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Comment by bloppe | Hacker News Reader

I've become convinced that "investing in AI" is just the magic incantation CEOs are using to spin layoffs as a positive rather than a negative for the company's reputation among investors

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Yup. I thought this was an interesting take on the Block layoffs, from a former employee:

"I Worked for Block. Its A.I. Job Cuts Aren’t What They Seem."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/opinion/block-jack-dorsey...

also -

"Salesforce CEO says Block's cuts shouldn't fuel worries of mass layoffs: 'That company has its own unique issues'" https://www.aol.com/articles/salesforce-ceo-says-blocks-cuts...

one more :-) -

https://gizmodo.com/sam-altman-says-companies-are-ai-washing...

Jack Dorsey’s 4,000 Job Cuts at Block Arouse Suspicions of AI-Washing - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-01/jack-dors... | https://archive.today/QhUJT - March 1st, 2026

Sam Altman Says Companies Are ‘AI Washing’ Layoffs - https://gizmodo.com/sam-altman-says-companies-are-ai-washing... - February 21st, 2026

HN Search: AI Washing - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

AI isn’t replacing anyone, rather the money previously used to pay those people’s salaries etc is now being spent on AI.

They shove off people forced on them so they could grow faster, but the problem is, they don't have the ideas....

It's PR to cover management failure due to "me too", which reached ridiculous levels in the last 5 years.

I don't see what it has to do with "me too"

Take block:

AFAICT, it was just really badly managed. A long time ago it got about as much share of its main market as it was going to get. They took the cash flow from that and hired a bunch more engineers to try to break into adjacent markets, and failed, and failed and failed.

Now they are just retreating to the steady income from their core business

Pretty sure by putting "me too" in quotes and not saying #MeToo, what they're talking about is really FOMO. The companies are performing layoffs because of the trend

Oh, probably

As previous commenter said “me too” in the (lack of) leadership vein, not the sexual harassment tag.

I don't really see any relevance to "me too". Far more likely it's to cover from insane overhearing in the pandemic era, and no one wants to admit they overdid it.

I would guess the opposite, that anti-woke statements from management is a big red flag correlating with poor company performance

How is this in any way related to me too? How is that what to took from this? I implore you to think critically.

You are being downvoted because of the 'me too', but think you are refering to companies copying other companies (Amazon hires 10k? We hire 10k! Google fires 5k? we fire 5k) and not the 'me too' movement about sexual assault/harrassement.

People are downvoting because they think is "that" me too. What op meant is all the copycat management. "They use roflcopter.js? Then we must. They use AI? Then we must. They hire/fire 9070 people? Then we must."

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