Zoe Schiffer

Welcome to Wired's Uncanny Valley.

I'm Zoe Schiffer, Director of Business and Industry.

And I'm Leah Feiger, Director of Politics and Science.

Brian got invited to the group chat.

He did.

Look at that.

Today on the show, we're discussing the complete meltdown over mass layoffs at Meta.

We spoke to more than a dozen employees, and it turns out the job cuts are far from the only reason why Meta employees are really going through it.

So first up, let's dive into what is happening at Meta.

This week, the company is letting go of roughly 10% of its workforce, which is about 8,000 employees total.

It's the latest round of job cuts, adding to the roughly 25,000 jobs that have been cut in the past few years as part of Mark Zuckerberg's kind of

year of efficiency that started in 2023, and now the latest AI forward workplace, which he is trying to develop and impose.

And while these latest cuts are not as big as some of the rounds of layoffs that have already happened, they're getting a ton of attention because Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO, has said that the reason they're happening, in part at least, in large part, is because the company is spending so much money on AI and data centers.

Oh, yeah.

They didn't announce it.

Weeks and weeks later.

Yeah.

It's, I mean, suffice to say, impacting morale in really horrific ways.

But it's not the only thing.

Like we said, Mark Zuckerberg is also really encouraging employees to use AI.