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The job cuts in tech land are piling up, as companies that led the 10-year bull market adapt to a new reality.

In January, Google announced plans to lay off 12,000 people from its workforce, while Microsoft said it’s letting go of 10,000 employees. Amazon also began a fresh round of job cuts that are expected to eliminate more than 18,000 employees and become the largest workforce reduction in the e-retailer’s 28-year history.

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On Tuesday, Meta announced plans to lay off 10,000 workers, adding to the 11,000 cuts it made in November.

The layoffs come in a period of slowing growth, higher interest rates to battle inflation, and fears of a possible recession next year.

Here are some of the major cuts in the tech industry so far. All numbers are approximations based on filings, public statements and media reports:

Alphabet: 12,000 jobs cut

Google, owned by parent company Alphabet, said Friday it will lay off 12,000 people from its workforce.

Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, said in an email sent to the company’s staff that the firm will begin making layoffs in the U.S. immediately. In other countries, the process “will take longer due to local laws and practices,” he said. CNBC reported in November that Google employees had been fearing layoffs as its counterparts made cuts and as employees saw changes to the company’s performance ratings system.

Alphabet had largely avoided layoffs until January, when it cut about 240 employees from Verily, its health sciences division.

Google-parent Alphabet slashes headcount by 12,000

Microsoft: 10,000 jobs cut

Microsoft is reducing 10,000 workers through March 31 as the software maker braces for slower revenue growth. The company also is taking a $1.2 billion charge.

“I’m confident that Microsoft will emerge from this stronger and more competitive,” CEO Satya Nadella announced in a memo to employees that was posted on the company website Wednesday. Some employees will find out this week if they’re losing their jobs, he wrote.

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Amazon: 18,000 jobs cut

Earlier this month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company was planning to lay off more than 18,000 employees, primarily in its human resources and stores divisions. It came after Amazon said in November it was looking to cut staff, including in its devices and recruiting organizations. CNBC reported at the time that the company was looking to lay off about 10,000 employees.

Amazon went on a hiring spree during the Covid-19 pandemic. The company’s global workforce swelled to more than 1.6 million by the end of 2021, up from 798,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Crypto.com: 500 jobs cut

Crypto.com announced plans to lay off 20% of its workforce Jan. 13. The company had 2,450 employees, according to PitchBook data, suggesting around 490 employees were laid off. 

CEO Kris Marszalek said in a blog post that the crypto exchange grew “ambitiously” but was unable to weather the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire FTX without the further cuts.

“All impacted personnel have already been notified,” Marszalek said in a post.

Coinbase: 2,000 jobs cut

On Jan. 10, Coinbase announced plans to cut about a fifth of its workforce as it looks to preserve cash during the crypto market downturn.

The exchange plans to cut 950 jobs, according to a blog post. Coinbase, which had roughly 4,700 employees as of the end of September, had already slashed 18% of its workforce in June saying it needed to manage costs after growing “too quickly” during the bull market.

“With perfect hindsight, looking back, we should have done more,” CEO Brian Armstrong told CNBC in a phone interview at the time. “The best you can do is react quickly once information becomes available, and that’s what we’re doing in this case.”

Coinbase announces layoffs for 20% of workforce

Dell: 6,650 jobs cut

Dell announced it would lay off 5% of its workforce, or about 6,650 employees, in early February. The company began the year with more than 130,000 employees, but said that the cuts were made to “stay ahead of downturn impacts.”

Slowing demand for PCs hit Dell harder than its competitors.

eBay: 500 jobs cut

eBay announced it would lay off 500 workers, or 4% of its headcount, in February. Like many executives, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone said that the cuts came as a result of the global macroeconomic environment.

Salesforce: 7,000 jobs cut

Salesforce is cutting 10% of its personnel and reducing some office space as part of a restructuring plan, the company announced Jan. 4. It employed more than 79,000 workers as of December.

In a letter to employees, co-CEO Marc Benioff said customers have been more “measured” in their purchasing decisions given the challenging macroeconomic environment, which led Salesforce to make the “very difficult decision” to lay off workers.

Salesforce said it will record charges of $1 billion to $1.4 billion related to the headcount reductions, and $450 million to $650 million related to the office space reductions.

Jim Cramer says more tech layoffs are coming after Salesforce cuts 10% of its headcount

Meta: 21,000 jobs cut

Facebook parent Meta announced its most significant round of layoffs ever in November. The company said it plans to eliminate 13% of its staff, which amounts to more than 11,000 employees.

Just four months later, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would lay off an additional 10,000 employees and close hiring for 5,000 positions in a March message to employees.

Meta‘s disappointing guidance for the fourth quarter of 2022 wiped out one-fourth of the company’s market cap and pushed the stock to its lowest level since 2016.

The tech giant’s cuts come after it expanded headcount by about 60% during the pandemic. The business has been hurt by competition from rivals such as TikTok, a broad slowdown in online ad spending and challenges from Apple’s iOS changes.

Twilio: 1,500 jobs cut

In February, Twilio said it would lay off 17% of its workforce, or around 1,500 employees. The company reported nearly 9,000 employees in Sep. 2022. and had already laid off 11% of its workforce that same month.

 “These changes hurt,” Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson said at the time.

Twitter: 3,700 jobs cut

The Twitter layoffs were handled terribly, says Big Tech's Alex Kantrowitz

Lyft: 700 jobs cut 

Lyft announced in November that it cut 13% of its staff, or about 700 jobs. In a letter to employees, CEO Logan Green and President John Zimmer pointed to “a probable recession sometime in the next year” and rising ride-share insurance costs.

For laid-off workers, the ride-hailing company promised 10 weeks of pay, health care coverage through the end of April, accelerated equity vesting for the Nov. 20 vesting date and recruiting assistance. Workers who had been at the company for more than four years will get an extra four weeks of pay, they added.

Stripe: 1,100 jobs cut

Online payments giant Stripe announced plans to lay off roughly 14% of its staff, which amounts to about 1,100 employees, in November. 

CEO Patrick Collison wrote in a memo to staff that the cuts were necessary amid rising inflation, fears of a looming recession, higher interest rates, energy shocks, tighter investment budgets and sparser startup funding. Taken together, these factors signal “that 2022 represents the beginning of a different economic climate,” he said.

Stripe was valued at $95 billion last year, and reportedly lowered its internal valuation to $74 billion in July.

Shopify: 1,000 jobs cut

In July, Shopify announced it laid off 1,000 employees, which equals 10% of its global workforce. 

In a memo to staff, CEO Tobi Lutke acknowledged he had misjudged how long the pandemic-driven e-commerce boom would last, and said the company is being hit by a broader pullback in online spending. Its stock price is down 78% in 2022.

Netflix: 450 jobs cut

Netflix announced two rounds of layoffs. In May, the streaming service eliminated 150 jobs after the company reported its first subscriber loss in a decade. In late June, it announced another 300 layoffs. 

In a statement to employees, Netflix said, “While we continue to invest significantly in the business, we made these adjustments so that our costs are growing in line with our slower revenue growth.” 

Snap: 1,000 jobs cut 

In late August, Snap announced it laid off 20% of its workforce, which equates to more than 1,000 employees. 

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told employees in a memo that the company needs to restructure its business to deal with its financial challenges. He said the company’s quarterly year-over-year revenue growth rate of 8% “is well below what we were expecting earlier this year.”

Robinhood: 1,100 jobs cut

Retail brokerage firm Robinhood slashed 23% of its staff in August, after cutting 9% of its workforce in April. Based on public filings and reports, that amounts to more than 1,100 employees.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev blamed “deterioration of the macro environment, with inflation at 40-year highs accompanied by a broad crypto market crash.”

Tesla: 6,000 jobs cut

In June, Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote in an email to all employees that the company was cutting 10% of salaried workers. The Wall Street Journal estimated the reductions would affect about 6,000 employees, based on public filings.

“Tesla will be reducing salaried headcount by 10% as we have become overstaffed in many areas,” Musk wrote. “Note this does not apply to anyone actually building cars, battery packs or installing solar. Hourly headcount will increase.”

Zoom: 1,300 jobs cut

Video conferencing provider Zoom said in February it would cut 15% of its workforce, laying off 1,300 workers. “We didn’t take as much time as we should have to thoroughly analyze our teams or assess if we were growing sustainably,” Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said at the time.

Zoom’s explosive growth was fuelled by Covid-19 lockdowns, but the company has suffered as life has largely returned to normal for many.

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As Microsoft turns 50, Nadella sees future success built on ability to ‘win the new’

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As Microsoft turns 50, Nadella sees future success built on ability to 'win the new'

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks during the Microsoft Build conference at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on May 21, 2024.

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A half-century ago, childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft from a strip mall in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Five decades and almost $3 trillion later, the company celebrates its 50th birthday on Friday from its sprawling campus in Redmond, Washington.

Now the second most valuable publicly traded company in the world, Microsoft has only had three CEOs in its history, and all of them are in attendance for the monumental event. One is current CEO Satya Nadella. The other two are Gates and Steve Ballmer, both among the 11 richest people in the world due to their Microsoft fortunes.

While Microsoft has mostly been on the ascent of late, with Nadella turning the company into a major power player in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, the birthday party lands at an awkward moment.

The company’s stock price has dropped for four consecutive months for the first time since 2009 and just suffered its steepest quarterly drop in three years. That was all before President Donald Trump’s announcement this week of sweeping tariffs, which sent the Nasdaq tumbling on Thursday and Microsoft down another 2.4%.

Cloud computing has been Microsoft’s main source of new revenue since Nadella took over from Ballmer as CEO in 2014. But the Azure cloud reported disappointing revenue in the latest quarter, a miss that finance chief Amy Hood attributed in January to power and space shortages and a sales posture that focused too much on AI. Hood said revenue growth in the current quarter will fall to 10% from 17% a year earlier

Nadella said management is refining sales incentives to maximize revenue from traditional workloads, while positioning the company to benefit from the ongoing AI boom.

“You would rather win the new than just protect the past,” Nadella told analysts on a conference call.

The past remains healthy. Microsoft still generates around one-fifth of its roughly $262 billion in annual revenue from productivity software, mostly from commercial clients. Windows makes up around 10% of sales.

Meanwhile, the company has used its massive cash pile to orchestrate its three largest acquisitions on record in a little over eight years, snapping up LinkedIn in late 2016, Nuance Communications in 2022 and Activision Blizzard in 2023, for a combined $121 billion.

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“Microsoft has figured out how to stay ahead of the curve, and 50 years later, this is a company that can still be on the forefront of technology innovation,” said Soma Somasegar, a former Microsoft executive who now invests in startups at venture firm Madrona. “That’s a commendable place for the company to be in.”

When Somasegar gave up his corporate vice president position at Microsoft in 2015, the company was fresh off a $7.6 billion write-down from Ballmer’s ill-timed purchase of Nokia’s devices and services business.

Microsoft is now in a historic phase of investment. The company has built a $13.8 billion stake in OpenAI and last year spent almost $76 billion on capital expenditures and finance leases, up 83% from a year prior, partly to enable the use of AI models in the Azure cloud. In January, Nadella said Microsoft has $13 billion in annualized AI revenue, more even than OpenAI, which just closed a financing round valuing the company at $300 billion.

Microsoft’s spending spree has constrained free cash flow growth. Guggenheim analysts wrote in a note after the company’s earnings report in January, “You just have to believe in the future.” 

Of the 35 Microsoft analysts tracked by FactSet, 32 recommend buying the stock, which has appreciated tenfold since Nadella became CEO. Azure has become a fearsome threat to Amazon Web Services, which pioneered the cloud market in the 2000s, and startups as well as enterprises are flocking to its cloud technology.

Winston Weinberg, CEO of legal AI startup Harvey, uses OpenAI models through Azure. Weinberg lauded Nadella’s focus on customers of all sizes.

“Satya has literally responded to emails within 15 minutes of us having a technical problem, and he’ll route it to the right person,” Weinberg said.

Still, technology is moving at an increasingly rapid pace and Microsoft’s ability to stay on top is far from guaranteed. Industry experts highlighted four key issues the company has to address as it pushes into its next half-century.

Microsoft didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Regulation

There’s some optimism that the Trump administration and a new head of the Federal Trade Commission will open up the door to the kinds of deal-making that proved very challenging during Joe Biden’s presidency, when Lina Khan headed the FTC.

But regulatory uncertainty remains.

It’s not a new risk for Microsoft. In 1995, the company paid a $46 million breakup fee to tax software maker Intuit after the Justice Department filed suit to block the proposed deal. Years later, the DOJ got Microsoft to revamp some of its practices after a landmark antitrust case.

Microsoft pushed through its largest acquisition ever, the $75 billion purchase of video game publisher Activision, during Biden’s term. But only after a protracted legal battle with the FTC.

At the very end of Biden’s time in office, the FTC opened an antitrust investigation on Microsoft. That probe is ongoing, Bloomberg reported in March.

Nadella has cultivated a relationship with Trump. In January, the two reportedly met for lunch at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, alongside Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during an American Technology Council roundtable at the White House in Washington on June 19, 2017.

Nicholas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images

The U.S. isn’t the only concern. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority said in January that an independent inquiry found that “Microsoft is using its strong position in software to make it harder for AWS and Google to compete effectively for cloud customers that wish to use Microsoft software on the cloud.”

Microsoft last year committed to unbundling Teams from Microsoft 365 productivity software subscriptions globally to address concerns from the European Union’s executive arm, the European Commission.

Noncore markets

Fairly early in Microsoft’s history the company became the world’s largest software maker. And in cloud, Microsoft is the biggest challenger to AWS. Most of the company’s revenue comes from corporations, schools and governments.

But Microsoft is in other markets where its position is weaker. Those include video games, laptops and search advertising.

Mary Jo Foley, editor in chief at advisory group Directions on Microsoft, said the company may be better off focusing on what it does best, rather than continuing to offer Xbox consoles and Surface tablets.

“Microsoft is not good at anything in the consumer space (with the possible exception of gaming),” wrote Foley, who has covered the company on and off since 1984. “You’re wasting time and money on trying to figure it out. Microsoft is an enterprise company — and that is more than OK.”

It’s unlikely Microsoft will back away from games, particularly after the Activision deal. Nearly $12 billion of Microsoft’s $69.6 billion in fourth-quarter revenue came from gaming, search and news advertising, and consumer subscriptions to the Microsoft 365 productivity bundle. That doesn’t include sales of devices, Windows licenses or advertising on LinkedIn.

“As a company, Microsoft’s all-in on gaming,” Nadella said in 2021 in an appearance alongside gaming unit head Phil Spencer. “We believe we can play a leading role in democratizing gaming and defining that future of interactive entertainment, quite frankly, at scale.”

AI pressure

Microsoft has an unquestionably strong position in AI today, thanks in no small part to its early alliance with OpenAI. Microsoft has added the startup’s AI models to Windows, Excel, Bing and other products.

The breakout has been GitHub Copilot, which generates source code and answers developers’ questions. GitHub reached $2 billion in annualized revenue last year, with Copilot accounting for more than 40% of sales growth for the business. Microsoft bought GitHub in 2018 for $7.5 billion.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, right, speaks as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks on during the OpenAI DevDay event in San Francisco on Nov. 6, 2023.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

But speedy deployment in AI can be worrisome.

The company is “not providing the underpinnings needed to deploy AI properly, in terms of security and governance — all because they care more about being ‘first,'” Foley wrote. Microsoft also hasn’t been great at helping customers understand the return on investment, she wrote.

AI-ready Copilot+ PCs, which Microsoft introduced last year, aren’t gaining much traction. The company had to delay the release of the Recall search feature to prevent data breaches. And the Copilot assistant subscription, at $30 a month for customers of the Microsoft 365 productivity suite, hasn’t become pervasive in the business world.

“Copilot was really their chance to take the lead,” said Jason Wong, an analyst at technology industry researcher Gartner. “But increasingly, what it’s seeming like is Copilot is just an add-on and not like a net-new thing to drive AI.”

Innovation

At 50, the biggest question facing Microsoft is whether it can still build impressive technology on its own. Products like the Surface and HoloLens augmented reality headset generated buzz, but they hit the market years ago.

Teams was a novel addition to its software bundle, though the app’s success came during the Covid pandemic after the explosive growth in products like Zoom and Slack, which Salesforce acquired. And Microsoft is still researching quantum computing.

In AI, Microsoft’s best bet so far was its investment in OpenAI. Somasegar said Microsoft is in prime position to be a big player in the market.

“To me, it’s been 2½ years since ChatGPT showed up, and we are not even at the Uber and Airbnb moment,” Somasegar said. “There is a tremendous amount of value creation that needs to happen in AI. Microsoft as much as everybody else is thinking, ‘What does that mean? How do we get there?'”

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AI could affect 40% of jobs and widen inequality between nations, UN warns

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AI could affect 40% of jobs and widen inequality between nations, UN warns

Artificial intelligence robot looking at futuristic digital data display.

Yuichiro Chino | Moment | Getty Images

Artificial intelligence is projected to reach $4.8 trillion in market value by 2033, but the technology’s benefits remain highly concentrated, according to the U.N. Trade and Development agency.

In a report released on Thursday, UNCTAD said the AI market cap would roughly equate to the size of Germany’s economy, with the technology offering productivity gains and driving digital transformation. 

However, the agency also raised concerns about automation and job displacement, warning that AI could affect 40% of jobs worldwide. On top of that, AI is not inherently inclusive, meaning the economic gains from the tech remain “highly concentrated,” the report added. 

“The benefits of AI-driven automation often favour capital over labour, which could widen inequality and reduce the competitive advantage of low-cost labour in developing economies,” it said. 

The potential for AI to cause unemployment and inequality is a long-standing concern, with the IMF making similar warnings over a year ago. In January, The World Economic Forum released findings that as many as 41% of employers were planning on downsizing their staff in areas where AI could replicate them.  

However, the UNCTAD report also highlights inequalities between nations, with U.N. data showing that 40% of global corporate research and development spending in AI is concentrated among just 100 firms, mainly those in the U.S. and China. 

Furthermore, it notes that leading tech giants, such as Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft — companies that stand to benefit from the AI boom — have a market value that rivals the gross domestic product of the entire African continent. 

This AI dominance at national and corporate levels threatens to widen those technological divides, leaving many nations at risk of lagging behind, UNCTAD said. It noted that 118 countries — mostly in the Global South — are absent from major AI governance discussions. 

UN recommendations 

But AI is not just about job replacement, the report said, noting that it can also “create new industries and and empower workers” — provided there is adequate investment in reskilling and upskilling.

But in order for developing nations not to fall behind, they must “have a seat at the table” when it comes to AI regulation and ethical frameworks, it said.

In its report, UNCTAD makes a number of recommendations to the international community for driving inclusive growth. They include an AI public disclosure mechanism, shared AI infrastructure, the use of open-source AI models and initiatives to share AI knowledge and resources. 

Open-source generally refers to software in which the source code is made freely available on the web for possible modification and redistribution.

“AI can be a catalyst for progress, innovation, and shared prosperity – but only if countries actively shape its trajectory,” the report concludes. 

“Strategic investments, inclusive governance, and international cooperation are key to ensuring that AI benefits all, rather than reinforcing existing divides.”

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Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand ‘off the charts,’ says Altimeter’s Gerstner

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Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand 'off the charts,' says Altimeter's Gerstner

Altimeter CEO Brad Gerstner is buying Nvidia

Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said Thursday that he’s moving out of the “bomb shelter” with Nvidia and into a position of safety, expecting that the chipmaker is positioned to withstand President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs.

“The growth and the demand for GPUs is off the charts,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report,” referring to Nvidia’s graphics processing units that are powering the artificial intelligence boom. He said investors just need to listen to commentary from OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk.

President Trump announced an expansive and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The plan established a 10% baseline tariff, though many countries like China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to steeper rates. The announcement sent stocks tumbling on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5%, headed for its worst day since 2022.

The big reason Nvidia may be better positioned to withstand Trump’s tariff hikes is because semiconductors are on the list of exceptions, which Gerstner called a “wise exception” due to the importance of AI.

Nvidia’s business has exploded since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, and annual revenue has more than doubled in each of the past two fiscal years. After a massive rally, Nvidia’s stock price has dropped by more than 20% this year and was down almost 7% on Thursday.

Gerstner is concerned about the potential of a recession due to the tariffs, but is relatively bullish on Nvidia, and said the “negative impact from tariffs will be much less than in other areas.”

He said it’s key for the U.S. to stay competitive in AI. And while the company’s chips are designed domestically, they’re manufactured in Taiwan “because they can’t be fabricated in the U.S.” Higher tariffs would punish companies like Meta and Microsoft, he said.

“We’re in a global race in AI,” Gerstner said. “We can’t hamper our ability to win that race.”

WATCH: Brad Gerstner is buying Nvidia

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