If you want to hate a CEO, this is your guy. This is his framework for who gets replaced going forward:

every company has

1) builders (engineers)
2) sellers (salespeople)
3) measurers (middle managers, operations, HR, finance, analytics)

According to him: AI replaces the measurers.

Agree or no?


Paywall from WSJ on his recent RIF and philosophy going forward:

Quote:

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Two weeks ago I laid off more than 20% of my workforce. I didn't do it because Cloudflare is struggling. We posted record revenue growth, have strong free cash flow and are adding an unprecedented number of customers around the world. I did it because business is changing, and to win the future, Cloudflare needs to change with it.

We haven't found another example in U.S. business history of a public company growing at more than 30% that laid off more than 20% of its workforce. Yet what we did is likely going to become the norm over the next year. This is a story about artificial intelligence, but executives and commentators are misunderstanding how it will disrupt business and who will be affected.

---

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/how-i-choose-which-cloudflare-employees-to-replace-with-ai-40a197e5

I have been suggesting to younger people that two careers to consider are: Air Traffic Controller and a shipboard officer in the Merchant Marine.

Where does Liability come into play, in all of this?

If AI is being used, an error is made, and it causes damages...who is then sued? Is this going to create a new form of insurance that must be held by companies/corporations, that those suffering damages can go after?

If you live long enough, things start to repeat.

This is starting to sound an awful lot like the 80's when we were packing up manufacturing jobs and sending them overseas. There were people like me who were lucky and aspirational - we adjusted goals and skill sets and went with the flow. Then there were the people who were stuck in rust belt towns and didn't have the wherewithal to adapt. Those folks are some of the people who drifted into a life of generational opioids and misery.

Seems like it's bound to happen again, Cept the jobs are white collar, and going to AI instead of Japan and Taiwan. Social media is going to make this round unbearable. Buckle up.

Pizza said:

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Where does Liability come into play, in all of this?

If AI is being used, an error is made, and it causes damages...who is then sued? Is this going to create a new form of insurance that must be held by companies/corporations, that those suffering damages can go after?

---

The answer is that everyone is going to be sued - the AI provider, the services provider, the end user company - everybody. I hope none of them use AI to write their contracts.

So is ChatGPT going to call me into his/her office and ask me about the offensive memes I shared through company email? How does that work?

eric76 said:

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I have been suggesting to younger people that two careers to consider are: Air Traffic Controller and a shipboard officer in the Merchant Marine.

---

ATC is considered one of the most stressful jobs out there. The job is probably easier to deal with if you are a psychopath, and have no empathy for others.

Logos Stick said:

---

If you want to hate a CEO, this is your guy. This is his framework for who gets replaced going forward:

every company has

1) builders (engineers)
2) sellers (salespeople)
3) measurers (middle managers, operations, HR, finance, analytics)

According to him: AI replaces the measurers.

Agree or no?


Paywall from WSJ on his recent RIF and philosophy going forward:

Quote:

---

Two weeks ago I laid off more than 20% of my workforce. I didn't do it because Cloudflare is struggling. We posted record revenue growth, have strong free cash flow and are adding an unprecedented number of customers around the world. I did it because business is changing, and to win the future, Cloudflare needs to change with it.

We haven't found another example in U.S. business history of a public company growing at more than 30% that laid off more than 20% of its workforce. Yet what we did is likely going to become the norm over the next year. This is a story about artificial intelligence, but executives and commentators are misunderstanding how it will disrupt business and who will be affected.

---

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/how-i-choose-which-cloudflare-employees-to-replace-with-ai-40a197e5

---

Cloudflare sounds like a fun place to work. I am an engineer, and i have an issue, who do i go to? the CEO?
Am I empowered to make decisions? So each engineer can make his own decision? No manager needed? 1000 engineers each making their own decision? What could possibly grow wrong?

bonfarr said:

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So is ChatGPT going to call me into his/her office and ask me about the offensive memes I shared through company email? How does that work?

---

Samsung plans to lay off all of their administrative assistants, at least in the Austin office. Will AI eventually take over a lot of their tasks? Perhaps.
But for now, a 300K per year Sr. Engineer /Architect is going to have to order lunch for his 30 interns.
Doesn't seem very productive.

I've never seen an organization wherein middle management actually adds anything of value.

I'm not sure they need to be replaced by AI, or anything else.

They are the first people to be cut in a downturn for a reason.

Logos Stick said:

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If you want to hate a CEO, this is your guy. This is his framework for who gets replaced going forward:

every company has...

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This is the Meta direction. AI capturing every word you type, every mouse click you make. AI takes its direction from the CEOs AI assistant. Your AI assistant interfaces with the CEO's AI assistant. Instructions, measurements and feedback is instant.

No need, nor place, for middle management.

Ah goodie. Another CEO thread.

AgGrad99 said:

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I could very easily see Air Traffic controllers being replaced by Ai in very short order.

Hiring for the position is getting difficult, it's stressful for the employee and subject to human factors. With traffic technology, like used with all the self-driving cars I see everyday...I dont see why that's not applied to ATCs.

---

I think you are right. I am amazed this hasn't happened already. If they can do self driving, this should be a piece of cake.
Maybe there is higher liability risks?

SunrayAg said:

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Agriculture.

In 1999 I was told by a tech company rep that I would be made obsolete, and replaced by drones, satellites, sensors, and modeling programs.

But 27 years later my boots are still muddy, and that company has been gone so long I don't remember what it was called.

---

Was this tech rep called "Elon Musk"? Then be very afraid.

Interesting. Can you please share what you grow? What challenges do you face?

Claude! said:

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Pizza said:

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Where does Liability come into play, in all of this?

If AI is being used, an error is made, and it causes damages...who is then sued? Is this going to create a new form of insurance that must be held by companies/corporations, that those suffering damages can go after?

---

The answer is that everyone is going to be sued - the AI provider, the services provider, the end user company - everybody. I hope none of them use AI to write their contracts.

---

What if the judges are all replaced by AI?
Then AI lawyers?

We will have AI arguing AI and judged by AI.

What a world that would be.

In another thread, I mentioned my observation that AI seems to be very useful in contexts that tolerate a lot of error. If your job is to execute tasks that do not require accuracy, AI is not the root cause of your employment problems.

The truth is a little more nuanced. AI is really useful in tasks that require the rough analysis of massive quantities of badly-organized information.

The Ex Officio Director said:

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How dare you steal a CEO story from infinity ag.

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No worries. I am not a greedy selfish person.

I keep my sight on the end goal - which is to expose the evil CEOs of the world who get rich by stealing the food from the plates of poor Americans.

To educate my fellow Aggies (especially the young Ags) to not be naive and idealistic like I was, and to think ONLY of themselves, their goals, and their careers, and to NOT care about the company they work for and NOT to be loyal to their company as their company won't hesitate to throw them into the dumpster to save a dollar. Use corporations as stepping stones to advance oneself and make money and achieve success (as you define it).

So OP, thank you.

eric76 said:

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I have been suggesting to younger people that two careers to consider are: Air Traffic Controller and a shipboard officer in the Merchant Marine.

---

I could see air traffic control eventually handed to AI.

deddog said:

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bonfarr said:

---

So is ChatGPT going to call me into his/her office and ask me about the offensive memes I shared through company email? How does that work?

---

Samsung plans to lay off all of their administrative assistants, at least in the Austin office. Will AI eventually take over a lot of their tasks? Perhaps.
But for now, a 300K per year Sr. Engineer /Architect is going to have to order lunch for his 30 interns.
Doesn't seem very productive.

---

uh, AI Agents are already doing such easy tasks as ordering lunch

I think a lot of folks even here in F16 have never taken a course in Artificial Intelligence

and how it is being utilized in the corporate world.

Pizza said:

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Where does Liability come into play, in all of this?

If AI is being used, an error is made, and it causes damages...who is then sued? Is this going to create a new form of insurance that must be held by companies/corporations, that those suffering damages can go after?

---

Why would you think liability would change from the alleged negligent employee to the alleged negligent AI process? How is this different from mortgage or insurance underwriting going from manual to computer based (Excel/DBs) to automated (non-AI per se but database intensive)?

I'm not trying to call you out -- just trying to understand why you asked that question so I, or others on here, can make sure we fully cover it.

I was using neural networks in the '90s for things like stock analysis and sports team rankings. The biggest problems I had was the lack of data or automating the collection of it as I didn't have the resources to enter it manually. This was an early form of AI. I may have been wrong but I always thought of it as an applied form of statistical analysis or econometrics, if you will.

No, it will just evaluate the infraction and apply the appropriate discipline. You'll receive a full report via email. We are in the infancy of this damned thing.

The thing that is different with this CEO - thus my post - is that he makes no bones about it. He had record revenue and growth, nuked 20% of his employees because of AI despite his success and then wrote an op ed bragging about it.

Most CEOs don't do insensitive crap like this.

The best and most efficient use of AI would be to use it to replace CEO's.

Logos Stick said:

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The thing that is different with this CEO - thus my post - is that he makes no bones about it. He had record revenue and growth, nuked 20% of his employees because of AI despite his success and then wrote an op ed bragging about it.

Most CEOs don't do insensitive crap like this.

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Firstly, success or failure cannot be determined in days or months. Many projects are long term so good or bad will be known much later. By then the CEO is likely to be long gone with his zillion dollar severance. That is where the system fails and rewards short term behavior vs long term. I see that even at my level and I am far away from being a CEO.

I was a software engineer early in my career an wrote a lot of code. I can appreciate the good parts of AI and also highlight the downsides of relying on AI. You don't want to lose control of your code and not know what is where and how things work. When you get that point, you are toast as you become a slave of AI. The retired olds here who never wrote a line of code in their lives don't get it, they just see the $ of their investments. I think you are in tech so you would appreciate the risk.

Here's an insensitive sociopath CEO flexing on twitter that he laid off 22% of company. Just saw this last night.

Long-ass post just to say "because of AI". I would love to see where is company ClickUp is 3 years from now. The way he posts, it should be 10X ing profits. Time will tell.

Today we reduced headcount by 22%. The business is the strongest it's ever been. So I think it's important to be direct about what I'm seeing and why.

First, I made this decision and I own it. I did it because the way to operate at the highest level of productivity is changing,…

— Zeb Evans (@DJ_CURFEW) May 21, 2026

Sid Farkas said:

---

If you live long enough, things start to repeat.

This is starting to sound an awful lot like the 80's when we were packing up manufacturing jobs and sending them overseas. There were people like me who were lucky and aspirational - we adjusted goals and skill sets and went with the flow. Then there were the people who were stuck in rust belt towns and didn't have the wherewithal to adapt. Those folks are some of the people who drifted into a life of generational opioids and misery.

Seems like it's bound to happen again, Cept the jobs are white collar, and going to AI instead of Japan and Taiwan. Social media is going to make this round unbearable. Buckle up.

---

Suicide rates are going to skyrocket.

AgGrad99 said:

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I could very easily see Air Traffic controllers being replaced by Ai in very short order.

Hiring for the position is getting difficult, it's stressful for the employee and subject to human factors. With traffic technology, like used with all the self-driving cars I see everyday...I dont see why that's not applied to ATCs.

---

And when the AI hallucinates, or the pc running it goes down, and it kills 100s of people...?

Ag_of_08 said:

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AgGrad99 said:

---

I could very easily see Air Traffic controllers being replaced by Ai in very short order.

Hiring for the position is getting difficult, it's stressful for the employee and subject to human factors. With traffic technology, like used with all the self-driving cars I see everyday...I dont see why that's not applied to ATCs.

---

And when the AI hallucinates, or the pc running it goes down, and it kills 100s of people...?

---

We call John Connor.

Ag_of_08 said:

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AgGrad99 said:

---

I could very easily see Air Traffic controllers being replaced by Ai in very short order.

Hiring for the position is getting difficult, it's stressful for the employee and subject to human factors. With traffic technology, like used with all the self-driving cars I see everyday...I dont see why that's not applied to ATCs.

---

And when the AI hallucinates, or the pc running it goes down, and it kills 100s of people...?

---

I hear you...but it's the way everything is going. I don't go a day without seeing at least 5 self driving cars in Austin....and they're adding more all the time.

And speaking from a guy, who works in aviation, there are a Lot of steps/procedures we rely on for our safety that requires computers. They'll build in redundancies for the redundancies.

I don't like it...just pointing out that it's moving that way very quickly

These tech companies can eliminate HR because they are largely WFH and don't have to deal with the sexual harassment and grabass office behaviors as much. Their main issue is probably productivity and they can monitor that remotely.

Watch the funny video the tone deaf CEO posted mocking his employees. Click on the twitter link to see it.

Jo this is an insane level of tone deaf after announcing laying off more than a fifth of the company https://t.co/mF1jPMQ0wa

— Jan-Niklas Wortmann (@wordmandotdev) May 22, 2026

Post was deleted. What did he say?

bonfarr said:

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Post was deleted. What did he say?

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It was a "funny" video.

A woman "AI" was dancing. Employee and Company were walking towards her. Then suddenly Employee finds Company disappeared and finds him dancing like a doofus next to AI. Employee is shocked. Then Company comes over and throws a glass of water on Employee.

I'll try to find it elsewhere.

Apparently they posted the video a few days before canning their staff "for AI".

It's this but those cowards deleted it from all sites. Only screenshots remain.