Talent Shifts and Layoffs in Big Tech

Big Tech's talent pool is a riptide: 180,000 jobs flushed in 2025 alone, per Layoffs.fyi, yet AI labs are poaching PhDs with $2M equity bombs. Amazon slashed 14,000 corporate roles to fund H100s, Microsoft axed 15,000 while Copilot codes 30% of its software, and Meta's FAIR lab shed 600 amid Zuckerberg's 'Superintelligence' pivot. Insiders leak: it's not just cuts, it's a surgical cull, reallocating $420B capex from payroll to GPUs, as Geoffrey Hinton warns: 'The money's in replacing labor.' Entry-level postings? Down 35% since ChatGPT's debut, stranding a decade of 'learn to code' grads in a market where AI writes the resume first.

Asia: Outsourcing's Reckoning and Bootcamp Boom

Bangalore's TCS trimmed 20,000 as clients automate legacy code; Accenture followed with 11,000 in data ops. Yet India's AI bootcamps surged 300% enrollment, minting 'vibe coders' for Seoul's Rebellions, where Big Tech snags 20% of grads pre-diploma, only for 40% to ghost within a year from burnout. Shenzhen's DJI offloaded 10% non-core staff but lured ethicists with $1.5M packages for edge AI in drone swarms. Insider whisper: Tokyo firms like Recruit Holdings cut 300 to 'adapt to AI's world,' but quietly hire for multimodal models, betting on Japan's 1.2M robotics talent pipeline to offset the bleed.

Europe & Americas: Poaching Raids and Mission Pivots

London's DeepMind alumni spawned 12 startups this year, three unicorns, poached at 8:1 from OpenAI. São Paulo's Nubank halved support after AI greenlit 2M micro-loans in October, faster than humans by 36 hours. In Canada, Suncor's oil engineers retrain for lithium AI seismic scans, cutting 15% legacy roles. U.S. scoop: Anthropic's retention hits 80% with 'bureaucracy-free' perks, raiding Meta at 11:1; IBM's 7,800 HR axe funds Watsonx, while Salesforce swapped 4,000 reps for agents that handle 50% of calls. Berlin hackathons like {Tech:Europe} bypass PhD gates, funneling indie talent to Mistral amid Google's 4,000 Search/Ads trim.

Memes, Morale Craters, and Blind Leaks

X is a layoff therapy session: Peter Diamandis's '800K cuts, but gold rush for AI builders' thread racked 2K likes, while r/cscareerquestions memes 'vibe-coding my pink slip' amid 351% YoY spikes. Blind forums erupt with Meta's 'Zuck purge' rants, 600 FAIR ghosts sparked diamond-hand TSMC calls, moving $2B after-hours. Mumbai WhatsApp chains forward Hinton as 'AI apocalypse bingo,' and a Berlin trader's Grok 4 outperformance tweet birthed 3B-view TikToks on 'Nvidia or bust.' The gut punch: Google's internal surveys show 40% morale nosedive; one anon: 'Building bots that ghost us'. These aren't jabs, they're job-market harbingers.

The $175K Premium and Horizon Bets

ML engineers pull $175K averages, but elite PhDs bag $2-14M from OpenAI raids; startups like Cursor and Crusoe vacuum $200B VC on this churn. Climate tech siphons 15% Big Tech AI brains for decarbon models, defense grabs 10% for Anduril swarms. Kalshi odds: 88% for 2025 cuts topping 2024's 152K. LeCun's Meta exit rumor? Domino fuel for a 'founders' wave' to indies. Pivot playbook: master agents and multi-modals, or join the bloodbath. Equity startup leap, or bunker in Big Tech's foxhole?