Australian software developer Atlassian fired 150 employees using a pre-recorded video.
At the end of July, Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brooks sent out a video to the staff titled “CSS Team Restructuring: A Difficult Decision for Our Future”, which talked about the reduction of the team by 150 people. The employees were not named by name, but it was intriguingly clarified that those affected by the layoff would receive an email in 15 minutes.
That’s exactly what happened, although the wait must have been painful for everyone who watched the video. The laid-off employees were immediately locked out of their laptops and promised six months’ salary in advance. Local media reports indicate that the layoffs primarily affected employees from the company’s European divisions.
Atlassian has always positioned itself as an “open and transparent company,” but using a video to make a layoff contradicts this. Moreover, the layoffs coincided with the introduction of artificial intelligence into the company’s work, initially to replace the support service.
Earlier, Atlassian’s former co-CEO and co-founder Scott Farquhar said that Australians should use artificial intelligence on a daily basis.
“Artificial intelligence will change Australia,” Farquhar told the ABC. “Everyone should be using AI every day for as many things as possible. Like any new technology, it will be uncomfortable at first, but every businessman, every business leader, every government official and every bureaucrat should be using it.”
Farquhar himself stepped down from Atlassian in September 2024. The staff believes that he would have been “softer” in his resignation announcement, or at least would have done without the video in the recording.
“Cannon-Brooks is the coldest person in this duo,” says one employee who watched the video. “Farquhar was more friendly.”
Commenting on the layoffs, Farquhar explained that at least the customer support team was no longer needed “in such large numbers.”
Earlier, we talked about how IBM laid off 8000 employees in favor of AI, and in a year — hired even more, and about a 25-year Microsoft IT specialist who was fired by an AI algorithm on his birthday.
Source: CyberDaily
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