Seattle Doom Loop: Meta Slashes 1,400 More Tech Jobs

Added: 2026-05-29

[00:00:00]At a recent moderated discussion at Seattle University, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson was asked about wealthy people and their businesses potentially abandoning Washington.

[00:00:09]>> I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are like super overblown and if you know the ones that leave like but >> nearly 1400 local Meta employees have only a matter of weeks before they lose their jobs. According to a Washington state warn notice, layoffs include 699 jobs in Belleview, 259 at two Seattle offices, 206 jobs in Redmond along with 231 remote workers.

[00:00:35]>> He mentioned how Governor Ferguson and majority Democrats have emphasized taxation rather than reform and he believes it's it's backfiring. He's >> neighbors say they've reached out to Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson's office, the city council, and Seattle police. And what we've gotten is a lot of nothing.

[00:00:52]>> City, the city of Seattle is awesome.

[00:00:55]Okay. So, so we're redefining it right now through some of the toughest times.

[00:01:04]Meta to cut nearly 1,400 jobs across woke Puget Sound region. Now, all these big tech companies, they are investing billions and billions of dollars in AI technology and they're firing large swaths of employees that were hired during the pandemic. They're cutting ties with those folks. What better place to do it than Washington State? Let's get into it. Largest share of affected workers is tied to Meta's Belleview office at 1550 121st Avenue Northeast.

[00:01:39]That's literally 10 blocks that away. In high school, I could have run that.

[00:01:48]Two minutes and change. Three minutes. 3 minutes. Something like that. Yeah. 1550 121st Avenue Northeast. It's on That's 121st and I'm on 134th. So, it's not far. We're approximately 699 employees are expected to lose their jobs. So all the big tech companies, they are laying off people left and right. And you know what's always in the back of my head?

[00:02:15]I was a big company and everybody around me is laying people off. I'd lay off people in company in in in states that cost me the most.

[00:02:26]You know what I mean? The most expensive states. Now the thing that Washington State and the thing that Belleview specifically has going for it, you got some big AI players here already. You got Open AI, right? Arguably the biggest. And you got X AI. You got Elon Musk's company that merged with SpaceX.

[00:02:45]And they're worth like a cool trillion and a quarter. And they're literally here in downtown Belleview. We'll be talking about those in a second. But you got to get from point A to point B, right? Have to do a little culling of the herd. Got to got to fire some people. Meta plans to lay off approximately 1395 employees in Washington state this summer. The note filed with the estate employment security, one of the harm notices.

[00:03:13]Company notified affected workers on May 20th. May 20th was my mom's birthday, 85 years old. You know what we did? Yeah, you might have seen the post. We went to the game two of the Western Conference Finals, the Oklahoma Thunder versus San Antonio Spurs, and they spanked the Spurs. Wasn't even close.

[00:03:33]They're going to have a tough time though. That's That's going to match.

[00:03:35]That could be a matchup that goes game to game seven. We'll see. We'll see. And expects the separations to take effect July 22nd. Largest share of all affected workers. Meta's Belleview office 1550121st.

[00:03:49]filing also lists approximately 215 affected employees at the company's Dexter Avenue office in Seattle. Not a shocker. Meta's got a pretty big presence here just kind of strewn throughout.

[00:04:05]as does Amazon, as does, you know, you've got Costco, you've got Starbucks, you've got and so many of these companies, they're firing employees that they know they can replace with AI, and they're investing in AI to make that happen. Plus, I think a lot of these firings are just these companies got bloated during the pandemic, right? They just they went on massive hiring sprees and now they're doing just a little bit of pullback. This is 10%. We got 44 employees at Utah Avenue, south location in Seattle.

[00:04:39]That's also that's kind of that um south of the they call it Sodto, south of the dome, south of the old King Dome, but that's where Starbucks headquarters is as well. And that's where they're you know laying off some people Starbucks headquarters and moving them to Tennessee because that's what we're doing. So, yes, tech does have a downturn, but if I'm a manager, if if I'm in a position of where can we cut costs and where's that going to be most beneficial down the road?

[00:05:10]Yeah. You're going to cut those you're going to cut those ties in woke states and woke cities, aren't you? Yeah.

[00:05:16]You're going to do that like there's no tomorrow. And 206 employees at its Redmond office on Willows Road. that is over that direction probably about 7 miles something like that from here maybe 8 miles now there 231 remote employees all over living in Washington are also included in the reduction we're not calling them firings we're calling them reductions we've got a price improvement it's better just for you what was I reading oh I was reading a an article. You know who sent it.

[00:05:57]Manufacturing emotes too much manly energy. And maybe we need to call manufacturing something different because manufacturing sounds like man. And so that's why so many men work in manufacturing is because the sound of the word is not inviting to females.

[00:06:21]Well, yeah.

[00:06:24]Isn't that absurd? That is just absolutely absurd. It's It's so ridiculous. And yet, it's the world we live in. Ah, if you make the make the job sound more friendly to females, maybe more of them will work there. No, I don't think so. Cuz it's a hard job and a lot of it's physically demanding.

[00:06:43]And you're just not going to have women go into those industries. You're going to have some. I watch um what do I follow? I follow a female welder on Instagram. She just gets in there and just, you know, just welds stuff up. It's good stuff. I mean, why wouldn't you want to watch a welder? You know what I mean? That said, employees will continue to receive pay and benefits through their separation date. Companies that affected workers are not represented by a union. Oh, thank God. No union. No union. We've got we've got another story going on here.

[00:07:19]the the the tards at REI. I used to do a lot of shopping at REI, but REI told people not to come visit their store on Memorial Day weekend, their big sale.

[00:07:32]They couldn't get a couldn't get a uh union contract to go through. And I'm just like, do you really need a union contract at REI?

[00:07:41]Isn't it all about people climbing in the mountains and you know just you know riding their bicycle around the big REI flagship is in South Lake Union and so that's kind of the Mac Daddy right I mean that is the be all and end all and um I used to spend a lot of money at REI when I was doing a lot of mountain climbing hence summit properties northwest instead of sea level properties which is kind of what we're doing but you know make it more dramatic Summit Properties Northwest. I spent a lot of money. I would get a big big refund from REI at the end of the year cuz you know it's a co-op and you own it and good mountaineering equipment leadership.

[00:08:26]You know what do you expect from an outdoors company? They're woke. They're wildly woke. Oh yeah. It's greatest thing ever. Changes are implementing vary by team and include layoffs, open roll closures.

[00:08:40]I always find that one interesting. We got all these roles that are open, but we're going to close them because we don't want to spend the money. We want to we want to spend that money investing in AI. And uh that's what we're doing. Moving thousands of employees to business critical priorities across the company. They're moving people around. Got too many in one division. Boom. Gone this summer.

[00:09:02]July.

[00:09:04]Folk Follows reports that Meta is cutting roughly 8,000 employees or 10% of its workforce. I like to focus on just the Washington State ones because Washington State has done an admirable job of pushing out big business, pushing out big business leadership, pushing out businesses that otherwise would have been happy here, would have been happy with what was once our low taxes. Was happy with no state income tax. But now no, you know, big business employee tax. They've just gone through so much mental retardation in the last in the last six years since the pandemic. Everything just went on turbocharge, right? Just took off into, hey, how can we push away as many big businesses as humanly possible?

[00:10:02]And then and then literally we've got Katie Wilson. I didn't get to do the Katie Wilson story because it happened when I was down in Oklahoma City um this past week, but she literally came back around and said, "You know, those comments I made about comments I made about, you know, boycotting Starbucks, come to find out, they actually had some negative impact."

[00:10:27]I need to do a better job of having a the way she said it was just like what in the f are you talking about? She said um she needs to have a relationship that is multiaceted or something. I can't remember the word she used. It starts with a T, I believe. Um but she said I I need to have a relationship with the big companies that is nuanced, you know. And I'm like, "What are you socialists?" You know what? What are you going to say? Every time she opens up her mouth, she's literally sticking her foot in it and then pulls it out and goes, "Sorry, that's not what I No, that's too, you know, you told Starbucks, hey, don't buy from Starbucks. You told the whole world, don't buy from Starbucks." And then you also said buy to millionaires from Washington State.

[00:11:19]And then Meta cuts 8,000 employees and a whole bunch of them are in in Belleview in Washington State. Weird.

[00:11:27]It's just weird. I mean, coincidence.

[00:11:30]It's a business cycle, right? But on top of that, you're going to have employees in say Nevada, maybe Arizona, anywhere that doesn't have a state income tax, anywhere where taxes aren't as high as Washington State, anywhere where gas isn't over six bucks a gallon.

[00:11:49]Man, Oklahoma City gas was 3.95 a gallon. I mean, still just what are you guys doing? How do you guys keep it so cheap? Oh, I know. leadership, huh, making good decisions. According to reporting by the AP press, Meta said the cuts are intended to improve efficiency and free resources for new investments across the business. All right. Okay.

[00:12:14]So, that makes sense. Open AI opens Belleview office with ribbon cutting as regional reels from recent tech layoffs.

[00:12:22]So, these are some of the things that are happening here locally in Belleview.

[00:12:26]Yes, we're having hundreds of people into the thousands get laid off, but this also has to do with that transition to AI. Now, because you've got an AI workforce already here in Belleview, you're going to pull some of the big boys and open AI being one of the biggest. They they took down a goodsiz office and you know the mayor was involved and yeah Amazon T-Mobile announced hundreds of job cuts in Belleview, San Francisco based company.

[00:12:57]Open AI will mark the launch of its Belleview location. Ribbon cutting ceremony don't really care. Um and here they are just you know one big circle jerk. Ah this greatest thing ever. We're going to cut the ribbon. Oh so happy you know as they do. As they do. I like to make fun of that because I could never I could never sa stand seriously and look around at people and go this is what we're doing. Just no. No. Sign the damn lease and move on with your life. Elon Musk AI company X AI. How many how many just letters are we going to get in there? Right. It's like um Elon Musk's what? 14th child. Sorry, 12th, maybe the 13th. I can't remember. Just has a bunch of letters for its name. You know what I mean? XAI expands to Belleview with new office lease. They took down 25,000 square ft. Now, you might say, "Well, that's not that much, Sean." Now, the thing with AI is you get like one dude who takes over the job of a dozen.

[00:14:06]You just don't need as much space. But this is literally what's going on. you are having cuts happen because we loaded up on employees, don't need them. We're in a little bit of a tech downturn.

[00:14:20]Everybody knows that. And everybody is shifting to AI all happening at once.

[00:14:25]And believe it or not, Seattle does not have Seattle proper does not have much of an AI presence because it's a new industry and new industries are not coming into Seattle. They'll come into Belleview, but I also think they will hold off coming to Belleview with a millionaire tax cuz who wants to have a bunch of employees that are making a bunch of money? Just get, you know, the tax just tax to the moon. People don't want to do that. Downtown Belleview office market draws AI heavyweights and startups. So, it's not just straight AI.

[00:15:03]This is downtown Belleview Park. Um, I know you don't care, but I'm going to tell you anyway because this is my podcast and this is what we're doing. I took the SATs right where this tree was.

[00:15:15]Didn't used to be that big. It was kind of right in front of that. It was um, uh, Eastside Catholic High School used to be in the side of this park and I took the SATs there spring of 87 back in the day. Belle's Belleview is bringing in startups that help with the AI industry. So, you got all these companies coming in. Yeah, we're losing some to, you know, Meta and Facebook and all that stuff, but then you've got kind of a little bit of a backfill. But I think overall, you know, unless you're a company that absolutely has to have the ability to poach from the labor force, which is, you know, incredibly important in the tech sector, why why would you go to Washington State? You'd be like, Lord, do we really want to go there? We don't know what those Looney Tunes are going to do. What are those crazy ass liptures going to do next? And that's that's the that's the rub in Belleview.

[00:16:15]Yeah, it's a little bit more normal. We don't have nut jobs like Seattle. We don't have a socialist for a mayor, but it is Washington state. So, there's that factor of, hey, what's going to happen? We don't know. It's a very anti- business climate here. And I think that is impacting things. And it does not it does not shock me. And I'll be surprised if I don't get a dozen people sending me this story right here because it is indicative of well there's a tech certain tech turn down but in addition to that there's also going to be some layoffs specific to Washington state and specifically Seattle because no longer a an area that is pro business. There's no longer an area that is low taxes. It's gone the other direction and can't really work out what its identity is anymore. And you've got an exodus of people leaving for other cities, for other states.

[00:17:20]They're leaving for better leadership.

[00:17:23]They're leading leaving for a better lifestyle because that can be provided where there's better leadership. Who knew? Who knew? Policies.

[00:17:36]Policies create lifestyle. Who knew? Weird, right? Make sure you subscribe, hit that notification bell, share with friends and family, and I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks again for joining. Bye for now.