bed w/ Oracle if there is any alternative product you can go with.

JaydedXoX | 9 hours ago

100% they laid off current revenue generating people to build capacity for possible future revenue.

itsgreater9000 | 9 hours ago

I'm not exactly hoping for this as a tech worker, but damn would it be nice to see the house of cards fall here. I think the AI stuff is cool but nowhere near the valuations that people are predicting. Something has to give, at some point.

Wagllgaw | 9 hours ago

This is doubtful. In most orgs, very few employees are delivering revenue. They are all focused on supporting new growth. (E.g., laying off a sales person has next to no impact on next month's revenue since it all comes from locked in contracts, it does however greatly impact growth)

teshh | 8 hours ago

This isn't most orgs it's oracle. A tech company that handles software/hardware for other businesses. Cutting the devs/engineers responsible for maintaining those b2b contracts, makes it more likely the other business cuts ties if the quality/performance drops too much.

Locked in contracts can easily be nullified, these b2b contracts have dozens of stipulations allowing a party to back out if the other isn't holding their end of it.

Wagllgaw | 4 hours ago

It's software, almost definionitaly it runs by itself.

Yes, in a few years they might lose some business but generally it takes years and years to turn down an Oracle DB

MrD3a7h | 8 hours ago

> if openai dies, so does oracle

Don't threaten me with a good time

dstew74 | 8 hours ago

> larry elison’s personal wealth

He backstopped the proposed Paramount / Warner Bros Discovery deal with Oracle shares, too.

deepserket | 11 hours ago

Meanwhile open source Chinese AI labs have released models as powerful as GPT5.5 for 20% of the cost

User-no-relation | 12 hours ago

Well I assume that what ai layoffs mean. We spent way too much on AI and now can't afford to pay everyone

Fuddle | 11 hours ago

They said ai was going to take all the jobs - I guess they were right, just not how they imagined

Remote-Resource1172 | 10 hours ago

I think it’s also meant to signal markets, albeit falsely, that AI has been a huge success and is allowing Oracle to operate with a leaner workforce.

GipsyDanger45 | 12 hours ago

Or terrible deal for paramount that they overpaid for and Ellison personally guaranteed

Rick_AssPounda | an hour ago

Ellison is an absolute piece of shit. If there is cash to suck out of there and stash away he's doing it

schacks | 12 hours ago

If we get to a point where these billion or even trillion dollar companies all while being the most profitable only needs maybe just a thousand or maybe even just hundred employees. Doesn’t that break the societal contract? It might be good for the overall economy but if hardly any wealth gets redistributed from these closed loops it seems to me that it eventually will break society itself.

Dutch1206 | 11 hours ago

I think we're already basically there. I'd argue the societal contract has been broken since the late 70's. Productivity has grown ~8x faster than wage growth for hourly production workers. AI is now, potentially, going to break down the contract for cognitive labor. I think people like Musk, Ellison, Zuck, etc are keenly aware of this and have decided to build bunkers rather than stop hoarding all of the gains from technology. I wouldn't even be shocked to find out many decades down the road that the US trying to acquire Greenland was in part due to the desire of the ultra-wealthy (Trump donors) to move to an island rich with resources and seemingly safe from revolting plebians.

grandmawaffles | 9 hours ago

This. White collar jobs haven’t increased in value to compensate for the cost of degrees or the increase in income from lower wage jobs. The productivity is being driven by millennials and young gen xers and there isn’t a distribution system back to the workers and a removal of retirement income while the tax burden has increased.

stellae-fons | 7 hours ago

These are the dumbest people alive.

Your__Pal | 11 hours ago

These companies need infrastructure. Its not just engineering and product. Its marketing, legal, sales, HR, recruiting, comms, PR, training, security, business acquisition teams, property management etc etc.  And all of those teams need different systems to optimize their workflows.

thefoodiedentist | 10 hours ago

A lot of them become seasonal workers once infrastructure is built.

grandmawaffles | 9 hours ago

The stock market isn’t the economy. And yes the societal contract is already being broken and that’s why things are moving in the direction they are.

EmbarrassedScience37 | 12 hours ago

So what positions have been cut? I tried following links to several articles and couldn’t figure bd specifics. Are these general cuts to offset costs or are these jobs being replaced?

TikiTDO | 9 hours ago

I'ma just leave this here.

This looks a lot more like they rapidly over-hired around 2021 and 2022. I guess the free money from government ran out.

[OP] TACO_Orange_3098 | 12 hours ago

and so it begins , but i am sure that those 21,000 can retrain for work at garget or Walmart and all will be well , Nasdaq only down 2.81% pre-market ............. maybe the start of the summer selloff / reset ????

mh_992 | 12 hours ago

just learn to mine coal

[OP] TACO_Orange_3098 | 12 hours ago

beautiful clean coal ?