The wave of personnel cuts in the technology industry continues to spread when Mark Zuckerberg first spoke out to explain the decision to fire thousands of employees at Meta Platforms. Accordingly, the main reason comes from the company's strong increase in investment in artificial intelligence (AI).
At a recent company meeting, Mr. Zuckerberg said that resource allocation was the key factor leading to this decision.
If we invest more in one field to serve the community, it means we have less capital for other fields," Zuckerberg said.
This forced Meta to narrow down its scale in some divisions, especially those that were no longer priorities.
According to the plan, Meta has laid off about 8,000 employees recently. Previously, the company also cut about 10% of its workforce and is expected to continue streamlining in the second half of the year.
Not only stopping there, Meta also decided not to recruit more for about 6,000 vacant positions that had been planned in advance.
Notably, Zuckerberg affirmed that personnel cuts are not directly related to restructuring according to the "AI native" model or developing AI agents. However, reality shows that the AI investment strategy is having a profound impact on both the company's financial and personnel structure.
Meta currently identifies the two largest cost centers as computing infrastructure and human-related activities. In the context of sharply increasing costs of building data centers, chips and AI systems, the company is forced to cut in other areas to balance its budget.
The recent issuance of $25 billion in bonds shows that Meta is focusing on AI. At the same time, the company also raised its capital spending forecast for 2026 to $145 billion.
This is part of the general trend of technology giants, as total spending on global AI infrastructure could exceed 700 billion USD this year.
However, the decision to cut personnel and the long silence of the leadership have caused no small internal reactions. Some employees have publicly criticized the company's leaders on internal forums, expressing dissatisfaction with the management and lack of transparency in information.
In addition, initiatives such as monitoring employee activities to train AI have also sparked much controversy. This shows that the transition to AI is not only a technology story but also related to corporate culture and workers' rights.
