Buying Layoffs
Before you get fired
They tell you it’s fine, and nobody’s getting fired because of AI.
Then another headline hits you in the face: Block 4,000, Oracle 30,000, Amazon 16,000, Meta 1,500, Salesforce 1,000, Atlassian 1,600, Microsoft 15,347, ASML 1,700, Ericsson 1,900, Pinterest 675—over 126,000 tech jobs cut in the first quarter of 2026 alone, with AI cited as the driver in the majority of cases.
Previously execs hid behind “restructuring” and “strategic realignment.” Dorsey’s memo is “departing from the classic tech layoff playbook”: Block isn’t in trouble, AI is just better.
You can believe the guy on LinkedIn who’s still happy in his corporate job, telling you not to worry because it’s business as usual—or you can start making moves.
The counter is simple. When you hear about another layoff while the company is doing just fine, buy the stock. This is the signal, the alpha in the blindspot of most investors.
Humans vs. Spreadsheet
Those massive layoffs are companies pulling ahead—gaining an advantage the market hasn’t priced in yet fully. Elon Musk explains it in a great analogy from the era before electronic computers, when “computer” was a job title—that’s right!—and skyscrapers were filled with people, mostly women, doing manual calculations all day:
“So now one laptop with a spreadsheet can outperform a skyscraper of several hundred human computers of people doing calculations. Now, if even a few cells in that spreadsheet were done manually, you would not be able to compete with a spreadsheet that was entirely a computer.” Listen →
So, are you preparing, or are you playing against arguably the strongest player in the tech game? Did I get your attention? Good. Now time for the nuance.
Not all layoffs are equal. They're legacy players like Intel cutting because they're losing. Skip those. Focus on those firing from strength: Block, Meta, Amazon, Salesforce… you get the drill. Yes, this feels gross. Yes, you're profiting from someone else's layoff. Leaving the upside for the already-rich doesn't help the white-collar guy—and it won't pay your bills when your notice lands.
Remember the craftsmen in 1811 who didn't have the option to buy mill shares. You do. So buy them. Buy as much as you can.
Staring At The Window
In the Window Manifesto the portfolio idea is to simply narrow the index from S&P 500 to Nasdaq 100, and add Bitcoin. Then later I spent some time talking about how indexes may eventually stop working as a “safe bet” (what Bitcoin hedges in the mix).
If you want to try stockpicking, how aggressively a company leverages automation is one of the better filters. I quoted Elon, but Tesla is one of those companies so obvious the market already values them highly. It’s much more interesting when you look at companies like Block, Salesforce, or even Meta.
Look at the chart:
Block XYZ 0.00%↑ is down 25% while everything else on this list did 100-4000%.
And that’s exactly the point. The obvious names—Nvidia, Tesla, Meta, Microsoft—are already priced for the AI era. The market figured them out years ago. The alpha isn’t there anymore.
Block is what this thesis actually looks like. Before the layoffs, they were crushing it:
Profit up 24% year-over-year
Operating income up 46%
$9.2 billion in the bank
$2.3 billion returned to shareholders in buybacks
They had the cash to keep everyone. They fired 40% of the company anyway. Over 10,000 employees down to under 6,000. Then they told investors Q1 earnings would grow 920%.
You don’t need a finance degree to understand those numbers.
The obvious trade is the Window Portfolio. The interesting trade are companies like Block, and speaking of Bitcoin: Block XYZ 0.00%↑ is also a treasury company that holds 8,780 BTC. How could they fit better?
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That’s all for today.
