로빈후드 10% 감원, 이제 AI 핑계는 안 통한다

It appears using AI as a cover story for cutting jobs is fast falling out of fashion. Unlike many of his tech industry peers who have cut thousands of jobs this year citing the need to restructure their teams to make the most of AI, Robinhood's CEO Vlad Tenev conspicuously made no mention of AI in his note to employees announcing that the company is letting go 10% of its full-time employees, or about 290 people. Nor did the company's regulatory filing announcing the move, which instead framed the cuts as a restructuring exercise. Still, Tenev did say the company would use "frontier technologies to push our execution even further," which sounds like a conscious effort to avoid even naming AI. Which isn't surprising: Sentiment against AI and related infrastructure projects has been trending lower even as a small minority of tech executives make ridiculous bank . But Tenev did add to the ongoing narrative that it's now necessary for companies to operate with smaller teams and "flatter organizational structures," writing: "We ⁠cannot default to operating as a heavily-layered organization. We must be a lean, hyper-focused team where every single individual is empowered to make a massive impact." We've seen companies of various stripes, from Amazon , Block , Coinbase , GitLab , and Intuit employing similar language in their layoff announcements, indicating that large teams, bureaucracy and siloed departments are now seen as undesirable line items at a time when AI tools promise to significantly improve productivity. Some even think it's a tacit allusion to the fact that tech companies over-hired following the COVID-19 pandemic, and are now scaling back as expenses begin to pile up — especially those associated with massive AI usage. Regardless, these companies are doing quite well. Tech stocks have surged broadly, spurred by record revenues , improving profit margins (GitLab reported 88% gross margin last month), skyrocketing demand for cloud services , and the belief that the billions being poured into data center projects will produce returns that are orders of magnitudes higher . Robinhood itself reported a 15% improvement in first-quarter revenue in April, and the company said its second quarter is looking better thanks to rising prediction market fees, subscription revenue, and strong equity and option trading volumes as markets stabilize. The company said on Tuesday it is also closing "a small number" of open roles, and that it would incur about $28 million in costs related to the cuts. Topics AI , Fintech , Layoffs , Robinhood When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Ram Iyer Editor Ram is a financial and tech reporter and editor. He covered North American and European M&A, equity, regulatory news and debt markets at Reuters and Acuris Global, and has also written about travel, tourism, entertainment and books. You can contact or verify outreach from Ram by emailing ram.iyer@techcrunch.com . View Bio June 18 Los Angeles Get an inside look at what it takes to scale and succeed from leaders at Mach Industries, Founders Fund, and Shinkei Systems. Through candid fireside chats and high-impact networking, you'll walk away with valuable insights and new connections. REGISTER NOW Most Popular The AI layoff wave is becoming a powder keg Connie Loizos Amazon CEO reportedly raised Anthropic model concerns before government crackdown Anthony Ha The FBI built its own replica small town to simulate real-world cyberattacks Zack Whittaker Meta's months-old AI unit is a soul-crushing gulag, say the engineers stuck inside it Connie Loizos Jeff Bezos's Prometheus raises $12B to build an ‘artificial general engineer' for the physical world Marina Temkin Cybersecurity researchers aren't happy about the guardrails on Anthropic's Fable Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai Google just fired a warning shot in the AI subscription price wars Lucas Ropek Connie Loizos