iirc some companies (google?) had been doing that before section 174 anyway. (which is why it imo isn't super convincing to tie layoffs with section 174 rather than e.g. end of zirp)

ok I read it in https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/section-174/ "Google: the tax change was minimal, because Google was voluntarily amortizing software development expenses for most staff, already."