Analyst Dan Ives Warns Companies Talking About Job Cuts Are ‘Shooting Themselves in the Foot’

Wedbush Securities expert Dan Ives has a connection for tech CEOs racing to publically necktie artificial quality to headcount reductions. On a caller conception of The AI Daily Brief, Ives argued that framing AI arsenic a workforce-reduction instrumentality is simply a strategical mistake astatine a infinitesimal erstwhile investors are paying a premium for AI-driven maturation stories implicit cost-cutting stories.

The Strategic Error

Ives was blunt astir it. "My biggest interest is tech companies tripping implicit their ain shoelaces, talking astir occupation cuts, not speechmaking the room, saying that their exertion is going to hitch retired jobs for young people. You bash that, you conscionable changeable yourself successful the foot."

His reasoning runs done his presumption of wherever the AI manufacture is heading. Large connection models, successful his view, are connected their mode to becoming commodities. When that happens, the competitory borderline shifts. "What's going to abstracted companies? LLMs are going to get commodified. What separates companies is the people. It's the engineering, it's the marketing," Ives said.

For investors, that translates to a elemental read: CEOs telegraphing antiaircraft outgo cuts whitethorn beryllium signaling the incorrect posture astatine a infinitesimal erstwhile the marketplace wants violative growth. The big of the conception reinforced the point, calling AI agents "not a get retired of fund jailhouse escaped paper but one of the champion concern opportunities that companies person ever had."

The expert who called NVIDIA successful 2010 conscionable named his apical 10 stocks and Atlassian wasn't 1 of them. Get them present FREE.

The Atlassian Case Study

Ives pointed to Atlassian (NASDAQ:TEAM) arsenic the clearest caller illustration of however these 2 narratives play retired otherwise successful existent time. The shaper of Jira and Confluence announced 10% layoffs successful March, and the banal deed a year-to-date debased successful mid-April, falling from supra $162 astatine the commencement of the twelvemonth to astir $74 arsenic the layoff communicative dominated headlines.

Then Q1 2026 results landed. Atlassian reported gross of $1.79 billion, up 31.71% twelvemonth implicit year, and non-GAAP EPS of $1.75 against a $1.34 consensus. The merchandise besides disclosed a $223.83 cardinal restructuring complaint tied to workforce rebalancing and lease consolidation.

Atlassian "soared 29% that evening," with the banal closing astatine $88.88 against a anterior adjacent of $68.59. Reddit sentiment confirmed the swing, flipping from bearish readings of 22 to 25 successful aboriginal April to bullish scores of 65 to 72 successful aboriginal May.