Oracle made $6 billion in profit last quarter — a 95% increase — and then fired 30,000 people via email at 6 AM. A mass email signed “Oracle Leadership” that said “today is your last working day.” Thirty thousand people woke up, checked their inbox, and found out they’re unemployed so Larry Ellison can spend $156 billion building AI data centers. The man is worth more than most countries’ GDP and his company just posted its best quarter in years, and the thank-you note to the workforce was a pink slip at dawn.
This is the part they don’t say out loud: AI isn’t replacing your job because it’s better than you. It’s replacing your job because your salary is standing between a billionaire and a bigger number. Oracle doesn’t need that $8 billion in “freed-up cash flow” to survive — it needs it to win a pissing contest with Amazon over who can build more data centers. Every one of those 30,000 people was a line item standing between Larry Ellison and a fatter stock price. The company signed a $300 billion deal with OpenAI the same quarter it told a fifth of its workforce to go home. If you still think the AI boom is about making the world better, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s about making payroll disappear.