I don't know what the best solution for the current healthcare clusterfuck in the US is, but I think disassociating health insurance from employer/employment is a great first step.
If you're generating benefits, there should be very few reasons you need to let go people massively.
As measured by ... purchasing power.
Let's take a look, Safety Index - US 50.8, Belgium 50.6. Health care index - Belgium 75.9, US 67.8, Pollution Index - US 36.7, Belgium 49.2, Climate index - Belgium 86, US 78.5.
As it stands US standard of living is better really only in "you can buy a larger house" (shocking, giving the relative size), and "it'll be slightly cheaper".
Not by any other metric.
It's hard to imagine that this isn't a larger differentiator than the ability to fire hundreds at will.
Like, a while back my employer had 10% layoffs, and their most profitable year ever, in the same year. There’s a real reason why that happened, ans the reason is that the C suite seriously fucked up on managing the company’s finances. In a sane world they should be the first to bear the consequences. Instead they got fat bonuses while hundreds of people who had no part in creating the problem lost their jobs. And the moral justification for a society that allows this is somehow, “But isn’t it great that it’s easier for privileged people to play fast and loose like that?” That is, at best, circular reasoning.
The only social contract that is guaranteed is the one written into law. That's why we have government, but the problem is that the government is now (and for a while now) captive to / bought by large corporations, not responsive to employees/workers/voters.
Whatever principled social contract you may have thought large corporations upheld was smoke and mirrors. It just worked for enough of the right kind of person for a while.
My point is that the so called "social contract" has never been upheld by large corporations - it may have seemed that way at times but it was mostly self serving marketing, not anything that would influence their treatment of employees vs their shareholders and executives.
Furthermore I'm arguing that we shouldn't rely on them to uphold it. If we have a belief in what is universally fair or just (i.e minimum wages, no child labor, no slavery), we should encode it in law, not hope corporations find their conscience to renew the social contract.
Beyond that, "social contracts" benefit the powerful and have a tendency to turn a blind eye to the worst off. Does the "social contract" require me to be a white, college educated male to secure worker protections? If you need a clear example of this, consider the relationship between citizens and police in the United States, and how blind the majority has been to how fundamentally broken the "social contract" around policing has been for minorities. That's what a handshake-society looks like.
Granted having both might be nice, but relying on a social contract is like relying on a benevolent dictator. It's great until it's not.
Change starts with regulation. That's how every other advanced economy handles it.
It's really not that complicated. It's the same situation as healthcare. You shouldn't rely on the free market to do anything other than maximize short term profits.
At the time I remember talking about this becoming a norm as CEOs follow the lead and getting downvoted heavily. Its unfortunate that we are here, but also not surprising, given how limited empathy people have for each other at times here on HN. Unless we stand for each other, this won’t change.
It is almost like the company really is just doing it to arbitrage or get rid of expensive (aka old) employees.
AI is used to justify the redundancies, and the company still expects to grow in this fiscal year. In the SEC filling the specifically mention more “head count” in “go-to-market” roles [1].
> a reduction of approximately 7% of our workforce
> Advances in AI, automation, and technology are reshaping how work gets done, and we're changing with them. (…) That's what this reorganization is for: a simpler structure, with fewer layers, less complexity, and less friction.
> The changes we announced today are a sign of confidence in the business, not a retreat from it. We continue to invest in key growth areas and expect total headcount to grow year-over-year this fiscal year [the SEC filling says “ The Company plans to continue hiring in key strategic areas and locations, including continuing to grow headcount in customer-facing go-to-market functions, and expects total headcount to grow this fiscal year compared to last fiscal year, as it continues to invest in future growth opportunities”]
[1]: https://ir.elastic.co/financials/sec-filings/sec-filings-det...
These executives are replaceable, and they would be replaced if they do not toe the line. In other words these executives happen to choose a easy and beneficial path rather than standing up for the long term right thing for the company.
I don’t think a lot of us employees will be happy to admit that AI is turning out to be a legitimate productivity aid that is allowing individuals to accomplish more work per person.
We’d rather sit here and stew about companies “blaming AI for layoffs” but I imagine that is only sometimes the case.
A somewhat related tangent: I have had the thought that many parts of the Japanese system of hiring for life might actually be really appropriate for the AI age. That system seems to result in a lot of companies finding ways to reshuffle employees into making some kind of product that has market value rather than the Western reaction that that seems to favor downsizing and focusing the company on a smaller set of markets in the name of ruthless efficiency. This seems to result in many Japanese firms making a wide breadth of interesting products at very high quality levels.
If your company is profitable because AI is increasing efficiency (allegedly, of course), why layoff 7% of your employees when you could instead assign them to make something new or complementary to your current product line? Western companies seem to refuse to do that out of a sense of focus and efficiency, but maybe giving that strategy a go more frequently would result in unrealized opportunities.
You can crap on those investors. The answer then is to never take their money. But without money, the job probably wasn’t created in the first place. So the result is the same.
By the way, ever work alongside a really crappy non-executive and wonder how on earth they’re keeping their job? I sure have.
AI hardware costs are nothing compared to executives’ stock options too…
Did you really think your privileged position would last forever, and that your caste is truly special?
edit: downvotes are incoming. Not sure why you need to downvote if your so-called education/company is in a position of strength? I'd assume a strong market would laugh in my face.
Everyone has their own problems and their own feelings. Their socioeconomic conditions do not invalidate them.
It's a genuine fact. No caste has ever maintained an infinite money cheat. What goes up, has historically always come down.
Enlighten me: what is actually "nasty" about my arguments? Is it the premise that Mr university man can't get what he's been promised, or what? You're enlightened; enligthen me.
It's something like:
(A) To the public (e.g. prospects, customers, investors): "This is a good thing and we're going to be an even better bet!"
(B) To the remaining team: "This is tough and I feel your pain and will do better."
(C) To the laid off: "It's not you, it's me, thank you and good luck."
It's hard if not impossible to handle all three of these authentically, concisely, and in the same message. Which is why you can almost immediately find something not to like..
Another commenter questioned what size bucket Elastic falls into these days; in April 2025 their SEC filing [2] cited about 3,500 employees. So not a startup any more but definitely not fully-fledged FAANG-sized.
(not sure whether it even applies here; but full disclosure, I left Elastic in 2022.)
[1]: https://www.elastic.co/blog/ceo-ash-kulkarni-email-to-elasti... [2]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1707753/000170775325...
I work in IT and when we needed something new we'd just implement or build it.
Now we have long certification processes for anything new, checking if it complies with hundreds of pages of policies. A lifecycle management program which we constantly have to keep updated. Governance teams that are constantly looking over our shoulders. All shit that has nothing to do with IT whatsoever.
As a result we spend 90% of time doing busywork jumping through hoops these guys set up for us. Only 5% is real technical work and a lot is outsourced or consulted out to a friend of the vice president who spends all day chatting in his office for 1000 bucks a day. Or a Deloitte guy who looks great in a suit and has no idea what he's talking about. Because companies hate employing people who have actual knowledge.
I really hate IT work now. Not sure about the rest of the industry but this change happened about 10 years ago. Until then we still were able to do actual useful work.
I can only imagine how awful a place to work it will become when they will use AI to dream up even more inhibiting policies to keep us down with.
Oh and meanwhile the CEO still goes around how innovative we are even though any innovation is absolutely killed by all this bureaucracy. Most of the time we come up with a great idea it doesn't move ahead because nobody wants to deal with years of pencil pushing to get it approved.
I can totally see how startups can do actual work with little money and we can't do anything.
Did you mismanage your family?
“Because of AI” indeed.
In theory, a small layoff can target the least productive employees.
But this remains true after a layoff and the layoff often acts a motivator for your best employees to start looking even if they weren't previously.
Usually they aren't thinking "well, glad I survived that layoff and now my job is safe forever", they are thinking "huh, is this a sinking ship? Maybe I should look around and see what else is out there..."
...speaking as someone that has been at several companies during layoffs...
Unionize, brothers and sisters!
They lost a lot of goodwill back then. Some of their potential customers migrated to OpenSearch and never looked back, even after they backed down and went open-source again under AGPL.
Wouldn't that suggest you need those workers more?
https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/nvidias-jensen-hu...
Too bad, so bad?
If they are in an outstanding position why did he make 7% of the employees lives miserable with a stroke of a pen.
:laughing:
> To do it, we're shifting our pace of innovation, simplifying how we operate, and investing in new skills. That's what this reorganization is for: a simpler structure, with fewer layers, less complexity, and less friction.
Translation: We're going to run the remaining people ragged.
> That means fewer layers, broader ownership, clearer accountability, and a sharper focus on the skills we believe matter most for what's ahead.
Yeah the people remaining are cooked.
It's never "we're going to hire more people to build lots of cool stuff" it's always giving fewer people quadruple the responsibility expectation.