Mark Zuckerberg, who has declared 2023 as the ‘year of productivity’, clearly hasn’t put a full stop yet. According to sources close to the Menlo Park-based giant, the Met is preparing for another wave of restructuring, which could involve up to 20% of its staff. Although company spokesperson Andy Stone describes these reports as speculation, market logic suggests otherwise: the Big Tech industry is entering a phase of drastic capital shift from people to infrastructure.
The capital-intensive pursuit of superintelligence
The decision to potentially say goodbye to nearly 16,000 employees is not due to the financial crisis, but to a gigantic appetite for computing power. Meta plans to invest $600 billion in data centres by 2028. In a world where a single prominent AI researcher can expect a remuneration package going into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and where acquisitions of startups such as Manus cost billions, traditional employment structures are becoming ballast for the company.
It’s a strategic turnaround after a series of stumbles. Problems with the Llama 4 models and delays in the development of the flagship Avocado project have meant that Zuckerberg has to look for savings where AI is starting to realistically replace humans. Meta’s CEO openly admits that tasks that once required entire teams are now being handled by a single talented person supported by algorithms.
New industry standard
Meta is not alone in this strategy. We are seeing a broader trend in which technology leaders – from Amazon to Jack Dorsey’s Block – are optimising staffing, pointing to the increasing proficiency of generative tools. Productivity measured by the number of ‘heads’ is going away in favour of process efficiencies based on automation.
It is a risky move, but a necessary one. The Met needs to prove that it can prove the promise of super-intelligence, even if the price of doing so is a loss of internal structural stability. If the announced cuts come to fruition, it will be the ultimate confirmation that in Silicon Valley AI has ceased to be just a support tool and has become the reason why desks in open spaces remain empty.
