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Twitter was a left leaning echo chamber before and now its open to all opinions, people are just surprised they didnt realise just how many people are right leaning. All the twitter users came to reddit which is another left leaning echo chamber. Are you saying social media should only conform to speech that is left leaning? Wouldnt this violate actual freedom of speech if we censor everything that doesnt suit our political agenda?
I’ve never had a twitter account. At one point I had four friends on facebook. Made one post. Never had an instagram. I don’t think I’ve missed anything!
I deleted it a month ago. The politics side of it is so bad it’s unbelievable. It has to be 80% bots at this point all arguing with misinformation. A literal dead internet theory hell hole.
I just joined back up, but only to learn from people in my profession. We’re going through some big shifts because of AI. It was dead to me too after Musk bought it. My plan is to just not click on anything other work stuff. Wish me luck!
Patrick Boyle is amazing. I was super happy when I heard my 20 something's talk about his videos. His videos are super balanced and well researched. The dry humor is awesome.
I think we could say that about most social media. I honestly think Twitter/X and TikTok are even worse. Heck Twitter was already awful before Musk bought it and turned it into X. I had to delete it because I'd get notifications from for right accounts I didn't follow.
Tbh, SO-ME, used in a correct way is very good for the society, SO-ME is promoting social interaction. The problem with SO-ME is the same as with democracy, everyone has a voice, even those who should not speak up. Also capitalism in SO-ME is promoting conflicts and rage bait groups and articles to keep people around.
I disagree with the social interaction piece. I don't actually think it's social interaction. It feels like social interaction. But literally a 5-minute conversation outside of a grocery store is more social interaction than you get in a Year's worth of computer-based interaction on social media. Because it's mostly not happening in real time and there's no nuance.
So-Me is really an echo chamber; there is no social interaction but opinion amplification. It easily turns into a closed loop where people further subdivide into micro groups. What So-Me has done is make that process easier.
I do agree that live interaction is more beneficial, however I do see that a correct use of SO-ME is a good addition to increase social engagement, especially with friends and relatives who are not in the same country.
Before Facebook became what it is today, I used it regularly to join groups with same interests, to expand and get more knowledge, I was in contact with family and friends on the other side of the world, we could see each others via images shared on our profile.
Nowadays, I try to avoid facebook as much as possible, only reading what people in the groups that I'm still a part of.
Thats funny, they literally meant no legs. I thought they were speaking metaphorically for a world that had no business future for meta. I guess both are probably true
Not just him - pretty much all of the tech titans are: Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, etc. People don't understand the level of wealth and power these guys have accumulated and how much of our world is shaped by them.
The idea of the metaverse is insanely stupid. But this talking point is so dumb. It’s akin to right-wing nutjobs who complain about spending money on space research or exploration (ie, mission to mars).
Could the money have been better spent? Of course, but that’s also with the benefit of hindsight.
But the money still went towards salary, equipment, techs research, etc. This talking point is so stupid because it acts as if money was literally set on fire.
I have the opposite take. I think the idea of the metaverse has some legs. Not the NFT house buying next to Snoop Dog shit, but there are some little gems here and there with VR. If that was better worked on there might be something.
Instead it is the money I have an issue with. As when you use the Quest, you’re left wondering where the flying fuck did that $88 billion go?
The Quest suffers deeply from design by committee, with no clear direction on what the Quest is trying to be. Everything from Meta that lands feels subpar.
The $88bn figure is for all of Reality Labs since its inception, not specifically for the metaverse or VR or whatever. Reality Labs is Meta's R&D division. You can certainly argue that their investment in R&D hasn't produced an adequate return, but it doesn't necessarily make sense to count the R&D expense in isolation.
It's kind of like decrying that TSMC's R&D department spent $100bn developing EUV chipmaking technology. In 2020 TSMC had "lost" all that money in R&D. But in 2026 they're reaping enormous rewards from their insurmountable technological advantage.
Between 2001 and 2005 Microsoft lost $4 billion on the original XBox, which today is around $7.8 billion adjusted for inflation. This loss was due to them developing and releasing a brand new product.
I get the comparison is not one to one. At all. But does all of the Meta Labs output really feel like 11 brand new consoles developed and heavily marketed with developers on board from scratch?
I think there’s the tacit assumption that the money went into what you’re saying, but it was all in service of a product that people didn’t want or care about conceptually.
The constantly-repeated talking point of “but they’re doing valuable research that can be applied elsewhere” doesn’t have anything to back it up. It appears that everything they developed is useless tech with zero market.
But can none of the dev costs be recovered? I googled it as this certainly isn’t an area I’m familiar with, but it looks like they filed hundreds of patents related to VR. I’m wondering if those have lead to some sort of income stream.
I suppose I could sift through their financials to see given they are public. That would answer my question. But then I wouldn’t be participating in this discussion. What am I even doing here having brought nothing but questions to this conversation. What am I even doing on Reddit other than googling shit and trying to hit people with “gotchas”. Dear god, I’ve become everything that I hate.
I actually don’t think the idea of a virtual reality space for people to interact with each other was stupid. What was stupid is that they expected it to become a major profit center for the company (and the goofy little avatars).
What right wingers are complaining about space exploration? I'm seeing almost exclusive demands that the money should be spent on housing and Healthcare.
Layoffs don't have anything to do with the profitability of the company, meta is insanely profitable and will overtake google for ad revenue. Just because a company is doing well and profitable doesn't meant they will keep employees they don't need
NY Post articles are impossible to read. I haven't seen assault by ads that bad since the 2000's.
WSJ had a recent article on mass layoffs becoming the next trend for corporate America. I know tech and logistics may have extra staff after covid, but I think firms are too eager to layoff labor for capex spending on AI. I thought those firms had already trimmed down covid extra hires already.
Near-term outlook for employment in this economy is trash. AI does not create jobs, despite governments wanting it for their militaries and economies. There's going to be more civil unrest if this poor trajectory isn't corrected soon.
Maybe at smaller tech companies. Most of the large ones are still way above their 2019 employee headcount. Thats the case for meta, google, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon. Even companies like coinbase, stripe, and many other fintechs are still way above their pre pandemic headcount levels.
You can absolutely capex software development. So they still have to expense the licenses, but any add on internal development, even by contractors or (sometimes) outsourced, can be capd. It's also possible to squint just right and cap part of the license costs. Point is that firms can cap a lot of software costs if they have good accountants.
This is just a small anecdotal dataset, but most of the larger corporations in my area are trying to hire ai devs like crazy. Not even just tech companies, but I regularly see postings for companies in industries like banking, insurance, and healthcare.
Can’t say what they are doing with those positions, but looks like many are wanting to develop their own models. The capex could be either them building their own data centers for it, or just how the are accounting setting aside a large chunk of money to use others data centers for training.
Meta is planning sweeping layoffs that could affect 20% or more of the company, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, as Meta seeks to offset costly artificial intelligence infrastructure bets and prepare for greater efficiency brought about by AI-assisted workers.
The main thing that AI is allowing companies to do is to outsource US work internationally and allow the foreign workers to understand the US nuances of the requirements. So just like we offshored our manufacturing now we are offshoring our tech sector.
Will Ferrell’s movie The Campaign called it when they jokingly described insourcing by bringing in foreign workers in US land. It was very close but those foreign workers are still in their country and the insourcing is in all the data centers.
As someone from the Rust Belt, I can't avoid the obvious: this seems like the beginning of the white collar Dust Belt to me. I'm basically just checking items off the list: automation (ai), outsourcing, elimination of jobs, layoffs, labor gluts weakening bargaining, downward wage pressure, increased company leverage across the board leading to deteriorating conditions. It's basically everything I saw with the Rust Belt.
Me too. I bet you also remember that the academics said that middle-aged steel workers could be retrained and move into new higher-paying jobs in programming when free trade caused some job disruption.
Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman last year:
>what I missed was the way that the impact would be concentrated on particular communities. So we can look and say that the China shock displaced maybe one or two million U.S. manufacturing workers. A million-and-a-half people are laid off every month, so what's that?
>But what I missed was that there would be individual towns that would be in the path of this tidal wave of imports from China that would have their reason for existence gutted. PBS News https://share.google/YXDLdvAE6HqLTzlMo
Much respect to Paul for admitting the oversight here, but one can't help and shake their head at the glaringly obvious mistake. By a literal Nobel Laurette no less. When people critique academic economists for sitting in their ivory towers, tinkering with their models, and detached from the lived experiences of the average working class; this is what they're talking about.
Because to those related to manufacturing, it was extremely obvious what changes were to come and they were pretty vocal about it even.
From the Nobel site for his 2008 award:
>Prize motivation: “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity”
From Ross Perot, 1992:
>there will be a giant sucking sound going south.
> ... when [Mexico's] jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals
I mean, the insourcing joke is sort of what happened with the rampant H1-B visa abuse by tech companies to import cheaper foreign engineers instead of investing in domestic talent. Why invest in expensive domestic talent that has rights and protections as US citizens when you can just underpay an H1-B visa recipient and dangle their visa status over their head to make them do whatever you want?
You've got it the wrong way around. For decades, many companies off-shored tech jobs and gotten absolute crap quality because too many business people bought the Tata/Infosys/Cognizant/bodyshops sales pitch that "a coder is a coder", and they're 1/3 the price in India. They completely lacked the understanding that building systems is an engineering discipline.
Any reason for continuing to do that has vanished quickly - Claude and Codex are both far superior coders to the typical offshore talent. They vast majority of those bodyshop people bring nothing in terms of product ideas/development, so they're going to be completely obsolete.
But CEOs deserve the paycheck because they are making all these risks and they have all the responsibility. Just ignore that when their decision suck ass, it's the cannon fodder that loses the job.
The usual speaking points. Yes, the metaverse was a massive blunder. However, Facebook is worth 1.75 trillion. You don't get there without taking risks. You win some, you lose some. Meta employees have largely reaped massive rewards from the growth in the company over the years. Honestly, some of the most highly compensated people you can find anywhere. It's easy to criticize when one thing doesn't go right. Failed R&D doesn't mean it should have been hindsight salary funds.
And the Metaverse budget was mostly about researching technologies that Facebook can still use elsewhere. They didn't spend 100x times the typical MMORPG budget on nothing but an empty Second World sequel.
Meta made $60.5B in profit last year and returned $30.1B to shareholders in buybacks, per their 2024 10-K. They are cutting 8,000 workers while the stock climbs. https://yourfairshare.info/meta
It’s so gross that these decisions raise the stock. Things like this should destroy companies. It’s disgusting how they just so casually destroy people’s lives and are rewarded for it.
As a longtime META investor I love that, but I do see this worshiping of stock price to be problematic overall. META is surpassing The Google in ad revenue, something I would have though impossible even 2 years ago.
It is tough. I think you can say everyone is trying to make the right decisions for themselves. Small time investors shouldn’t be vilified for trying to create security. Maybe you can say billionaires are acting rationally but ther greed is gross.
That said the problem is that policy is designed to favor this behavior. Stock buybacks were basically illegal until 1982. Maybe the vision behind that policy change was ok but it has distorted incentives.
And they will blame “AI”, and they will be correct. Not because AI replaced jobs, but because stupid spending on AI went down a black hole, gave nothing in return, and now folks must lose their jobs so more money can be shoved into the AI furnace of nothingness.
The zuck’s only talent is stealing ideas and burying people under litigation.
He is the epitome of what is wrong with the world. Talentless unproductive thieves that have manipulated, exploited, and ultimately destroyed our entire legislative & legal system.
Genuine question: would folks rather have companies take a risk and over hire, then do mass layoffs to get back to a sane headcount if it doesn't pay off, thus "wasting" billions of dollars OR not hire anyone in the first place and take all that saved money and do share buybacks or pay out dividends?
People forget companies are “for profit” and need to maximize value for its shareholders. You complain about layoffs but rejoice when your stock portfolio jumps. You cant have it both ways.
CEO is a worthless job. Making billions off of the backs of your underpaid and overworked workers is not a flex. I bet Fuckerburg didn’t take any pay cuts. I bet he didn’t sell any assets to retain workers. This whole system is designed and rigged for uslleless motherfuckers like Fuckerburg and Musk and the like to steal as much monies as they can while the traitorous pedophile is still in office. Fuck this noise. Hang the billionaires and redistribute their wealth to the peoples.
Tech scaled up in Covid for very arbitrary reason. Talent was unmoored from a location and they could acquire it easier than before.
Investors in public and private markets also had pent up funds due to Covid halting many sectors. So money piled in and stocks popped regardless of cost increases due to the talent war.
This was short lived and many of these companies looked and said, we have 30%-50% higher head count than we did 5 years ago without new markets.
AI is a front. It’s a new tech like the OS back in the 80s that changed business incrementally until it was ubiquitous throughout all industry. However, it’s now a shield for companies looking to have smaller, more disciplined (read easier to control) workers and investors seeking returns via better allocation of capital.
All these tech job losses… do these people get any kind of severance? Or are the all just cut on the spot with no notice or any kind of package?
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus ut felis vel lectus tristique tempus. Proin facilisis, nunc id efficitur lacinia, velit purus consequat purus, ut blandit turpis ligula et tortor. Donec eget turpis tincidunt, ullamcorper massa ac, tempus libero. Sed mollis enim lacus, ac elementum libero efficitur eu. Sed bibendum tincidunt erat. Etiam congue, felis ac fermentum dictum, risus turpis fringilla lacus, quis fermentum sapien metus id ligula.
Finding a job in tech without having deep personal/professional connections is pretty much impossible unless you take a chance on some random startup that probably won't be around in a year.
Generally the severance will be mid-5 to 7 figures depending on level and experience. Even at the bottom of Meta you’re still getting a few months pay in one check.
Economics-ModTeam | 11 hours ago
Submissions tenuously related to economics, light on economic analysis, or from perspectives other than those of economists will be removed. This will keep /r/economics distinct from the many related subreddits. Further explanation.
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If you have any questions about this removal, please contact the mods.
dollarstoresim | 16 hours ago
Google: "Mark Zuckerberg Spent $88 Billion on a World With No Legs" YouTube · Patrick Boyle
This is the best take down of Zuckerberg and META hands down I have ever seen ever, worth the watch. Man is that guy a sociopath.
You wont ve disappointed. People getting layed off should be royally pissed.
leathakkor | 15 hours ago
At the end of the day if Facebook is going to crash and burn, they're going to have a lot of rounds of layoffs.
I feel bad for the people but good for the company if they're laying people off.
Facebook and to a lesser degree Instagram are some of the worst things that's ever happened to the US and the world as a whole
PresidentOfAlphaBeta | 14 hours ago
Don’t forget TikTok and Twitter
leathakkor | 14 hours ago
Those are honestly non-entities for me. I feel like the only people that still use Twitter are lost to society anyway.
Whenever I hear celebrities are still using Twitter I think: why?
Maybe it's more popular still than I think it is, but I have zero desire to ever open that website again and I assume most people are like that
Wooden-Teaching-8343 | 12 hours ago
You don’t think musk buying twitter tilted the election? Twitter is a wreck but it’s a wreck that matters
GWizRidesAgain | 12 hours ago
It was much more influential before it was purchased and renamed. Im not saying you are wrong, but most people know it's bots and nazis at this point.
Wooden-Teaching-8343 | 11 hours ago
Also not wrong, but it’s a massive far right mouthpiece. Gen z boys are buying into the narratives
Mallymalvs | 11 hours ago
Twitter was a left leaning echo chamber before and now its open to all opinions, people are just surprised they didnt realise just how many people are right leaning. All the twitter users came to reddit which is another left leaning echo chamber. Are you saying social media should only conform to speech that is left leaning? Wouldnt this violate actual freedom of speech if we censor everything that doesnt suit our political agenda?
GrndgGears | 11 hours ago
Bots don't count as people. Nor do Neo-Nazis, which flood it. Are you one? You sound like one. Either way, not a human.
pseudonominom | 13 hours ago
Same. I’m just never going to forget the nazi salutes. Can’t look past that.
StochasticLife | 11 hours ago
Twitter is dead. Gone. Not coming back. We are left with X, its rotting shambling corpse.
Leather-Map-8138 | 12 hours ago
I’ve never had a twitter account. At one point I had four friends on facebook. Made one post. Never had an instagram. I don’t think I’ve missed anything!
Previous_Cattle_5545 | 11 hours ago
> Whenever I hear celebrities are still using Twitter I think: why?
Because they have established a huge following that isn't easily replicated on Threads.
TheUnsaught | 12 hours ago
I deleted it a month ago. The politics side of it is so bad it’s unbelievable. It has to be 80% bots at this point all arguing with misinformation. A literal dead internet theory hell hole.
tommyohohoh | 12 hours ago
I just joined back up, but only to learn from people in my profession. We’re going through some big shifts because of AI. It was dead to me too after Musk bought it. My plan is to just not click on anything other work stuff. Wish me luck!
baromega | 11 hours ago
Same, unfortunately because of who Musk is the tech scene stood beside him, and now Twitter is only place to get ground-level tech news
Mallymalvs | 11 hours ago
So what about reddit?
wanderer-48 | 14 hours ago
Patrick Boyle is amazing. I was super happy when I heard my 20 something's talk about his videos. His videos are super balanced and well researched. The dry humor is awesome.
Xeynon | 12 hours ago
And the worst part is they started off as good services, which Zuckerberg relentlessly made worse.
Nobody has ever been more dedicated to the principle of enshittification.
ScoffersGonnaScoff | 12 hours ago
If it’s anything like twitter, most of the jobs lost will affect its guardrails and accountability.
SidFinch99 | 11 hours ago
I think we could say that about most social media. I honestly think Twitter/X and TikTok are even worse. Heck Twitter was already awful before Musk bought it and turned it into X. I had to delete it because I'd get notifications from for right accounts I didn't follow.
hutacars | 10 hours ago
The sites are still going to be up and operating and spreading fake news though. Unfortunately this changes nothing in terms of Facebook’s awfulness.
HulksInvinciblePants | 11 hours ago
> At the end of the day if Facebook is going to crash and burn,
What compels people to say such ridiculous things?
8000 jobs /= 8000 firings
L4gsp1k3 | 14 hours ago
Tbh, SO-ME, used in a correct way is very good for the society, SO-ME is promoting social interaction. The problem with SO-ME is the same as with democracy, everyone has a voice, even those who should not speak up. Also capitalism in SO-ME is promoting conflicts and rage bait groups and articles to keep people around.
leathakkor | 14 hours ago
I disagree with the social interaction piece. I don't actually think it's social interaction. It feels like social interaction. But literally a 5-minute conversation outside of a grocery store is more social interaction than you get in a Year's worth of computer-based interaction on social media. Because it's mostly not happening in real time and there's no nuance.
That's my take. But maybe I'm wrong
lost_horizons | 14 hours ago
So much is lost, all the facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, physical presence. I agree with you
TaxLawKingGA | 13 hours ago
Nailed it.
So-Me is really an echo chamber; there is no social interaction but opinion amplification. It easily turns into a closed loop where people further subdivide into micro groups. What So-Me has done is make that process easier.
L4gsp1k3 | 13 hours ago
I do agree that live interaction is more beneficial, however I do see that a correct use of SO-ME is a good addition to increase social engagement, especially with friends and relatives who are not in the same country. Before Facebook became what it is today, I used it regularly to join groups with same interests, to expand and get more knowledge, I was in contact with family and friends on the other side of the world, we could see each others via images shared on our profile. Nowadays, I try to avoid facebook as much as possible, only reading what people in the groups that I'm still a part of.
Flimsy-Eye-4406 | 16 hours ago
“I’m not sure what he’s raw dogging, but it isn’t reality, and hopefully it wasn’t that goat” Fantastic line
jghaines | 13 hours ago
Or here: https://youtu.be/8BaSBjxNg-M
Nice_Cheesecake_4871 | 12 hours ago
Thank you！
G1uc0s3 | 14 hours ago
Thats funny, they literally meant no legs. I thought they were speaking metaphorically for a world that had no business future for meta. I guess both are probably true
OhGr8WhatNow | 11 hours ago
Double entendre
ve1kkko | 16 hours ago
Great take.
Bladiers | 12 hours ago
Patrick Boyle is unmatched in the field of informative yet entertaining finance media. Every single video of his is worth watching.
2centsofhumor | 13 hours ago
Not just him - pretty much all of the tech titans are: Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, etc. People don't understand the level of wealth and power these guys have accumulated and how much of our world is shaped by them.
takethisdownvote1 | 13 hours ago
The idea of the metaverse is insanely stupid. But this talking point is so dumb. It’s akin to right-wing nutjobs who complain about spending money on space research or exploration (ie, mission to mars).
Could the money have been better spent? Of course, but that’s also with the benefit of hindsight.
But the money still went towards salary, equipment, techs research, etc. This talking point is so stupid because it acts as if money was literally set on fire.
jl2352 | 12 hours ago
I have the opposite take. I think the idea of the metaverse has some legs. Not the NFT house buying next to Snoop Dog shit, but there are some little gems here and there with VR. If that was better worked on there might be something.
Instead it is the money I have an issue with. As when you use the Quest, you’re left wondering where the flying fuck did that $88 billion go?
The Quest suffers deeply from design by committee, with no clear direction on what the Quest is trying to be. Everything from Meta that lands feels subpar.
ElbowWavingOversight | 10 hours ago
The $88bn figure is for all of Reality Labs since its inception, not specifically for the metaverse or VR or whatever. Reality Labs is Meta's R&D division. You can certainly argue that their investment in R&D hasn't produced an adequate return, but it doesn't necessarily make sense to count the R&D expense in isolation.
It's kind of like decrying that TSMC's R&D department spent $100bn developing EUV chipmaking technology. In 2020 TSMC had "lost" all that money in R&D. But in 2026 they're reaping enormous rewards from their insurmountable technological advantage.
jl2352 | 9 hours ago
I get that. But what has come out is pretty poor.
Between 2001 and 2005 Microsoft lost $4 billion on the original XBox, which today is around $7.8 billion adjusted for inflation. This loss was due to them developing and releasing a brand new product.
I get the comparison is not one to one. At all. But does all of the Meta Labs output really feel like 11 brand new consoles developed and heavily marketed with developers on board from scratch?
There has clearly been a fuck load of waste.
SonOfMcGee | 12 hours ago
I think there’s the tacit assumption that the money went into what you’re saying, but it was all in service of a product that people didn’t want or care about conceptually.
The constantly-repeated talking point of “but they’re doing valuable research that can be applied elsewhere” doesn’t have anything to back it up. It appears that everything they developed is useless tech with zero market.
Longjumping-Sail4948 | 11 hours ago
But can none of the dev costs be recovered? I googled it as this certainly isn’t an area I’m familiar with, but it looks like they filed hundreds of patents related to VR. I’m wondering if those have lead to some sort of income stream.
I suppose I could sift through their financials to see given they are public. That would answer my question. But then I wouldn’t be participating in this discussion. What am I even doing here having brought nothing but questions to this conversation. What am I even doing on Reddit other than googling shit and trying to hit people with “gotchas”. Dear god, I’ve become everything that I hate.
I’m going outside.
AccurateMidnight21 | 12 hours ago
I actually don’t think the idea of a virtual reality space for people to interact with each other was stupid. What was stupid is that they expected it to become a major profit center for the company (and the goofy little avatars).
Super_Mario_Luigi | 12 hours ago
What right wingers are complaining about space exploration? I'm seeing almost exclusive demands that the money should be spent on housing and Healthcare.
Levitlame | 10 hours ago
Simple investing would generate $3.5B off $88B annually with a modest 4% return rate. Which could pay 70,400 $50K per year in perpetuity.
He chose to make a shitty limited branded version of the Oasis instead and get rid of employees instead
Prestigious_Load1699 | 13 hours ago
What’s opaque is how many of these jobs are American vs. foreign.
NitroLada | 12 hours ago
Layoffs don't have anything to do with the profitability of the company, meta is insanely profitable and will overtake google for ad revenue. Just because a company is doing well and profitable doesn't meant they will keep employees they don't need
ve1kkko | 16 hours ago
Better read this at Reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/world/meta-targets-may-20-first-wave-layoffs-additional-cuts-later-2026-2026-04-17/
amateurhour58 | 16 hours ago
NY Post articles are impossible to read. I haven't seen assault by ads that bad since the 2000's.
WSJ had a recent article on mass layoffs becoming the next trend for corporate America. I know tech and logistics may have extra staff after covid, but I think firms are too eager to layoff labor for capex spending on AI. I thought those firms had already trimmed down covid extra hires already.
Near-term outlook for employment in this economy is trash. AI does not create jobs, despite governments wanting it for their militaries and economies. There's going to be more civil unrest if this poor trajectory isn't corrected soon.
allaboutsound | 16 hours ago
Tech has been having mass layoffs since late 2022…
We have already shed the covid headcount growth at many companies
BallinLikeimKD | 11 hours ago
Maybe at smaller tech companies. Most of the large ones are still way above their 2019 employee headcount. Thats the case for meta, google, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon. Even companies like coinbase, stripe, and many other fintechs are still way above their pre pandemic headcount levels.
bobandgeorge | 12 hours ago
Why do you not have an adblocker in 2026?
Grabsch | 14 hours ago
How are firms spending Capex on AI? That's just applicable to data centers..
lordofblack23 | 13 hours ago
How do you think the data center owners (plan to) get their ROI? Other business capex on ai.
mome11 | 13 hours ago
I think AI spend itself (as in tokens) would be opex
Grabsch | 12 hours ago
No that's not how things work. It's not capex. Don't throw around big words if you don't know what they mean.
Tyrannosapien | 13 hours ago
You can absolutely capex software development. So they still have to expense the licenses, but any add on internal development, even by contractors or (sometimes) outsourced, can be capd. It's also possible to squint just right and cap part of the license costs. Point is that firms can cap a lot of software costs if they have good accountants.
YeetedApple | 13 hours ago
This is just a small anecdotal dataset, but most of the larger corporations in my area are trying to hire ai devs like crazy. Not even just tech companies, but I regularly see postings for companies in industries like banking, insurance, and healthcare.
Can’t say what they are doing with those positions, but looks like many are wanting to develop their own models. The capex could be either them building their own data centers for it, or just how the are accounting setting aside a large chunk of money to use others data centers for training.
ve1kkko | 16 hours ago
20 percent of global workforce!
March 14, Reuters:
Meta is planning sweeping layoffs that could affect 20% or more of the company, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, as Meta seeks to offset costly artificial intelligence infrastructure bets and prepare for greater efficiency brought about by AI-assisted workers.
https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/meta-planning-sweeping-layoffs-ai-costs-mount-2026-03-14/
randomstring09877 | 15 hours ago
The main thing that AI is allowing companies to do is to outsource US work internationally and allow the foreign workers to understand the US nuances of the requirements. So just like we offshored our manufacturing now we are offshoring our tech sector.
Will Ferrell’s movie The Campaign called it when they jokingly described insourcing by bringing in foreign workers in US land. It was very close but those foreign workers are still in their country and the insourcing is in all the data centers.
abaacus | 12 hours ago
As someone from the Rust Belt, I can't avoid the obvious: this seems like the beginning of the white collar Dust Belt to me. I'm basically just checking items off the list: automation (ai), outsourcing, elimination of jobs, layoffs, labor gluts weakening bargaining, downward wage pressure, increased company leverage across the board leading to deteriorating conditions. It's basically everything I saw with the Rust Belt.
solomons-mom | 12 hours ago
Me too. I bet you also remember that the academics said that middle-aged steel workers could be retrained and move into new higher-paying jobs in programming when free trade caused some job disruption.
Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman last year: >what I missed was the way that the impact would be concentrated on particular communities. So we can look and say that the China shock displaced maybe one or two million U.S. manufacturing workers. A million-and-a-half people are laid off every month, so what's that?
>But what I missed was that there would be individual towns that would be in the path of this tidal wave of imports from China that would have their reason for existence gutted. PBS News https://share.google/YXDLdvAE6HqLTzlMo
Great_Northern_Beans | 11 hours ago
Much respect to Paul for admitting the oversight here, but one can't help and shake their head at the glaringly obvious mistake. By a literal Nobel Laurette no less. When people critique academic economists for sitting in their ivory towers, tinkering with their models, and detached from the lived experiences of the average working class; this is what they're talking about.
Because to those related to manufacturing, it was extremely obvious what changes were to come and they were pretty vocal about it even.
solomons-mom | 10 hours ago
From the Nobel site for his 2008 award: >Prize motivation: “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity”
From Ross Perot, 1992: >there will be a giant sucking sound going south. > ... when [Mexico's] jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals
justherefor23andme | 12 hours ago
That is indeed what is happening. The people leading the tech sector don't like paying those salaries.
https://fortune.com/2026/02/13/when-will-ai-kill-white-collar-office-jobs-18-months-microsoft-mustafa-suleyman/
captnconnman | 15 hours ago
I mean, the insourcing joke is sort of what happened with the rampant H1-B visa abuse by tech companies to import cheaper foreign engineers instead of investing in domestic talent. Why invest in expensive domestic talent that has rights and protections as US citizens when you can just underpay an H1-B visa recipient and dangle their visa status over their head to make them do whatever you want?
ImNotHere2023 | 8 hours ago
You've got it the wrong way around. For decades, many companies off-shored tech jobs and gotten absolute crap quality because too many business people bought the Tata/Infosys/Cognizant/bodyshops sales pitch that "a coder is a coder", and they're 1/3 the price in India. They completely lacked the understanding that building systems is an engineering discipline.
Any reason for continuing to do that has vanished quickly - Claude and Codex are both far superior coders to the typical offshore talent. They vast majority of those bodyshop people bring nothing in terms of product ideas/development, so they're going to be completely obsolete.
CertainCertainties | 16 hours ago
Zuckerberg has made massive mistakes that have cost astonishing amounts of money.
Somebody has to pay for that. Well, not Zuckerberg, obviously. Tech bros facing the consequences of their actions isn't a thing.
MarcooseOnTheLoose | 14 hours ago
You’re saying the guy who stole his mates idea and made a fortune actually has no business acumen? You don’t say.
mocny-chlapik | 12 hours ago
But CEOs deserve the paycheck because they are making all these risks and they have all the responsibility. Just ignore that when their decision suck ass, it's the cannon fodder that loses the job.
Original_Bend | 15 hours ago
It’s not about Tech bros, it’s about being the founder and CEO. Same for others corporations.
Super_Mario_Luigi | 12 hours ago
The usual speaking points. Yes, the metaverse was a massive blunder. However, Facebook is worth 1.75 trillion. You don't get there without taking risks. You win some, you lose some. Meta employees have largely reaped massive rewards from the growth in the company over the years. Honestly, some of the most highly compensated people you can find anywhere. It's easy to criticize when one thing doesn't go right. Failed R&D doesn't mean it should have been hindsight salary funds.
Enelson4275 | 11 hours ago
And the Metaverse budget was mostly about researching technologies that Facebook can still use elsewhere. They didn't spend 100x times the typical MMORPG budget on nothing but an empty Second World sequel.
IESAI_lets_go | 14 hours ago
Meta made $60.5B in profit last year and returned $30.1B to shareholders in buybacks, per their 2024 10-K. They are cutting 8,000 workers while the stock climbs. https://yourfairshare.info/meta
_Choose__A_Username_ | 11 hours ago
It’s so gross that these decisions raise the stock. Things like this should destroy companies. It’s disgusting how they just so casually destroy people’s lives and are rewarded for it.
Previous_Cattle_5545 | 11 hours ago
As a longtime META investor I love that, but I do see this worshiping of stock price to be problematic overall. META is surpassing The Google in ad revenue, something I would have though impossible even 2 years ago.
IESAI_lets_go | 10 hours ago
It is tough. I think you can say everyone is trying to make the right decisions for themselves. Small time investors shouldn’t be vilified for trying to create security. Maybe you can say billionaires are acting rationally but ther greed is gross.
That said the problem is that policy is designed to favor this behavior. Stock buybacks were basically illegal until 1982. Maybe the vision behind that policy change was ok but it has distorted incentives.
SwampYankee | 11 hours ago
And they will blame “AI”, and they will be correct. Not because AI replaced jobs, but because stupid spending on AI went down a black hole, gave nothing in return, and now folks must lose their jobs so more money can be shoved into the AI furnace of nothingness.
Apprehensive-Fun4181 | 14 hours ago
Ethical Radical: How much housing & infrastructure could this have built?
Ethical Economist: Who got rich being loaned this much money?
Famous_Owl_840 | 11 hours ago
The zuck’s only talent is stealing ideas and burying people under litigation.
He is the epitome of what is wrong with the world. Talentless unproductive thieves that have manipulated, exploited, and ultimately destroyed our entire legislative & legal system.
Skizm | 11 hours ago
Genuine question: would folks rather have companies take a risk and over hire, then do mass layoffs to get back to a sane headcount if it doesn't pay off, thus "wasting" billions of dollars OR not hire anyone in the first place and take all that saved money and do share buybacks or pay out dividends?
BenevolentCheese | 11 hours ago
Whoa whoa whoa, are you trying to bring nuance into this conversation? That's not allowed here!
NorCalJason75 | 11 hours ago
To executives get huge pay packages at stock price targets.
IIRC, ~$700 a share
They’ll continue cutting until they are out of jobs, or make the target.
Mallymalvs | 11 hours ago
People forget companies are “for profit” and need to maximize value for its shareholders. You complain about layoffs but rejoice when your stock portfolio jumps. You cant have it both ways.
RealisticForYou | 11 hours ago
Lol….so very true!
mntnskyman | 12 hours ago
CEO is a worthless job. Making billions off of the backs of your underpaid and overworked workers is not a flex. I bet Fuckerburg didn’t take any pay cuts. I bet he didn’t sell any assets to retain workers. This whole system is designed and rigged for uslleless motherfuckers like Fuckerburg and Musk and the like to steal as much monies as they can while the traitorous pedophile is still in office. Fuck this noise. Hang the billionaires and redistribute their wealth to the peoples.
DueNegotiation5016 | 12 hours ago
Yes all the notoriously underpaid SWEs..
Forgemasterblaster | 13 hours ago
Tech scaled up in Covid for very arbitrary reason. Talent was unmoored from a location and they could acquire it easier than before.
Investors in public and private markets also had pent up funds due to Covid halting many sectors. So money piled in and stocks popped regardless of cost increases due to the talent war.
This was short lived and many of these companies looked and said, we have 30%-50% higher head count than we did 5 years ago without new markets.
AI is a front. It’s a new tech like the OS back in the 80s that changed business incrementally until it was ubiquitous throughout all industry. However, it’s now a shield for companies looking to have smaller, more disciplined (read easier to control) workers and investors seeking returns via better allocation of capital.
DueNegotiation5016 | 11 hours ago
Thank you! This is partly mean reversion, not just a structural shift
lost_horizons | 13 hours ago
All these tech job losses… do these people get any kind of severance? Or are the all just cut on the spot with no notice or any kind of package?
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silverSparkle | 13 hours ago
The’ll get severance, likely starting at 4 weeks + more for tenure. Even still, finding a job in the tech market these days can take months
ballmermurland | 12 hours ago
Finding a job in tech without having deep personal/professional connections is pretty much impossible unless you take a chance on some random startup that probably won't be around in a year.
Additional-Baby5740 | 12 hours ago
Generally the severance will be mid-5 to 7 figures depending on level and experience. Even at the bottom of Meta you’re still getting a few months pay in one check.