Jaden Schaefer

And I believe that that was like 40% of the entire company of Block.

We're just seeing companies want smaller teams that can move faster with AI.

Amazon is cutting 16,000 roles earlier this year.

Atlassian just announced that they're cutting 10% of their workforce and they are redirecting all of that money into AI.

And then there's also a consulting firm, Challenger Gray and Christmas, and they said that AI has already been cited in more than 12,000 job cuts in the US this year so far.

And it's kind of interesting because I believe it's actually higher, but companies like Amazon, when they cut 16,000, people are like,

Like, oh, it's not related to AI.

We're just trimming up the company and rearranging things a little bit.

But honestly, I believe it's due to a lot of shifts that are happening in industries.

Now, is Amazon and Meta and Elasti and all these other companies, are they permanently cutting these roles?

I don't think so.

I think in the next couple of years, we'll bring them all back in.

But I do think that we're reevaluating and we can do more with less due to AI.

So I think we're going to see kind of this initial wave of layoffs.

And then I think as the companies kind of find their equilibrium again, they'll start hiring people back and making sure that everyone they hire is kind of AI first and understands how to use these tools.

Some analysts say that companies are just basically using the AI as a convenient explanation for layoffs, right?

Like, hey, we got to become more profitable.

We're going to do layoffs and let's just blame it on AI.

But I think I think that's maybe partially true.

But I do believe that AI is actually, you know, dramatically increasing productivity.