I’d say it differently though. The company who hired all these people are finding they don’t have enough value added projects to keep them employed. Most of the FAANG and larger VC backed companies have something in common. They typically have 1-2 huge cash cows and they have a bunch of moonshots, R&D type stuff, etc. They are at a point where most of the moonshots have been disincentivized financially and just overall don’t see high enough ROI to continue pouring money into; exception is AI, which is a different skillset and this personnel can’t just pivot to it.

The fact is, a lot of tech products have matured and kind of entered maintenance mode. Feature additions are smaller incremental improvements than ever. If you cut out AI, I don’t know if any of the products we all use daily look much different than they did 5 years ago.

So my argument is this simply represents a natural business cycle where these companies are shifting from growth to mature. This shift always comes with a recalibration of expenses.