🚨 LAYOFF ALERT - GLOBAL TECH 🌐 TrueUp, a tech recruitment and tracking platform will lay off 150,000 employees at 363 companies, Silicon Valley on June 15, 2026.  The global tech industry is witnessing a severe structural shift. Data from outplacement trackers indicates that the pace of automated workforce reductions has accelerated by 44% compared to last year, averaging nearly 974 job eliminations every single day.

So far this year, there have been an estimated 363 layoffs at tech companies this year, affecting nearly 150,000 people — a pace of about 974 people per day, 44% faster than last year — according to TrueUp, that runs one of the most widely cited tech layoff trackers.

TrueUp最新數據顯示，科技業裁員速度較去年暴增44%，但「AI造成裁員」已逐漸被質疑是企業掩飾管理失當的「銀彈藉口」 — 連Jack Dorsey都坦承Block裁員根本係因疫情過度招募。與此同時，Cerebras上市市值飆670億美元、SpaceX掛牌逼近2.1兆美元，裁員與財富暴增並存正在引爆社會緊張。

The numbers: 974 people per day are losing jobs in tech — 44% faster than last year, per TrueUp. AI was the top-cited reason for three months straight.

The AI layoff wave is becoming a powder keg | Connie Loizos, TechCrunch Something strange is happening in tech right now. Companies are posting record profits and revenue while laying off tens of thousands of people, citing AI as the official explanation. So far this year, there have been an estimated 363 layoffs at tech companies this year, affecting nearly 150,000 people — a pace of about 974 people per day, 44% faster than last year — according to TrueUp, a tech job board and recruiting platform that also runs one of the most widely cited tech layoff trackers. The trend appears to be accelerating. Tech layoffs hit their highest single month in two years last month, with nearly 40,000 cuts, and AI was the most-cited reason for layoffs across every industry for the third month running, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Grey & Christmas. There’s growing skepticism that AI is really the culprit, though — that it’s more of a convenient cover story than the actual cause. Few examples illustrate the pushback better than what happened at the payments outfit Block earlier this year. After getting hammered over laying off nearly half the company earlier this year, Jack Dorsey denied the cuts were a sign of trouble, insisting instead that AI tools “are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company.” But pressed by commenters on X about the bloat he’d created during the pandemic, Dorsey later acknowledged that Block had, in fact, over-hired. Other voices have also begun to weigh in, including famed VC Marc Andreessen, who recently called AI the “silver bullet excuse” for layoffs that are really about pandemic-era overhiring. In conversation with podcaster-investor Harry Stebbings, Andreessen said, “Essentially, every large company is overstaffed. It’s at least overstaffed by 25%. I think most large companies are overstaffed by 50%. I think a lot of them are overstaffed by 75%. Now they all have the silver bullet excuse: Ah, it’s AI.” What happened earlier this month at Uber captures the ambiguity well. The company cut about 23% of its people division — the unit HR and recruiting — affecting less than 1% of its 34,000 employees, it said. A company spokesperson specified that the cuts had nothing to do with AI. But the announcement came roughly one month after Uber’s CTO offered that the company had burned through its entire 2026 AI coding budget in four months and had to cap individual engineers’ spending on tools like Cursor and Claude Code, so whatever Uber said publicly, people want to connect those dots. What makes this combustible: at the very moment that tens of thousands of workers are being shown the door, a small cohort of AI insiders is becoming wealthy on a scale that’s hard to comprehend. Early last month, AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems closed its first day on the Nasdaq up 68% from its $185 IPO price, giving the chipmaker a market cap of roughly $67 billion — the largest US tech IPO since Snowflake’s 2020 debut. By the close, co-founders Andrew Feldman and Sean Lie were billionaires. (The company’s shares have since fallen 30%.) SpaceX meanwhile went public on Friday and enjoys, as of this writing, a $2.1 trillion market cap, turning Musk into a paper trillionaire and potentially minting an estimated 4,400 millionaires, and around 400 centimillionaires in the process — assuming the shares don’t fall. Anthropic and OpenAI are quickly inching toward the public market, too, both at valuations of roughly $1 trillion or more. Then there’s Mark Zuckerberg. In early March, he purchased a $170 million mansion on Miami’s “Billionaire Bunker,” setting the all-time record for the most expensive home sale in Miami-Dade County history. Two months later, Meta announced it would lay off 8,000 people, or roughly 10% of its workforce. It isn’t just Zuckerberg; tech titans routinely shell out jaw-dropping sums on their real estate portfolios. But these extremes come at a moment when many Americans are getting squeezed harder than they have been in years. Consider that workers with employer-sponsored health insurance face premium increases of about 6% to 7% this year, more than double the rate of inflation, the cost of private health insurance has roughly doubled since 2008, and median home prices have climbed 28% since early 2020, while mortgage rates have nearly doubled. In a January 2026 New York Times/Siena poll, 65% of voters said a middle-class lifestyle is out of reach, and a more recent poll found 76% of Americans now name cost of living as their top economic concern, up sharply from 58% a year earlier. This is about more than job losses in isolation, in short. It’s tens of thousands of laid-off tech workers hitting an unusually unforgiving cost environment at the same time that tens of thousands of AI insiders are seeing once-in-a-generation paper wealth materialize, and being told that AI is why they’re out of a job. Whether or not that’s the real explanation — many economists point instead to tariffs, war in the Middle East, and broader economic uncertainty as the actual drivers of corporate caution — the optics are what they are. One group is getting unfathomably rich off the advancements that are supposedly replacing the other. It isn’t hard to find a precedent for what happens when that divide gets wide enough. In 2008, a financial crisis that began with loose lending and over-the-top risk-taking on Wall Street ended with bailouts for the banks that caused it, while millions of Americans lost jobs and homes in the Great Recession that followed. Three years later, that anger crystallized into Occupy Wall Street. That movement could look quaint in comparison if the current trajectory holds. Occupy Wall Street emerged from a crisis and the public anger was, at its core, about who paid for the cleanup. This time, there’s no crash to point to. Companies are profitable, AI itself is minting a new class of overnight fortunes, and the layoffs are happening anyway, with AI cited as the driver. If the optics of 2008 were, “We’re bailing out the people who broke the economy while you lose your job,” the optics here could end up being, “We’re getting richer than ever off the very tech we’re using to replace you.” Many companies — Block, Atlassian, Cloudflare, among them — have watched their stocks surge when they point to AI as the reason for cuts, so the strategy makes sense on its face. Still, they might want to consider whether that’s really the message they want to send to the people they’re laying off, and to everyone else now watching. techcrunch.com/2026/06/15/th…

🚨 Top VC Funds at Seed Stage Funds that led the most Seed rounds for startups that later became unicorns ($1B ) 1. Y Combinator - 35 unicorns • Deel • Replit • Supabase 2. Andreessen Horowitz - 15 unicorns • Anysphere • Thinking Machines Lab • Replit 3. Accel - 9 unicorns • Infra .Market • Gamma • Moglix 4. Sequoia - 9 unicorns • Reflection AI • Pony.ai • Island 5. General Catalyst - 8 unicorns • Hippocratic AI • Orchard • Loom 6. Lightspeed Venture Partners - 8 unicorns • Mistral AI • Multiverse • Redpanda 7. Khosla Ventures - 6 unicorns • OpenAI • Faire • GitLab 8. Founders Fund - 5 unicorns • Anduril • Quince • RigUp 9. 8VC - 4 unicorns • Quince • Side • Maven 10. Bain Capital Ventures - 4 unicorns • Crusoe • Digital Currency Group • Quantum Metric 11. Coatue - 4 unicorns • Supabase • Persona • Distyl 12. Initialized Capital - 4 unicorns • Rippling • Papa • Standard AI 13. Lux Capital - 4 unicorns • Together AI • Runway • Zoox 14. Peak XV Partners - 4 unicorns • Zetwerk • BharatPe • Apna Source: TrueUp .io (Based on companies founded in the last 12 years)

En lo que va de 2026 ya van ~143,000 despidos en tech, y TrueUp proyecta 370,000 al año. Amazon, Meta, Cisco, Pinterest recortando miles mientras gastan cientos de billones en infraestructura IA. La ironía: la IA cuesta MÁS que los empleados que reemplaza.

🚨 Top VC & Tech Investor Billionaires (2026) 1. Masayoshi Son - $85–92B • Founder, SoftBank • Early backer of Alibaba, Arm, ByteDance, Coupang 2. Peter Thiel - $23–28B • Founders Fund • First outside investor in Facebook • Co-founder of PayPal & Palantir 3. John Doerr - $16.7–24B • Kleiner Perkins • Early investor in Google, Amazon, Sun Microsystems 4. Vinod Khosla - $15.5–15.6B • Khosla Ventures • Co-founder of Sun Microsystems • Early bets on OpenAI, Stripe, DoorDash 5. Orlando Bravo - $11.9–12.8B • Founder, Thoma Bravo • One of the world's most successful software investors 6. Mark Stevens - ~$12B • Sequoia Capital • Early investor in NVIDIA 7. Doug Leone - $12.0–12.2B • Sequoia Capital • Backed ServiceNow, MongoDB, Nubank 8. Robert F. Smith - ~$10B • Founder, Vista Equity Partners • Largest Black private-equity billionaire 9. Yuri Milner - ~$8.7B • DST Global • Early investor in Facebook, WhatsApp, Alibaba, Spotify 10. Michael Moritz - ~$8B • Sequoia Capital • Early investor in Google, PayPal, Yahoo 📊 Combined net worth: More than $200 billion 💰 Most fortunes were built by backing technology companies before the rest of the world noticed them. Source: Forbes Billionaires List, Bloomberg Billionaires Index, TrueUp .io

🚨 Top VC Funds at Series A Funds that led the most Series A rounds for startups that later became unicorns ($1B ) 1. Andreessen Horowitz - 43 unicorns • Anysphere • Applied Intuition • Deel 2. Sequoia - 23 unicorns • Harvey • Cyera • OpenEvidence 3. Accel - 20 unicorns • Scale AI • Vercel • Fever 4. Index Ventures - 18 unicorns • ClickHouse • Cohere • Alan 5. Lightspeed Venture Partners - 17 unicorns • Rubrik • Reflection AI • Glean 6. Kleiner Perkins - 14 unicorns • Rippling • Glean • Together AI 7. Benchmark - 11 unicorns • Mercor • Discord • ClickHouse 8. General Catalyst - 11 unicorns • Hippocratic AI • Polymarket • Modular 9. Tiger Global - 11 unicorns • Razorpay • Infra .Market • Zip 10. Greylock Partners - 10 unicorns • Nuro • Abnormal AI • Aurora 11. Insight Partners - 10 unicorns • OneTrust • Quince • Island 12. Thrive Capital - 10 unicorns • Anysphere • Hims • Physical Intelligence Source: TrueUp .io (Based on companies founded in the last 12 years)

Teknoloji sektörünün genelindeki iş kayıplarını ve çıkarmaları takip eden TrueUp, 2020 yılının başından bu yana 1,45 milyondan fazla emekçinin, bu yıl ise sadece 143 binin teknoloji emekçinin işten çıkarıldığını tespit etmiş. İşten çıkarmaların 2026 yılının sonuna kadar 370.000'e ulaşması bekleniyor. Büyük teknoloji şirketlerinin devasa kar oranları ortadayken bunun tek bir anlamı var: Büyük teknoloji şirketleri, bir zamanlar işçilere ödenen parayı alıp, makineler, binalar, bilgisayar sistemleri ve enerji sözleşmeleri gibi şirketlerin kendi kontrolündeki mülklere dönüştürüyor. extremetech.com/computing/20…

That's right, Bryan. The peg manipulation in the trueup window needs to be addressed more in LMM deals.

🚨 Most Anticipated Tech IPOs Private tech companies expected to go public in the coming years 1. Anthropic - AI research and deployment 2. OpenAI - AI research and deployment 3. Databricks - Data analytics infrastructure 4. Zepto - Grocery delivery 5. Stripe - Payments infrastructure 6. Airwallex - Cross-border payments 7. Upgrade - Digital banking 8. Discord - Voice and text chat platform 9. Skims - Apparel and fashion 10. Vercel - Frontend developer platform 11. Zetwerk - B2B manufacturing marketplace 12. SHEIN - Fast-fashion e-commerce 13. SpaceX - Rockets and spacecraft 14. Armis - Device security 15. Cohesity - Data backup and resilience 16. Cato Networks - Enterprise networking and security 17. Netskope - Cloud cybersecurity 18. Farmers Business Network - Agri-tech platform 19. Claroty - Industrial cybersecurity 20. Lalamove - On-demand delivery 📊 AI dominates the list. Anthropic, OpenAI and Databricks are among the most closely watched private companies in the world. 🚀 A future IPO from OpenAI, Anthropic or SpaceX could become one of the largest tech listings in history. Source: TrueUp IPO Trajectory Rankings

🚨Ranking of Top Countries for Tech Based on TrueUp tech industry data #1 United States #2 China #3 India #4 United Kingdom #5 Germany #6 Canada #7 Singapore #8 Israel #9 France #10 Japan #11 Australia #12 South Korea #13 Brazil #14 Netherlands #15 Sweden #16 T Taiwan #16 T Ireland #18 T Mexico #18 T Hong Kong #20 Spain #21 United Arab Emirates #22 Switzerland #23 Indonesia #24 T Italy #24 T Finland #26 Philippines #27 Austria #28 T Thailand #28 T Argentina #30 South Africa

🚨 May 2026 Tech Layoffs: - Cognizant → 12,000–15,000 - Meta → 8,000 (10%) - PayPal → 4,760 (20%) - Cisco → 4,000 - Intuit → 3,000 (17%) - Amdocs → 2,900 (7–10%) - Cloudflare → 1,100 (20%) - Wix → 1,000 (20%) - Walmart Tech → 1,000 - LinkedIn → 875 (5%) - Bill Holdings → 709 (30%) - Covalen (Meta contractor) → 720 - Coinbase → 700 (14%) - ZoomInfo → 600 (20%) - Freshworks → 500 (11%) - Groupon → 400 (25%) - Innovaccer → 340 - ClickUp → 285 (22%) - SentinelOne → 230–300 (8–10%) - DeepL → 250 (25%) - Arctic Wolf → 250 - Phreesia → 220 - Jumia → 200 (10%) - MRI Software → 200 - Adda247 → 200 (20%) - Staffbase → 176 (22%) - Build a Rocket Boy → 170 (68%) - Upwork → 150 (24%) - Kraken → 150 - BigID → 150 (23%) - Gambling .com → 140 (25%) - Pocket FM → 120 (10% ) - AI21 → 110 (60%) - Quantic Dream → 95 - Nacon → 90 - NetApp → 77 - Truecaller → 70 (15%) - Minute Media → 60 (12%) - Breadfast → 58 - One Identity → 41 - Gameteq → 40 - Apna Mart → 40 (10%) - LSports → 40 - Gauntlet → 30 - Shopify → 30 - reAlpha → 28 (25%) - Guesty → 20 - Playtika (Wooga) → 15 - xAI / Cursor → 10 - OH .io Ventures → 10 (25%) - 0G Labs → 10 (25%) ━━━ % Unknown / Significant ━━━ - Telus Digital → hundreds - Webflow → significant ("it was a bloodbath") - Rapyd → dozens ("now operated by AI") - Bird → 20% of team - Dune Analytics → 25% of team - Bungie → significant - Bankless → most of team - Careem → Pakistan exit - TikTok → music label roles - Branch International → Nigeria/Kenya staff - Parker → 100% (bankruptcy) - SQream → 100% (insolvency) - Picnic → 100% (full shutdown) ━━━ The Number ━━━ Total May 2026: 28,000 – 30,000 jobs 2026 YTD: 149,000 workers impacted Every company above cited the same reason: AI. (Source: TrueUp, Layoffs .fyi, Skillsyncer - May 2026)