Thank you for this assessment. As a CEO talking to other CEOs it is absolutely accurate. Mass layoffs are a bad PR move for most companies even though Wall Street might like the P&L benefit. AI provides the scapegoat excuse.
But there is yet another driver in this move by tech companies to trim their workforce. In addition to the numbers bloat of pandemic era hiring, remember the social justice and DEI push that had really started before then, but was in place and encouraged during the mass hiring during the pandemic? CEOs have been looking for a way to correct for so many mistakes in hiring that had resulted in harm to their work culture. Elon Musk started this trend when he purchased Twitter and fired about half of Twitters employees... those that Musk identified as "woke".
The problem with these employees is that they have been trained from their campus experience to adopt an ideology that puts political power and grievance at the top of the list of all considerations. They disrupt project teams and inject relationship toxicity into the workforce. CEOs have noted the decline in creativity and productivity. They have been looking for opportunities to do what Musk did but without all the negative press it generated. AI has provided it.
Thank you for this assessment. As a CEO talking to other CEOs it is absolutely accurate. Mass layoffs are a bad PR move for most companies even though Wall Street might like the P&L benefit. AI provides the scapegoat excuse.
But there is yet another driver in this move by tech companies to trim their workforce. In addition to the numbers bloat of pandemic era hiring, remember the social justice and DEI push that had really started before then, but was in place and encouraged during the mass hiring during the pandemic? CEOs have been looking for a way to correct for so many mistakes in hiring that had resulted in harm to their work culture. Elon Musk started this trend when he purchased Twitter and fired about half of Twitters employees... those that Musk identified as "woke".
The problem with these employees is that they have been trained from their campus experience to adopt an ideology that puts political power and grievance at the top of the list of all considerations. They disrupt project teams and inject relationship toxicity into the workforce. CEOs have noted the decline in creativity and productivity. They have been looking for opportunities to do what Musk did but without all the negative press it generated. AI has provided it.
Excellent article. Oren Cass was half right. It was financialization AND legalism.