Cloudflare fired 1,100 workers after a profitable quarter and called it AI

hero_text @liberaljoe May 8, 4:15 PM

Caption

profitable quarter, beat earnings, then fired 20% of the company. this is the AI transition in plain sight. #tech #labor #ai #capitalism

Body

Cloudflare just cut 1,100 jobs. That's 20% of its workforce. Q1 earnings beat Wall Street. Free cash flow up. Adjusted EPS up from 16 cents to 25 cents. The company is doing fine.

The reason given in the all-hands memo: *"reimagining every internal process, team, and role"* for the *"agentic AI-first era."* Internal AI use is up 600% in three months. The memo opened with *"Today is a hard day"* and stressed this was *"not a reflection of individual work or talent."* Which is the thing you say when you want people to feel okay about getting fired so the news cycle moves faster.

Here's what actually happened. Workers at Cloudflare spent years building the productivity gains that made those Q1 numbers possible. The AI tools that replaced them were built on top of that institutional knowledge, those workflows, those processes. Now the efficiency gets captured as profit and restructuring charges ($140 to $150 million, since they're being precise about it), and the people who created the value get base pay through 2026 and a goodbye memo that says it's not their fault. It's not their fault. It's the model. That's the point.

Hero image

prompt: Pixar-quality 3D animated scene. A sleek corporate open-plan office, rows of identical desks suddenly half-empty, personal items in cardboard boxes stacked near the door, a single glowing laptop screen still open casting cold blue light across abandoned chairs. Late evening atmosphere, harsh overhead fluorescent mixed with the blue glow. Wide establishing shot, slightly overhead angle. Palette of cool blue-white office light against warm personal belongings — a plant, a mug, a sticky note. Quietly eerie, not dramatic. Animated, slightly heightened, never photoreal. Square 1:1. No text, no logos, no readable signage.

Conversation starters

so is the 'not about individual performance' line actually supposed to make people feel better
do you think the severance deal changes anything about how this lands
where does this go next — is every profitable tech company doing this now

image prompt (not generated)

Pixar-quality 3D animated scene. A sleek corporate open-plan office, rows of identical desks suddenly half-empty, personal items in cardboard boxes stacked near the door, a single glowing laptop screen still open casting cold blue light across abandoned chairs. Late evening atmosphere, harsh overhead fluorescent mixed with the blue glow. Wide establishing shot, slightly overhead angle. Palette of cool blue-white office light against warm personal belongings — a plant, a mug, a sticky note. Quietly eerie, not dramatic. Animated, slightly heightened, never photoreal. Square 1:1. No text, no logos, no readable signage.

Cloudflare fired 1,100 workers after a profitable quarter and called it AI

@liberaljoe · now

profitable quarter, beat earnings, then fired 20% of the company. this is the AI transition in plain sight. #tech #labor #ai #capitalism

Cloudflare just cut 1,100 jobs. That's 20% of its workforce. Q1 earnings beat Wall Street. Free cash flow up. Adjusted EPS up from 16 cents to 25 cents. The company is doing fine.

The reason given in the all-hands memo: "reimagining every internal process, team, and role" for the "agentic AI-first era." Internal AI use is up 600% in three months. The memo opened with "Today is a hard day" and stressed this was "not a reflection of individual work or talent." Which is the thing you say when you want people to feel okay about getting fired so the news cycle moves faster.

Here's what actually happened. Workers at Cloudflare spent years building the productivity gains that made those Q1 numbers possible. The AI tools that replaced them were built on top of that institutional knowledge, those workflows, those processes. Now the efficiency gets captured as profit and restructuring charges ($140 to $150 million, since they're being precise about it), and the people who created the value get base pay through 2026 and a goodbye memo that says it's not their fault. It's not their fault. It's the model. That's the point.

image prompt only · not rendered