When Big Tech Fires Startups Step In to Hire

In recent weeks, Meta, Google, Amazon, and Broadcom have announced significant layoffs, even as they expand their artificial intelligence programs and report revenue growth tied directly to the technology. The same companies leading the AI boom are simultaneously cutting thousands of jobs, underscoring a paradox at the heart of the industry. Across the technology sector, the number of employees laid off this year has reached 91,719 across 212 companies. These cuts are affecting contractors, managers, and specialized engineers. At Meta, approximately 600 roles were eliminated this week from Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), the division created in June to consolidate AI efforts under a single banner. MSL was tasked with advancing Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of “personal superintelligence” and grew rapidly, with Meta hiring engineers and researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Apple, and Microsoft. That rapid hiring produced overlapping mandates and internal friction. In a memo seen by employees, chief AI officer Alexandr Wang explained the change: “By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact.” The cuts affected staff in the FAIR research group, the product division, and the infrastructure team, while the TBD group, responsible for training Meta’s next-generation AI models was not impacted. Meta also informed staff in its risk organization that certain roles were being eliminated due to new automated processes. According to the internal note, Meta has invested in standardized technical controls and automated compliance checks, which have reduced the need for manual reviews. “Our work has matured, and we’re at a point where we can operate more efficiently and effectively, while still upholding the highest standards for compliance,” the memo said. While these cuts are significant, Meta has simultaneously continued to hire top AI talent at extraordinary cost. Zuckerberg reportedly paid $1.5 billion to recruit Andrew Tulloch , co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, whose startup is valued at $12 billion. At Google, workforce reductions have been spread across AI-related projects. In September, more than 200 contractors were cut from teams working on Gemini and AI Overviews, according to Wired. These employees had been responsible for training and refining AI systems. In October, Alphabet-owned Google reduced staff further, eliminating around 100 design employees, CNBC reported. Those employees worked on data collection and survey tools used to study user behavior for product development. Amazon has also moved to restructure its workforce. The company is preparing to lay off close to 15 percent of its staff across departments including human resources and consumer businesses. CEO Andy Jassy has repeatedly emphasized the centrality of AI to Amazon’s future. In a June memo, he wrote: “Those who embrace this change, become conversant in AI, help us build and improve our AI capabilities internally and deliver for customers, will be well-positioned to have high impact and help us reinvent the company.” The layoffs are taking place against that backdrop, with AI adoption shaping which roles remain and which functions are reduced. At Broadcom, job losses are tied to acquisition activity. Following its purchase of VMware, the company disclosed 247 job cuts at its Palo Alto facility. At the same time, Broadcom has entered a partnership with OpenAI to develop AI chips, signaling its deeper move into AI infrastructure even as certain positions are eliminated. For affected employees, the immediate outcome is clear: Meta is offering 16 weeks’ severance and has created a recruiter-led “tiger team” to place impacted staff in other roles internally. Google, Amazon, and Broadcom have made similar commitments to support departing workers, though at varying levels of scale. But another path has quickly opened. A number of startups have begun actively targeting laid-off employees, seeing in them a chance to accelerate their own AI roadmaps. One of the most notable is Smallest.ai, founded by Indian-born entrepreneur Sudarshan Kamath . Kamath dropped out of a master’s program at UC San Diego to pursue entrepreneurship, after stints at Bosch and Vakilsearch. His company developed Lightning, billed as the world’s fastest, highest-quality text-to-speech model. Based in San Francisco, Smallest.ai is among the rare Indian-founded startups building foundational AI models for a global market. On social media, Kamath issued a direct invitation: “Laid off from Meta? We are hiring in speech team for Smallest AI in San Francisco!” He added that open positions offer base salaries ranging from $200,000 to $600,000 annually, along with flexible equity compensation. Applicants, he said, should have experience with speech evaluation, speech generation, or duplex speech-to-speech systems and be, in his words, **f ing smart and hun

When Big Tech Fires Startups Step In to Hire

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