{"id":1145,"date":"2026-06-09T17:05:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T17:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanhomejournals.com\/?p=1145"},"modified":"2026-06-09T17:05:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T17:05:39","slug":"palantir-cofounder-says-ceos-are-pretending-layoffs-are-about-ai-productivity-when-theyre-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanhomejournals.com\/?p=1145","title":{"rendered":"Palantir cofounder says CEOs are pretending layoffs are about ‘AI productivity’ when they’re not"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

AI layoffs are everywhere. Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale suspects many of them aren’t because of AI at all.<\/p>\n

Read more Salesforce lays off employees in a new round of cuts<\/a><\/p>\n

The layoff memos look quite similar, from Block to Atlassian to Coinbase. They cite productivity gains from AI technology and the need for smaller teams with fewer layers.<\/p>\n

Lonsdale isn’t convinced.<\/p>\n

“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,'” Lonsdale wrote on X.<\/p>\n

The post quickly gained traction online, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen co-signed the message. Khosla Ventures partner Jon Chu also cosigned and called out “Meta and Square as clear examples.”<\/p>\n

Gannon McCollum, a staffer at Elon Musk’s xAI, commented that the AI excuse “sounds a lot better than leadership admitting they failed to manage their growth.” Lonsdale responded with a bullseye emoji.<\/p>\n

Dockvine founder Sid Jain called it the “PR machine.” Fuse founder Alan Chang asked: “If leaders can’t admit their own mistakes, how can they expect employees to admit theirs?”<\/p>\n

Read more Facebook\u2019s infamous 2012 IPO offers a preview of what could go wrong for SpaceX<\/a><\/p>\n

Lonsdale isn’t the first to suspect something was amiss in these layoff rationales. In February, Sam Altman said that companies were “AI-washing” their layoffs.<\/p>\n

“People are blaming AI for layoffs that they would otherwise do,” the OpenAI CEO said.<\/p>\n

Block CEO Jack Dorsey was specifically accused of masking a correction to his over-hiring during the pandemic. He responded that it was true, but that it “misses all the complexity.”<\/p>\n

Lonsdale is a big believer in AI. 8VC, the venture capital firm where Lonsdale is a general partner, is invested in several AI companies.<\/p>\n

“I believe in higher productivity thanks to AI,” Lonsdale wrote in a comment. “I also know what hundreds of companies are doing.”<\/p>\n

Read more Elon Musk shared a fresh look at the AI data centers SpaceX wants to send into orbit<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Investor Joe Lonsdale said CEOs who over-hired or “lowered the bar too much” are now masking their layoffs with “AI productivity.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech"],"yoast_head":"\nPalantir cofounder says CEOs are pretending layoffs are about 'AI productivity' when they're not - American home journals<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanhomejournals.com\/?p=1145\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Palantir cofounder says CEOs are pretending layoffs are about 'AI productivity' when they're not - 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