• Llamatron@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    I’ve worked in IT for close to 30 years and I’ve never met anyone with a good word to say about Oracle. I remember them being notorious for auditing their customers and nailing them to wall for even the slightest perceived infraction of their convoluted license agreements. I don’t understand how they still exist.

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    5 hours ago

    I wonder if it’s related at all to this ongoing trend ( How Money Works on YouTube). Tech Bros got sore about the post-epidemic culture at their companies: People wanted to work from home, and knew that their talent was important so they got bold asking for pay raises and benefits.

    And the tech bros took this personally. So first came the RTO mandates (which got rid of some techs, specifically the best and brightest) and then came later layoffs, some of which were blamed on AI automation.

    AI automation was never actually that much further along.

    Anyway, they laid off too many people, to the point that the remaining workforce didn’t know how to run the business and the tech. So they had to hire back some of the greybeards, and are still replacing lost positions with rookies fresh out of college.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      5 hours ago

      are they replacing? seems like the layoffs has gotten worst, and people arnt finding jobs in tech like they did, i saw a correlation an uptick in posts on many subs lining up with the layoffs. especially without how employers are using AI/ATS system to screen people out of a job.

  • Mereo@piefed.ca
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    7 hours ago

    Chinese open-source models are becoming the norm. You don’t need the latest model from ChatGPT (e.g., a Ferrari) to complete your task. A simple Honda will suffice (open-source models), and it uses a lot less energy since it runs on your home or company’s infrastructure.

    Because of that, I predict that we’re going to see a lot of financial hardship among AI companies.

    • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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      2 hours ago

      Open-weight not open source mostly. And they’re not keeping them open weight forever. Once they’ve truly surpassed the west, their future models will likely be closed down too so they could charge Anthropic level pricing and turn a profit.

    • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      it uses a lot less energy since it runs on your home or company’s infrastructure.

      A CPU-cycle requires energy no matter where it is. The open source models may be more efficient, or you may distribute the power usage over a greater geographical area. But you’re not using less energy because you’re running the model at home.

      Because of that, I predict that we’re going to see a lot of financial hardship among AI companies.

      I do like the idea that open source will kill tech giants.

      • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        You are correct. OpenAI etc. valuations are based on the difference between revenue and cost. The key part is that open source breaks the monopoly. It stops excessive rent being charged (now or in the future) to use Ai models.

        Tech giants will still exist, but closed model advantages won’t.

  • Kissaki@feddit.org
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    5 hours ago

    Sane regulation. You like to see it.

    $7 billion required collateral. , $100 million annually, $15 billion

    Oracle’s argument of “this investment is worth $15 billion” is not only entirely besides the point, which the regulating government office rightfully refuses, but "‘worth’ in your state or city is entirely pointless if it incurs not that amount of local public gain but only public cost. It’s a stupid, misleading argument.

    I’m really interested in what that 21k employee loss mean in practice. In a hype-craze it’s probably not sane restructuring and letting go of unneeded personal and inefficiencies, I assume.

  • comador @lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Couldn’t happen to a better group of companies. Let them all beg for bailouts and be denied.

    • db2@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      and be denied

      Maybe under a sane leadership, certainly not now. Trump will give them a bailout and a shipping container full of “deported” teenagers.

      • artyom@piefed.social
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        10 hours ago

        Even Obama handed out bailouts like candy. No chance this admin doesn’t.

        • 4am@lemmy.zip
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          9 hours ago

          I mean that’s one of the big draws of capitalism right? Much of the state’s power is derived from its elite oligarchy and their industrial contributions, in exchange for basically having a blind eye turned to anything they want.

          When you allow structure of such importance to exist as a business, you balance your house on toothpicks.

          Therefore, you can allow them to snap and tumble your whole home down a cliff; or you can treat them as part of the state (but, only when they need it. To keep up appearances.)

      • TIEPilot@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        lol you think either party wouldn’t bail them out? They all own stock in these companies, party line means fuck all when it comes to their net worth. Both parties will link arms sing kumbaya and rip us off yet again…

    • CoriolisSTORM88@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      While I agree with the anti Oracle sentiment, that’s 21,000 employees that didn’t say they wanted AI BS. The suits and ceos that do this aren’t the ones that pay the price. It’s always the ordinary people like you and I.

      • fizzle@quokk.au
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        10 hours ago

        I don’t think employees can really be separated from the company mission. They might not be the ones who benefit the most, but they still receive some benefit in exchange for producing the outcome.

        People resign from roles on ideological grounds all the time.

        • 4am@lemmy.zip
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          8 hours ago

          We’re still throwing out morality platitudes on tech workers as we’ve watched since COVID as the tech sector at all levels has bled jobs, senior staff looking for positions for 2-3 years in some cases.

          It’s impossible out there. I have moral objections to the way my company operates too but if I quit now my family will lose everything. I mean thankfully I’m not exactly crushing orphans in the orphan crushing machine but in a sane market I would look for something a little more aligned with my personal ideals. However just like buying a stick of RAM for a reasonable price, it just ain’t happening right now.

            • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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              2 hours ago

              “My family’s homeless but at least I’m not working for a corporation anymore”

              • fizzle@quokk.au
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                1 hour ago

                “I chose a job that I find satisfying even though I could earn more if I sold out”

        • Oni_eyes@sh.itjust.works
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          9 hours ago

          I’ve resigned on ideological grounds twice. It’s hard to do, especially if you don’t have a safety net or savings to tide you over until your next job. That being said, I think that executive pay should be reduced to compensate for job losses (as a payout to all the people who got fired) anytime shit like this happens. Make the C suite take accountability for their gambles.

        • AstralPath@lemmy.ca
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          9 hours ago

          I 100% agree if we’re talking about employees with the capacity to earn more than a living wage.

          You can’t tie people to the actions of the company they’re working for if they’re living paycheck to paycheck.

          Employees in the tech sector can absolutely afford to not work at Oracle or Flock or any one of the other antihuman shitholes like them. For a lot of these people all it took for them to sell their morality was a chance to make six figures.

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Jesus. This puts workers at, what, 150-200k laid off this year? Awful.

    But I do like that part about mandatory power grid guarantees. If we lived in a reasonable country that would be a federal regulation.

    • saltesc@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Yeah. Wisconsin sticking up for itself.

      And Oracle’s only angle was, “You’ll regret this. People will go elsewhere!”

      Seriously, I don’t see what data centres give their hosts. They barely require a workforce after setup, they rip through resources, they fuck with the environment, they offer no municipal services, and they’re eyesores. At best they’re a form of property tax revenue and I guess rates revenue.

    • Pistcow@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      let’s just say $100k if there’s the random custodial engineer in the mix. That $2.1 billion in salary. They reduced headcount 13% in 2025 and this would bea 15% from that. Probably cash strapped and about to go bust. Good.

  • PattyMcB@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    This shit is literally ruining the industry for developers/engineers.

    At least most of the ones I know and work with.

    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      it’s ruining the industry right now. when the bubble bursts and the datacenters crater it will be a new golden era for farming!

      I know plenty of devs who just want to farm, or hunt, or build shit.

      I can’t wait for the farming industry to be disrupted when 100,000 seasoned engineers descend upon companies like john deere. they’ll be like a plague of locusts that will blot out the sun forever.

      • lordbritishbusiness@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        I’ve been of the opinion that Silicon Valley and tech in the US has effectively drawn in the very best of several countries and collectively robbed so many industries of some of the smartest people around.

        These people retraining or going back home and into other industries could be an economic boom in the making.

  • perishthethought@piefed.social
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    10 hours ago

    To fund the rapid expansion, Oracle took aggressive efficiency measures and enacted a sweeping wave of layoffs. By the end of fiscal year 2026, the company’s workforce was slashed by about 21,000 employees, a decline of roughly 13%, from 162,000 to 141,000 workers. The deep cuts followed an operational restructuring driven in part by the internal adoption of AI technologies.

    If I read this new article right, they’re just talking about the layoffs from ORCL’s March/April 2026, which was their last fiscal year, which ended May 31 2026. I think this is just repeating old news. Anyone else read it that way?

    As a result, Oracle is now required to provide cash collateral or a letter of credit in the astronomical sum of over $7 billion just to connect the building to the power grid, a setup whose ongoing maintenance will cost the company more than $100 million annually.

    That seems to be what this article really has for news and that’s really funny, IMO. Go get 'em, Wisconsin.

  • NullPointerException@lemmy.ca
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    11 hours ago

    Last week we received the CPU (Critical Patch Update) for Oracle products, which is a list of strongly recommended patches. They issue 4 per year (end of January, April, July and October). ALL patches were late.

    • Kissaki@feddit.org
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      5 hours ago

      You think/Are you saying they’re late because of the layoffs? Or is that the norm for Oracle?