Why do we need to complicate here? cloudFlare is not making any profit. They are losing money.
The board probably wants profit now (they predict less growth) so the management needs to cut the costs.
This AI story is a just an excuse. If there is not AI they will say “high gas prices”. Or “inflation”. Or whatever …
It is true that the companies like Meta, Oracle and Microsoft are laying off due to AI but because they need money to build compute power.
There are some companies who maybe do lay offs due to AI replacing employees. But this might not be the one.
I'll just point out that this is exactly the point in the corporate character arc where every company before turns evil.
I never liked the idea of every web site in the world using CloudFlare, but I like it even less now that they're struggling.
> so the management needs to cut the costs
I love it that they explicitly say in their blog post "this is not a cost cutting exercise".
Of course, every "regrettably..." letter from company execs is understood to be an entirely performative ritual.
One smart old guy once told me that the only language you need to speak in the financial world is spreadsheets. No words needed.