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The Pulse: Meta wanted to reduce teams by 60% because of AI

newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com original

We find out why Meta destroyed its standout engineering culture: it feared AI-native startups doing more with less. Also: thoughts on Ramp’s AI infra, GitHub’s load doubles in four months, and more#

Gergely Orosz's avatar

Aug 27, 2026

∙ Paid

The Pulse is a series covering events, insights, and trends within Big Tech and startups.

Today, we cover:

  1. Did Meta really decide to reduce team sizes by 60% because of AI? An in-depth report by Reuters details how Meta’s leadership decided to slash team sizes by 60%, hatching plans in January to execute the social media giant’s largest-ever layoffs. But …