PayPal’s new CEO walked in the door in March, fired 20% of the staff, and announced the company is “becoming a technology company again.” As opposed to what? The 23,800 people who showed up every day and ran one of the world’s biggest payment networks — what were they operating, a nail salon?
The framing is built to make you forget there are people in the number. 4,760 of them. When a new CEO says the company is “becoming” something it used to be, the implication is that the existing workforce was the problem. That they de-teched it somehow. That the humans were what stood between PayPal and its true technological destiny. Very convenient. AI doesn’t drag it down that way.
$1.5 billion in “run-rate savings” is the number Enrique Lores is promising shareholders. Not 4,760 people — savings. That’s the active subject of every press release this week. The workers are passive, incidental, a line item in the transformation story. The CEO gets a turnaround narrative. The workers get a severance package and the advice to stay positive on their job search.