Over the past few weeks, several US banks have pulled off from lending to Oracle for expanding its AI data centres, as per a report.
This particular source seems sketchy, but the broader context supports the core of this story.
There was a report in January from TD Cowen that Oracle needed to free up cash as banks tightened up lending for data center deals, and that certain projects were on hold and in jeopardy of being canceled. That same report projected that Oracle might lay off 20,000 to 30,000 workers.
Then, just this last Friday, Bloomber reported that Oracle and OpenAI canceled their plans to expand their flagship data center in Texas as part of their $500 billion “Stargate” initiative. Here’s the Reuters article describing it at a high level, because the original report is paywalled.
So everyone is looking back at that January report and seeing the recent data center news as confirmation that Oracle wants to free up cash by laying off staff.
$3.50 for the JavaScript trademark.
Note that the article is from the beginning of February.
Why did it take so long? You’d think these articles are staggered at the request of the owner So the small army he fired doesnt revolt
The bubble popping seems inevitable at this point. Before the Giants were funding this by their core business plus loans backed by their core business. Now they’ve stretched their credit so much that no one’s giving them loans anymore and instead of cutting back on the building spree they’re making cuts to their core business.
They’re betting that their customers are so locked in that they won’t leave despite degradation in service. How deep oracle, AWS, googles hooks are in people remain to be seen, people seem to tolerate a lot of enshitification, but there’s gotta be a tipping point. Once they reach that and the core business crashes all the rest of the dominos will fall.
I think this is two stories being mixed a bit here?
A bit over one month old, the lending issues: https://www.cio.com/article/4125103/oracle-may-slash-up-to-30000-jobs-to-fund-ai-data-center-expansion-as-us-banks-retreat.html
Now, confirmation of the cuts that were suspected since last year from Bloomberg: https://www.reuters.com/business/oracle-plans-thousands-job-cuts-data-center-costs-rise-bloomberg-news-reports-2026-03-05/
I’m not saying there is not a link between the events, but somehow the posted article does a weird rehash mixed with news, and is not even dated, and I don’t like that, so I’m sharing the individual news pieces as separate links for other’s benefit.
I see you and raise you a class action for reckless AI spending: https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/oracle-corporation-orcl-class-action-lawsuit-seeks-recovery-for-investors-april-6-2026-deadline-contact-kessler-topaz-meltzer-check-llp-890e8c24
Thanks for doing the research
If the banks don’t see the value in it, it’s only a matter of time
Sucks to be in tech right now. I’m sure there are still pockets of good employers with happy, confident worker bees, but those are few and far between as best I can tell.
Pretty much everybody I know and speak with regularly who is working in the tech industry or a tech role in general is feeling the strain.
Layoffs. Remaining employees have to pick up the additional workload of people who were laid off. Threats of future layoffs. Hiring freezes. Bonuses slashed or cut entirely. Little or no raises, not even cost of living increases. Demotions, in some cases. Expected to use LLMs to do things that LLMs have no business doing because management is clueless on the topic and expects everybody who is “good with computer” to be an AI expert. And the list goes on.
And then as already mentioned elsewhere, there are almost no true entry-level positions opening up, so new grads are really struggling to get established in the industry. It’s particularly sad because this is so short-sighted and the negative impacts have the potential to be quite severe.
Easy win for companies that didn’t buy into the hype. I’m the only dedicated software dev at my company, so there was no middle manager to foolishly think a chat bot could do my job. We are a small company that can compete with big players, and those big players appear to be floundering. Now, we are expanding.
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This is worse than 2008 and I remember back then I was let go and the other guy was not and we sorta debated which would be worse off. This is way worse though. I would say at least twice as bad at this point. Funny thing was no one realized the trouble we were in in 2008 it was really like 2010 by the time it was really felt. On hindsite they are going to be talking about the collapse in 2025.
I’m not an economist, so I don’t know shit about fuck (though most economists don’t either tbf), but some people are comparing this to the railway bubble. Shit’s (potentially) so bad that they don’t even have a comparison from within our lifetimes to point to.
I was listening to a finance YT vid last night and the dude said if it wasn’t for the enormous AI spend, the US would be deep in a technical recession now.
obviously the fault of immigrants and those on food stamps though /s
Those damn immigrants taking up all of the best landscaping, slaughterhouse, roof tarring, and crop picking jobs.
Ironically the only jobs that Anthropic and OpenAI claim AI won’t take. All those newly minted AI billionaires and nobody to maintain their golf courses… How sad is that?
What good is being super wealthy if you can’t feel superior to other people?
I cannot wait for this bubble to finally burst.
It’s gonna suck for the working class WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more than the people who will lose their fortunes as a result of the bubble popping
sorry
it always does
Michael Saylor, one of the biggest owners of one of the other “doesnt actually do anything” bubbles - Bitcoin - is a great example. He made a fortune during the dot com bubble.
With that said, if I have to eat hard tack and canned beans and use leftover charcoal from the park BBQ grills instead of toothpaste in order to never have another AI bullshit feature shoehorned into my existence, it might be worth it
Yes, I am well aware that we live under capitalism.
The big bubble. May it pop before we do.
What does Oracle even do?
Charge people who accidentally used their Java SDK.
Create a db that sucks so bad you have to hire them to maintain it.
Boy you’re in for a ride.
Palantir runs on Oracle Cloud.
Oracle finances Paramount buying out Warner Bros.
Other shady shit Oracle does: https://thedreydossier.substack.com/p/the-merger-that-needed-a-war
Basically think Oracle is a competent League of Evil that can hide from the media spotlight.
They hide from the media spotlight by increasingly being the media spotlight.
They sell software that sits so deep in people’s stack that replacing it takes tons of effort. Companies calculate that it’s cheaper to keep paying Oracle than to rewrite crucial services.
Some people say Oracle doesn’t have clients. They have hostages.
“You know what the trouble is, Brucey? We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy’s pocket.”
Destroy popular and useful companies.
They fired people for AI, now they fire them without AI. Please tell me how they plan on sustaining an economy where only the 1% has discretionary income?
But Oracle was building those data centers for OpenAI. OpenAI is going to be used by the Pentagon. Bailing Oracle out is now a matter of National Security!! If this has to come off of the taxes paid by the people they just laid off, that’s unfortunate but… have I mentioned National Security?
No, this week it’s the children.
They don’t need an economy. They need obedient workers
Obedient unemployed
First they need to destroy your income, then they can make you do whatever they want
Control instead of trust, a problem as old as time. Trust would lead to prosperity, control, if not absolute, will always eventually fail - and it’s never absolute.
this may be one of the early signs of a burst(besides the economy falling due to that one war i think?)
I saw this and sound “holy shit” aloud. If this sketchy source is legit, this is probably pretty big. The stock market has been wobbly the last few days.
True.
The stock market (for tech companies) has also been falling before the war.
here comes the oh so predictable crash.
Pop that bubble, baby!
This is the fascinating thing about this bubble. Usually people are suspecting a bubble/perceiving it, and are afraid of when it pops, but no one really wants it to pop, they just don’t like the fragility it causes knowing it could pop any minute.
So many people actively want the AI bubble to pop. I can’t recall a bubble so odious that everyone was rooting for it to hurry up and fail before.
I think this one is just more obviously a bubble. If the pop is inevitable, then, the sooner the better. That, and the AI everywhere all at once is tangible and in your face. No one I know likes it.
