We chat about some of our favorite rubes and dolts in tech media before then getting into the massive layoffs across Amazon and Meta, how the need to continue over-investing into AI capex is driving the gutting of opex in the form of labor costs, and why the bubbly cycles of capital investment and accumulation at all costs will continue until Silicon Valley is made to feel the pain of their own mistakes.
••• Exclusive: Amazon targets as many as 30,000 corporate job cuts, sources say https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/amazon-targets-many-30000-corporate-job-cuts-sources-say-2025-10-27/
••• Amazon Just Laid Off 30,000 People—But the Media's Missing the Real Story https://natesnewsletter.substack.com/p/amazon-just-laid-off-30000-peoplebut
••• Meta lays off 600 from ‘bloated’ AI unit as Wang cements leadership https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/22/meta-layoffs-ai.html
••• Big Tech tests investors’ patience with $80bn AI investment spree https://www.ft.com/content/86bb929f-e0ec-4e50-b429-e9259c3834e2
Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills
Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
