Because it had nothing to do with AI
It was an excuse to slash the workforce with relatively little backlash.
This CEO laid off nearly 80% of his staff because they refused to adopt AI fast enough. 2 years later, he says he’d do it again
Submitted 17 hours ago by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to technology@lemmy.world
https://fortune.com/article/ceo-laid-off-80-percent-workforce-sabotage-what-are-ai-skills/
Comments
rumba@lemmy.zip 4 hours ago
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 1 hour ago
and that’s how he achieved 75% profit margin. Let’s see him do that twice.
rumba@lemmy.zip 1 hour ago
surprised he didn’t golden parachute out and reload with another company/
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 5 hours ago
Probably overhired just after COVID like everyone else in the tech sector and then realized he had no idea what to do with all the extra people because he never really had a plan.
MangoCats@feddit.it 5 hours ago
COVID excuse not required. CEOs overhiring is like birds flying south for the winter, the sun rising in the east, water being wet - it’s just what they do. 80% is a bit extreme, but he had the AI excuse, so…
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 5 hours ago
Eh I’ve only been in the software industry for 6 years and change. The post-covid hiring boom was for me the first time I’d seen it done en masse and then the subsequent layoffs were the first time I’d seen that en masse, but neither affected me personally luckily.
I have no idea what was going on before that because I had no real reason to care, nobody wanted to hire me anyway before I got my first job in the industry lol
melfie@lemy.lol 8 hours ago
A recent MIT report indicates that 95% of generative AI pilots fail to deliver measurable returns on investment, highlighting significant challenges in successfully implementing AI in businesses
CEOs:
laranis@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
OpenAI marketing > MIT analysis, apparently
Soup@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
“When I do it, it will be different.
MangoCats@feddit.it 5 hours ago
My question: what percentage of those failures to deliver were led by people who had no idea what they were doing and expected AI to “do it for them”?
ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 9 hours ago
Vaughan was surprised to find it was often the technical staff, not marketing or sales, who dug in their heels. They were the “most resistant,” he said, voicing various concerns about what the AI couldn’t do, rather than focusing on what it could. The marketing and salespeople were enthused by the possibilities of working with these new tools, he added.
So the people that had an actual idea of what the implications of using it might be weren’t on board? Huh. Weird.
abigscaryhobo@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
"All the engineers said my “screen door on a submarine” was “stupid” and would “sink the ship”, so I fired them and hired new engineers!"
- CEO of now defunct “Screen Door Subs Inc.”
greasewizard@slrpnk.net 7 hours ago
I mean this is the exact line of thinking turned an idiot CEO into a paste at the bottom of the ocean
AbidanYre@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I told AI to build me a submarine out of titanium.
- Stockton Rush (if he were alive today)
ideonek@piefed.social 3 hours ago
Marketing people are known for beliving their own lies.
Kissaki@feddit.org 5 hours ago
Sales and marketing is often mostly bullshitting anyway. It also has a lot less risk and constraint associated to generated text having issues. Not surprised they were more on board. The tool is more fitting for those use cases anyway.
Soup@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
They’re also the people who build their career on never stirring the pot so they can make their clients feel special. They’re built to be sycophants and their jobs are, and this isn’t even necessarily a bad thing, a little more nebulous which means they’d feel the effects much less strongly.
ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 5 hours ago
“Pointlessly waffling for a living just got so much easier!”
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 8 hours ago
Like the guy with the carbon fiber submarine. Every engineer told him it couldn’t be done, so he kept firing them until he had a staff of young, inexperienced engineers who would do what they were told, and just collect their paychecks.
Now their boss is dead, and there are no more paychecks.
FinalRemix@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Well at least that problem fixed itself.
boogiebored@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Seeing these kinds of people harness AI is so embarrassing. They feel empowered while doing some of the whackest stuff. In the end, it is still technical style work snd they are still awful at it.
Kissaki@feddit.org 5 hours ago
rather than focusing on what it could
When you’re driving a car down the ski jumping ramp.
anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz 16 hours ago
“They ruthlessly cut costs, R&D, and employee benefits and then replace existing employees with overseas contractors. Innovation and growth take a back seat to sheer profitability.”
This is the operating manual that explains why IgniteTech’s much-publicized AI purge feels more like a familiar private-equity play.
[…]
IgniteTech is owned by ESW. For anyone who’s watched the ESW orbit, that vagueness is not accidental. ESW’s playbook, summarized in a long explanatory dossier that has circulated inside the industry, is blunt: buy distressed software, strip costs, move work to an hourly contractor model through a unit like Crossover (which has been described in Forbes as a “global software sweatshop”), and squeeze recurring revenue out of an existing customer base rather than invest in new products.Thorry@feddit.org 15 hours ago
Yeah this is called AI washing. Basically firing people, outsourcing all the jobs, stripping a company till there is nothing left. The goal is to maximize profits till the company is basically dead and then sell the husk. Because it’s done under the AI label, customers and other interested parties see it as being innovative and not just money grabbing.
Quazatron@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Selling artificial intelligence to natural idiots.
otter@lemmy.ca 9 hours ago
So they could have held paint drying Mondays instead, with the same overall effect
“Every single Monday was called Paint Dry Monday” Vaughan said, with his mandate for staff that they could only watch paint dry. “You couldn’t have customer calls; you couldn’t work on budgets; you had to only watch paint dry.” He said this happened across the board, not just for tech workers, but also for sales, marketing, and everybody else at IgniteTech. “That culture needed to be built. That was the key.”
sirboozebum@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Private Equity is finding it increasingly difficult to offload the companies they have taken over.
With some luck, this dickhead will go broke.
dipcart@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Very interesting. I appreciate the additional information. Saying its for AI but moving it to overseas contractors instead of actually moving it to AI that is actually overseas contractors (like that one AI company that was outed as being 700 Indian developers) is honestly kinda funny. AI is enshittification given form, I suppose.
Norrdec@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Because AI is Actualy Indians :)
anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz 16 hours ago
I mean they have added a chatbot to their website and I’m sure they have replaced overseas first line support in many products with chatbots as well to encourage their customers to give up on getting support (and ensure that the customers that prevails and get sent to a human coworker are sufficiently pissed off).
Klox@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
The AI part is that the drug riddled CEO asked AI leading questions. The AI wholeheartedly agreed they should speed run late stage capitalism. What more confirmation is needed that AI is the future?
cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de 8 hours ago
This is the relevant context to this puff-piece, this should be stickied right at the top.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
He REALLY hates paying employees and wants their pennies in his treasure horde, we get it.
He will be shocked when he discovers the shareholders don’t want to pay him, either. He’ll be like “what?!?! AI doing MY job? This is a travesty!” and then they will have security drag him out of the building screaming.
fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 4 hours ago
I wonder how many employees are working on automating the CEO there first
Bleys@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
From the article:
Vaughan was surprised to find it was often the technical staff, not marketing or sales, who dug in their heels. They were the “most resistant,” he said, voicing various concerns about what the AI couldn’t do, rather than focusing on what it could. The marketing and salespeople were enthused by the possibilities of working with these new tools, he added.
Not surprising the people with technical skills that aren’t actually replaceable by LLMs would be against forced AI adoption. Good luck maintaining a code base created with vibe coding. Meanwhile the CEO probably looks at ChatGPT and realizes it could basically do everything he already does (write emails and make high level decisions without actually having to worry about their implementation) and then incorrectly thinks it’s the case for everyone else.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 3 hours ago
Prediction markets have outperformed CEOs for decades and still haven’t replaced them, for the same reason WfH hasn’t replaced offices. Everything is a monopoly or oligopoly now, with no need to efficiently maximize profits. It’s entirely a matter of control.
criss_cross@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
What the fuck is IgniteTech?
ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 7 hours ago
An “enterprise-software powerhouse”, allegedly.
titanicx@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
Yeah looking it over it looks like they’re a tech accusation company. Basically they buy flailing or nearly failed companies suck anything out of them they can and then sell them. They probably purchased an AI company like you’re saying decided to go all in on it while purchasing and selling other companies as well. Having anything AI related right now bring big bucks when it comes to funding.
Sidyctism2@discuss.tchncs.de 7 hours ago
Exactly
jordanlund@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
The question I put to management is “What do you want me to use AI for?”
I can’t get a consistent answer. Lots of stuff unrelated to my job duties. “Well, it’s so easy to make Facebook ads!” - “You know that’s not a thing I do, right?”
ebc@lemmy.ca 37 minutes ago
Yeah, my boss told he’s under pressure from upper management and customers to add AI in our app. His answer is always “to do what?”. So far, nobody has provided an answer, but whenever we get one we’ll be happy to implement it.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 8 hours ago
They don’t have an answer because they don’t know either. They’ve bought into the idea, and invested trillions, and now they’re all hoping to just churn the cream until it turns into something else, but they have no idea what it will be, or how to use it.
They’re just hoping some minion finally figures out a profitable model, so they can claim it as their own, give him a nominal raise and a nice office, and they can go make trillions off his idea.
Doorknob@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Nota bene: Not just laid off, replaced. And not replaced by AI. Replaced by other people. Basically spent a ton of money and talent and business disruption to turn over 80% of his workforce for shits and gigs.
jaybone@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
If this dickhead is so smart, why does he even need a staff? I’m sure he can go start a company all by himself with just AI to work for him.
Prior_Industry@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
I assume that’s the goal he’s aiming for. Wonder who will buy his stuff when it’s just CEOs and their AI still employed.
purplemonkeymad@programming.dev 8 hours ago
That will never happen unless CEOs can actually explain what they want.
bastien@lemmy.wtf 9 hours ago
This reads like a very weird AI circlejerk. They repeatedly mention that AI is the solution every company should adopt, but fail to provide a single example of succesful application. And I mean a how not a reult. They say ‘company X KPI are this % better thanks to AI’, but not how they applied it. Just talk of AI mindset, and ‘culture’ but I would have liked to understand what exactly it was used for (like agents, chatbots, automation of something in particular). It just reads like a lot of patting in the back and hot air so far, which is a pity because I would be interested in reading about real life cases of successful AI implementaiom
kayohtie@pawb.social 7 hours ago
I used to joke that the CEO of my former employer must subscribe to some magazine called “CEO Weekly” in which they must periodically mention, in a similar “no examples of usage, just KPIs” manner, webchat. She would always forget about it promptly and then random number of weeks later bug my boss again.
I told him if they want me to come up with how they can use webchat and be their solutions designer they need to double my salary. $60k USD was not enough for being a tier 3 systems admin, a fax and telephony specialist, and figuring out their use cases for them just to check a box that says “we have it!”
leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
They say ‘company X KPI are this % better thanks to AI’
They asked an LLM for the KPIs and it helpfully made up the figures they wanted to see.
Which became a self fulfilling prophecy once they showed those awesome “results” to the investors.
Of course it’ll all come crashing down once the investors ask for a return on their investment and there are no more new investors to support the pyramid, but by that point someone (probably not the brainrotten CEOs, who are drinking their own coolaid) will be far away with the money in a Cayman Islands bank account…
xenomor@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Did AI build that dogshit website of theirs too?
Pechente@feddit.org 15 hours ago
Wtf it just opened a video in full screen on iOS right away. When I closed it and wanted to scroll down I was suddenly dragging an icon. When tapping this icon it opens some „my personas“ dialog which I don’t even understand what it is supposed to be? What even is this shit ass site?
fonix232@fedia.io 13 hours ago
That's actually somewhat of a Safari bug.
Safari has this tendency of opening videos in full screen, if the video is natively embedded (not using a third party video player component), is set to auto play, and isn't flagged specifically for not opening automatically in full screen (this is a Safari specific flag that no other browser requires as no other browser has this stupid default behaviour).
Xanthobilly@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Does it load exceptionally slow for you too?
Rekall_Incorporated@piefed.social 13 hours ago
That website is really shit even by the low standards of most modern websites.
evol@lemmy.today 16 hours ago
ignitetech.ai it has to be like purposely bad I vibe code internal frontends and ive never had something look this bad
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
Looks ok without any JS.
_stranger_@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
looks best without a browser at all.
Tattorack@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
“I am bad at managing my finances, and eventually need to get bailed out by the government, or end up next to the homeless guy I used to make fun of”.
- This guy.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
so they had to sell to ai customers? what an idiot
Lydia_K@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
So Mondays are days off?
evol@lemmy.today 16 hours ago
Where can I sign up
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 7 hours ago
It is never the technology at fault. When it comes down to it, evil people want to exercise the power of their crown, damned be the consequences and injustice. AI is just the latest excuse to be a remorseless dickhead.
itsathursday@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
jaybone@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
InnerChoad
abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 hours ago
When all of this is over, if this ever ends, I want psychologists to study this AI obsession CEOs have now. I want to see how they can look at AI and insist that everyone be forced to use something that hinders them rather than help.
AA5B@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Previously I added to my routine, to ask two stupid queries of ai every day, because that was the metric we were judged on. I can get that out of the way quickly, and get to my work.
Now we have to use a new ai tool that has a lot more telemetry, thanks Microsoft. Unfortunately I don’t know what metric they are using and the tool spies on everything. I can’t even just not use the ai features because the tool is horrible
xodoh74984@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
This clickbait title format is getting really old. 5 years later, I wish editors would pick something else.
ech@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
“That culture needed to be built. That was the key.”
“Like, I’m not gonna be able to replace these losers if they don’t fix this piece of shit tech for me, will I?”
StillAlive@piefed.world 16 hours ago
Incredibly punchable face
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 10 hours ago
If this guy is such a genius why doesn’t he tell us what exactly AI is for and whether it is beneficial to society at large?
800XL@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
He can have AI replace him too.
goatinspace@feddit.org 16 hours ago
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
I hope his schmeckel no longer works.
deathbird@mander.xyz 23 minutes ago
A company so small it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. No discernible products.
Any poly market bets on how long this company actually lasts?