Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince recently announced the termination of 1,100 employees—about 20% of the company’s workforce—stating that AI has made an entire category of workers obsolete. The decision came as the cybersecurity firm reported its highest ever quarterly revenue.
Why the roles became obsolete:
- The “Measurer” and Support Role Cuts: Prince argued that AI agents are now better at measuring, managing, and objectively evaluating an organization’s performance than human workers. Consequently, internal support roles, middle management, and general administrative positions required behind more productive staff were eliminated.
- The Surge in Productivity: Cloudflare stated that internal adoption of AI increased by more than 600% in a three-month span, creating massive efficiency gains and reducing the need for human triage and support.
- Builders vs. Measurers: According to Prince, the company pivoted to focus on “builders” (engineers) and sellers (revenue-generating sales staff), letting go of the roles centered solely around process measurement and support.
- Future Outlook & Industry Trend:Despite the layoffs, Cloudflare stated they are still actively hiring for growth-focused positions and anticipate their overall employee headcount to rebound by 2027. This shift highlights a growing, controversial trend in the tech sector where companies pair surging revenues with AI-justified layoffs to transition into “agentic AI” work environments.