u/dhakalster123

Cloudflare reported $639.8M revenue last week, up 34% YoY — record quarter. Same afternoon, they cut 1,100 people, about 20% of staff. CEO said internal AI usage grew "600% in three months" and the work just wasn't needed anymore.

What got cut: support functions, HR, finance, internal marketing — basically everything behind the customer-facing teams. Sales was untouched.

https://preview.redd.it/3vjlfy7bdh0h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=35ce033a2a22c80d805806480d67403bb0aee86c

What didn't add up to me: the stock dropped 23% the next day. If AI productivity is real, the market should love it. Investors clearly didn't buy the explanation.

Genuine question for people further along in their careers: how are you positioning yourself? Are the "support" / ops-adjacent roles really getting hollowed out, or is this just AI-flavored cost cutting that would have happened anyway?