Everyone who over-hired or lowered the bar too much in the 2021-2023 wave, or isn’t growing as fast as budgeted, now pretends they’re laying people off “due to AI productivity.”
7:32 AM · Jun 8, 2026 · 249.8K Views
Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale claims tech layoffs are driven by past over-hiring rather than AI productivity gains
Steven Sinofsky linked these hiring errors to remote work.
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Positive users back the claim that tech firms are blaming AI to hide 2021 over-hiring mistakes, while negative users argue AI productivity gains are genuinely driving the layoffs.
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41.7%
Neg
58.3%
21 comments with sentiment.
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VIEWS111.3KBOOKMARKS61LIKES948RETWEETS37REPLIES42
Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸@pmarca
Co-sign.
Joe Lonsdale@JTLonsdale
Everyone who over-hired or lowered the bar too much in the 2021-2023 wave, or isn’t growing as fast as budgeted, now pretends they’re laying people off “due to AI productivity.”
7hViews 111.3KLikes 948Bookmarks 61
Matthew Berman@MatthewBerman
Bloat correction masked as AI adoption
Joe Lonsdale@JTLonsdale
Everyone who over-hired or lowered the bar too much in the 2021-2023 wave, or isn’t growing as fast as budgeted, now pretends they’re laying people off “due to AI productivity.”
12hViews 14.7KLikes 95Bookmarks 4
Wei Wu 吴伟@WuWei113
Much these companys possess zero wisdom. If you lay off people you must pay severance penalty. Cost money for shareholder.
Just say your company now value racism, homofopeah, and hate all hoes. Much people resign. Now no need pay severance. Save shareholder profit. The white man leader lack perspecassidy.
14hViews 1.1KLikes 32
Gannon@nonnag
@JTLonsdale It sounds a lot better than leadership admitting they failed to manage their growth
14hViews 378Likes 15
Steven Sinofsky@stevesi
@JTLonsdale Remote hiring worked about as well as remote work in large companies.
Joe Lonsdale@JTLonsdale
Everyone who over-hired or lowered the bar too much in the 2021-2023 wave, or isn’t growing as fast as budgeted, now pretends they’re laying people off “due to AI productivity.”
14hViews 1.8KLikes 12Bookmarks 1
Joe Lonsdale@JTLonsdale
@MatthewBerman 🎯
12hViews 586Likes 20
Jaya Gupta@JayaGup10
@JTLonsdale True
2hViews 678Likes 2Bookmarks 1
Blake Scholl 🛫@bscholl
@JTLonsdale As someone who made the bar lowering mistake, I own it. I also fixed it before AI.
Also: AI is enabling the highest talent densities we’ve ever seen. The future is larger numbers of smaller teams. And the top teams are tiny and elite.
Joe Lonsdale@JTLonsdale
Everyone who over-hired or lowered the bar too much in the 2021-2023 wave, or isn’t growing as fast as budgeted, now pretends they’re laying people off “due to AI productivity.”
59mViews 632Likes 6Bookmarks 1
Joe Lonsdale@JTLonsdale
@nonnag 🎯
14hViews 357Likes 8
Iman Ghanizada@ImanGhanizada
@pmarca It wasn't just 21-23, all the ZIRP-based hiring from 2010-2020 massively inflated organizations and we've never had a deflationary period since 09.
21-24 was a massive H1B takeover in big tech.
AI has yet to take over a single job end to end successfully.
5hViews 60Likes 1Bookmarks 1
Margatix@margatix
@JTLonsdale exactly
a lot of these layoffs due to 'AI productivity' are just a comfortable shield for all the other things going wrong in the business
it’s arguably the most convenient way to reframe a cost problem you already had into a forward-looking decision the market rewards you for
11hViews 81Likes 1Bookmarks 1
Chip@ChipActual
in 2014-2018 I ran Reid Hoffman's consultancy based on his book "The Alliance" - C-level consulting engagements in Silicon Valley tech and VC companies.
I just couldn't understand so many people's jobs - just bizarre stuff. And the holders of said jobs were the most vocal in all meetings, dominating over engineers, product, marketing execs.
People, including me, were chastised for saying something perfectly normal. Lots of self-righteousness going on.
What I realized later is that it was the birth of corporate wokism.
All these people need to be fired. They did incalculable damage.
14hViews 123Likes 7
sarah guo@saranormous
@JTLonsdale correct
Joe Lonsdale@JTLonsdale
Everyone who over-hired or lowered the bar too much in the 2021-2023 wave, or isn’t growing as fast as budgeted, now pretends they’re laying people off “due to AI productivity.”
2hViews 830Likes 5Bookmarks 0
Al-Rashid Strategic Global System@AlRashidGlobal
The Strategic Alternative for Efficiency and Integrated Architecture: From Human Partnership to Third Millennium Management. Good morning Mr. Joe, the digital engineer of Silicon Valley! I completely agree with your insight. Tech executives hide their administrative failures and over-hiring behind the scapegoat of AI. Here, let us teach them a lesson; the modern Eternal City - Al-Rashid Path will be a reality in business management, as we view talent as strategic partners, not just employees. Our vision will revive the economy, boost U.S. GDP growth by eight points, and absorb even those who were laid off to build the ultimate future together. — Signed: Engineer of the Third Millennium Civilization
@JTLonsdale @realDonaldTrump @ElonMusk #TheThirdMillennium #SiliconValley #BusinessManagement #TheEternalCity #Economy
14hViews 3Likes 1Bookmarks 1
Joe Lonsdale@JTLonsdale
@k_kohlbrenner I believe in higher productivity thanks to AI - which btw also often makes each person worth more. We are helping enable it in various ways with all the companies we’ve been building and investing in.
I also know what hundreds of companies are doing, per above 🤣.
14hViews 242Likes 5
James Clark 📈📉¯\_(ツ)_/¯@mr_james_c
@JTLonsdale THIS.
And of course every journalist takes them at their word because journalists hate AI as well.
14hViews 180Likes 5
kohl@k_kohlbrenner
@JTLonsdale if a new company starts and says instead of 100 people, we can operate at 15 headcount … is that OK to attribute to AI productivity?
So, why can’t large companies who have too many people say, we’re cutting headcount due to … AI productivity?
14hViews 357
Thomas A. Anderson@tlanderso
@JTLonsdale What the AI is doing is eating the seed corn of the next harvest. Junior employees learn from senior employees by doing busy work for them that AI now helps with but you then don’t train the next generation of senior employees. So companies have to hire back, no savings.
13hViews 26Likes 1
Rod@rodbmy
@pmarca When are we laying off fake diploma holders in Silicon Valley in favor of new blood out of college?
7hViews 53Likes 4
Dr. Josh C. Simmons@drjoshcsimmons
@JTLonsdale Nope. This is cover for offshoring and sponsoring H-1B visa workers.
10hViews 45Likes 4
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