Nobody likes seeing headlines about Big Tech layoffs, but some smaller companies are taking advantage of access to a fresh pool of top-tier talent.
Paul Jaeschke, chief people officer at PitchBook, told Business Insider that the private-market data platform was "definitely a beneficiary" of recent cuts across the industry.
Amazon let go of 16,000 employees in January from its corporate workforce of roughly 350,000. Meta, which employs about 78,000 people globally, is also planning to reduce its headcount by 10% this month.
While those cuts represent a relatively small share of each company's workforce, in tech hubs like Seattle, they could translate into thousands of highly skilled workers re-entering the job market. Plenty of other smaller tech companies, such as Block and Atlassian, have made recent reductions, often citing the impact of AI.
PitchBook has also eliminated a few positions due to AI, the CPO said, specifically "product owner" roles. Jaeschke said the role helped translate requirements to engineering teams. The CPO said AI tools made those tasks more efficient. The company said the eliminated roles were a small percentage of its workforce, and half stayed at PitchBook and moved into product manager roles. PitchBook has a headcount of over 3,000 staff. Nearly 600 of them work in its Seattle headquarters.
