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  • Hacker News
  • Here's my translation of this announcement: https://layofftranslator.com/layoffs/2026-06-24-elastic/
    by ronbenton
  • I wonder if some of these CEOs are anticipating a big crash and trying to lay people off now, so that (1) they can raise/hoard cash while the money-go-round is spinning and (2) their eng organization is already lean and used to it if/when the money-go-round stops.

    “Because of AI” indeed.

    by msteffen
  • This just reaffirms my view is that big companies will lose headcount because of AI, but small and medium companies will (or at least have the potential to) leverage AI to do bigger and better things. This is because big companies could always spend big money on getting what they want made while small companies always have to tradeoff what they can realistically do with the resources they have.
    by keithnz
  • Before the 1980s layoffs were seen as a massive failure of the company and almost never happened to tenured employees unless the company was collapsing. Before we are all made to think this is normal and unavoidable behavior.
    by tracerbulletx
  • It's interesting to contrast this announcement with a similar post from the CEO in 2022 [1]: those past layoffs had much more of a victim-of-circumstances tone as ZIRP was beginning to dry up, but apparently those "bad times" versus "good times" during AI mania just accounts for a delta of +6% additional layoffs.

    Another commenter questioned what size bucket Elastic falls into these days; in April 2025 their SEC filing [2] cited about 3,500 employees. So not a startup any more but definitely not fully-fledged FAANG-sized.

    (not sure whether it even applies here; but full disclosure, I left Elastic in 2022.)

    [1]: https://www.elastic.co/blog/ceo-ash-kulkarni-email-to-elasti... [2]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1707753/000170775325...

    by tylerjl
  • Funny, so many words used but my brain only hears, “I am currently mismanaging this company,” every time one of these layoffs occurs.
    by SaucyWrong
  • This announcement spends remarkably few words talking about the what (7% of the company's workforce was laid off), and a great deal of words talking about how bright the future of the company is and how they're going to hire more people.
    by nozzlegear
  • Makes me sad to read it as an ex-Elastic employee.

    AI is used to justify the redundancies, and the company still expects to grow in this fiscal year. In the SEC filling the specifically mention more “head count” in “go-to-market” roles [1].

    > a reduction of approximately 7% of our workforce

    > Advances in AI, automation, and technology are reshaping how work gets done, and we're changing with them. (…) That's what this reorganization is for: a simpler structure, with fewer layers, less complexity, and less friction.

    > The changes we announced today are a sign of confidence in the business, not a retreat from it. We continue to invest in key growth areas and expect total headcount to grow year-over-year this fiscal year [the SEC filling says “ The Company plans to continue hiring in key strategic areas and locations, including continuing to grow headcount in customer-facing go-to-market functions, and expects total headcount to grow this fiscal year compared to last fiscal year, as it continues to invest in future growth opportunities”]

    [1]: https://ir.elastic.co/financials/sec-filings/sec-filings-det...

    by puszczyk

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