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👋 Welcome, Jobseekers

Welcome to 2026, where AI funding is infinite and layoffs are the bill. Today we’re naming the leaders and power brokers who sell “progress” while workers eat the cost, then turning the chaos into action: the WARN wave and Microsoft cut rumors, the new war chests at Anthropic and xAI, what a frozen JOLTS market means for your job hunt, and a couple tools to sharpen your story fast.

• 🧑‍✈️ Career CoPilot: Holding Leadership Accountable: Funding AI at a Human Cost

• 📡 Headlines from the Valley: Anthropic’s $10B is a ridiculous war chest; hiring on the horizon, xAI raises $20B - is money even real?

• 📉 Layoff Report: Microsoft's Rumored Mega-Cut, 100+ Companies file for WARN in January

• 📈 Trends & Data: Everyone’s Staying Put. That’s the Problem.

• 🛠️ Jobseeker Tools: Resyfy, Linkedin Profile Optimizer

Microsoft's Rumored Mega-Cut, 100+ Companies file for WARN in January

The first week of 2026 sees projections of massive cuts, with WARN filings spiking and rumors swirling. Over 100 companies filed WARN notices in January nationwide (not all tech, but many affected corporate/tech roles). Tech-specific trackers show early 2026 quiet so far, but insiders scream incoming pain.

• Microsoft's Rumored Mega-Cut: Reports claim 11k-22k jobs (5-10% of 220k workforce) in January, targeting Azure, Gaming/Xbox, Sales, and middle management. Driven by $80B+ AI capex. RTO mandate labeled "soft layoff" to trigger voluntary exits. Confidence high per Blind/Reddit leaks; third week of Jan eyed.

• Amazon's Ongoing Axe:  Building on late-2025 cuts (14k corporate confirmed), and up to 30K rumored. January WARNs include Amazon. 2,400 Washington state roles tied to $100B AI pivot. Efficiency excuses mask AI automation push.

• Broader WARN Wave: 100+ firms signal January pain. Tech feels a ripple in the supply chain/corporate. X whispers of smaller unreported trims in cybersecurity and startups.

Holding Leadership Accountable: Funding AI at a Human Cost

Innovation is the alibi. Layoffs are the receipt. If tech leaders want the credit for “changing the world,” they also get the responsibility for the people they churn through to fund the next AI land-grab. We’re about to name names, match rhetoric to outcomes, and ask the question Silicon Valley hates most: when the hype cycle cashes out and humans get cut, who’s accountable in the age of AI?

• Tim Cook: Apple has leaned on buybacks and incremental upgrades while visibly lagging in AI. Vision Pro didn’t break through, Siri still trails, and leadership departures have fueled real questions about Apple’s direction.

• Mark Zuckerberg: Meta talks “superintelligence” while cutting teams, churning talent, and trying to buy momentum back with expensive hires. The result looks like hype plus pressure, with VR and AI bets still bleeding cash and morale.

• Jeff Bezos: Amazon is slashing jobs while pouring billions into automation and AI that replaces people faster than it helps them. The message is brutal and consistent: efficiency first, workers absorb the cost.

• Sam Altman: OpenAI sells a world-saving narrative while demanding ever more capital and compute to compete. He warns about AI risk while accelerating it, and that gap is the accountability story.

• Garry Tan: YC preaches integrity and “build real things,” but its culture has drifted into performative online chaos and a flood of AI wrapper bets. The brand feels less like a craft guild and more like a hype refinery.

• Peter Thiel: Thiel champions “freedom” while building and profiting from surveillance-heavy power structures. Contrarian theory aside, the real output is influence without transparency and consequences without ownership.

• a16z: Andreessen Horowitz markets techno-optimism while running an exclusivity machine that amplifies hype cycles and treats most founders and employees as churn. When the narrative breaks, they pivot, and everyone else holds the bag.

None of this is anti-innovation. It’s pro-accountability. If leaders want to bet billions on AI and call it progress, they should also own the layoffs, the culture damage, and the downstream mess they leave behind. The era of “move fast” is over. Show the receipts, take responsibility, and stop outsourcing the human cost to everyone else.

Anthropic’s $10B is a ridiculous war chest; hiring on the horizon

• xAI says it raised $20B in Series E funding: A giant cash injection that likely translates into a fast hiring ramp across AI infrastructure, model engineering, and product for Grok and X.

• Anthropic reportedly raising $10B at a $350B valuation: Another big funding signal that top AI labs are still in “scale mode,” which usually means headcount growth in research, infra, and enterprise product.

• Shopify competitor Swap raises $100M: Fresh capital for an e-commerce platform trying to out-execute incumbents, a classic setup for near-term hiring in product, engineering, and growth. 

• Intel spinout Articul8 raises more than half of a $70M round: Enterprise AI for regulated industries is getting funded, which typically pulls demand toward platform engineers, solutions roles, and applied ML.

• LMArena lands a $1.7B valuation four months after launching: AI evaluation and benchmarking is becoming a real business, a strong hiring signal for data, ML tooling, and platform engineering teams.

• Mobileye acquires humanoid robot startup Mentee Robotics for $900M: Robotics plus autonomy is consolidating, which can open new roles at the acquirer and trigger talent churn across the space.

• OpenAI unveils ChatGPT Health: A big product bet on health workflows that will likely pull hiring toward safety, product, and applied AI roles touching sensitive user contexts.

• European banks plan to cut 200,000 jobs as AI takes hold: A blunt warning that “automation plus cost cutting” is accelerating in finance, especially in ops-heavy functions.

• Flutterwave buys Nigeria’s Mono: Fintech consolidation in Africa is real, and acquisitions often mean integration work and new hiring priorities around platform, data, and compliance.

• Discord’s IPO could happen in March: If public markets open up, IPO prep usually drives hiring in finance, security, infrastructure reliability, and compliance.

• Lux Capital lands $1.5B for its largest fund ever: More dry powder for frontier tech means more startup formation and follow-on rounds, a medium-term hiring tailwind in AI, defense, and hard tech.

Everyone’s Staying Put. That’s the Problem.

Overview

The latest JOLTS read says the labor market is not “falling apart.” It’s freezing in place, and that’s bad news for fast promotions and big pay jumps, according to Indeed Hiring Lab.

The Details

• Job openings held at 7.1M in November, but are down 885,000 year over year.

• The job openings rate was 4.3% (little changed).

• Quits were ~3.2M and the quits rate was 2.0% (still muted).

• Layoffs and discharges were ~1.7M and the layoff rate stayed 1.1%.

• Openings fell in accommodation/food (-148k), transportation/warehousing/utilities (-108k), and wholesale (-63k). Construction rose (+90k).

• The Fed’s median projection has unemployment at 4.4% in 2026; actual unemployment hit 4.6% in Nov 2025.

Nerd Note: The quits rate is a simple confidence signal. When it’s low, fewer people risk switching jobs for more pay.

Why It Matters

When workers stop moving, companies feel less pressure to raise wages, and “new openings” become more about replacement hiring than growth. Also, hiring energy is getting more concentrated in healthcare, which matters if you’re aiming for speed-to-offer.

• Software + Data: Your fastest path may be “boring but hiring” healthcare IT, analytics, security, and ops roles.

• Product + Design: Expect longer cycles in sectors with falling openings (logistics, warehousing). Build a healthcare-flavored portfolio story.

• GTM (Sales/CS): Lower churn means fewer backfills. Prioritize teams still adding headcount (health systems, payers, vendors).

Resyfy

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