It appears using AI as a cover story for cutting jobs is fast falling out of fashion. <\/p>\n
Unlike many of his tech industry peers who have cut thousands of jobs this year<\/a> citing the need to restructure their teams to make the most of AI, Robinhood\u2019s CEO Vlad Tenev conspicuously made no mention of AI in his note to employees<\/a> announcing that the company is letting go 10% of its full-time employees, or about 290 people.<\/p>\n Nor did the company\u2019s regulatory filing<\/a> announcing the move, which instead framed the cuts as a restructuring exercise.<\/p>\n Still, Tenev did say the company would use \u201cfrontier technologies to push our execution even further,\u201d which sounds like a conscious effort to avoid even naming AI. Which isn\u2019t surprising: Sentiment against AI<\/a> and related infrastructure projects has been trending lower<\/a> even as a small minority of tech executives make ridiculous bank<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Tenev did add to the ongoing narrative that it\u2019s now necessary for companies to operate with smaller teams and \u201cflatter organizational structures,\u201d writing: \u201cWe \u2060cannot default to operating as a heavily-layered organization. We must be a lean, hyper-focused team where every single individual is empowered to make a massive impact.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen companies of various stripes, from Amazon<\/a>, Block<\/a>, Coinbase<\/a>, GitLab<\/a>, and Intuit<\/a> employing similar language in their layoff announcements, indicating that large teams, bureaucracy, and siloed departments are now seen as undesirable line items at a time when AI tools promise to significantly improve productivity.<\/p>\n Some even think it\u2019s a tacit allusion to the fact that tech companies over-hired<\/a> following the COVID-19 pandemic, and are now scaling back as expenses begin to pile up \u2014 especially those associated with massive AI usage.<\/p>\n Regardless, these companies are doing quite well. Tech stocks have surged broadly, spurred by record revenues<\/a>, improving profit margins (GitLab reported 88% gross margin<\/a> last month), skyrocketing demand for cloud services<\/a>, and the belief that the billions being poured into data center projects will produce returns that are orders of magnitudes higher<\/a>.<\/p>\n