Automation comes for tech jobs in the world capital of AI

The Washington Post ^ | Sep 6, 2025 6:05 a.m. EDT | Caroline O'Donovan

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has made himself a cheerleader for AI’s potential to disrupt work while also laying off staff.

SAN FRANCISCO — One gray morning this week, a crowd of parents and baby-laden strollers gathered for a sing-along in Salesforce Park, five acres of public green space on the roof of the Salesforce Transit Center in the shadow of the 1,000-foot Salesforce Tower.

Among them was a local dad and software engineer who had learned days earlier that Salesforce was laying him off. The $240 billion cloud software company told 262 employees in San Francisco they were being let go, according to a state filing this week.

The purge is the latest in a series of layoffs at Salesforce as CEO Marc Benioff, a prominent Bay Area philanthropist, has made himself the poster billionaire for the idea that artificial intelligence is disrupting employment — and that it’s a good thing.

His zeal is turning the company, and potentially San Francisco, into a leading indicator of whether industry hopes for artificial intelligence will come true, and what that could mean for the sector’s well-paid workers.

Just about every tech leader is bullish on AI, but Benioff has been ahead of the pack when it comes to talking about the potential for it to transform or even replace what workers do. He told Bloomberg in June that the technology was already doing as much as 50 percent of the work at Salesforce.

Benioff said in a recent podcast interview with investor Logan Bartlett that the productivity gains from AI meant he needed 4,000 “less heads” in customer support. “This is the most exciting thing that’s happened, in the last nine months for Salesforce,” the CEO said.

[rellic]

I have a BS degree in Computer Science, I’m also a retired Electronics engineer, and Military trained electronics technician.
My comment is this; a vast majority of “programmers”
can easily be replaced.
Today our technology has advanced way faster and beyond 60’s
computing.
The real problem is this; What does society do with all our idiots?
Very few people can achieve my education and experience level. I can deal with technology, easily.
What do we do with the people that cannot?

[Skywise]

BS. I’m a long time software developer and while the AI can generate code for already existing algorithms it’s often times error prone requiring more time to debug it then just doing it yourself. Trying something new? Forget it. Worse you’re losing the ability to learn new skills and let your old skills atrophy because the AI just does it for you.

Now can it take the place of the H1B coders and entry level coders? Yeah. But the entry coders will no longer learn the skills to be advanced coders and the Benioff here will just hire more H1Bs instead anyway.

[central_va]

Your post is BS. Modern programming is very difficult to learn.

[rellic]

Not to me!
I can design computer languages.
and the machines to run those programs!

[central_va]

When was the last time you were a paid developer?

[rellic]

Never.
I’m a retired engineer.
I was taught my whole career
that everything presented
needs to be challenged.
If they can’t back it up with
facts and data, the proposal
isn’t for real.
I’ve managed muli-million dollar
projects that met the requirements
under cost and were successful.

Retired former Boeing Engineer.
GTo

[It Aint Easy]

Did you know that text wraps? You don’t have to place a return carriage when the text reaches the end of the little white box?

[central_va]

So why are you commenting on software development?

[Myrddin]

When was the last time you were a paid developer?

I was a paid developer continuously from May 1983 until June 2025. I was working on a DTRA contract that had just progressed to its final year. The "surge" funding present in the first four years was funding my tasks for the customer. Funding ran out and internal job openings became very tight with a funding cutbacks from the current administration. I was the only person on the contract leveraging AI to address customer desires. Part of the activity in the final year included a re-bid on the project. I wasn't part of the proposal effort. Finding no openings that didn't require me to physically move to northern VA and apply to upgrade to TS/SCI, I opted to retire. I recently learned the re-bid failed and the rest of the team would be seeking new contracts.

While I was getting some good value out of AI and my team mates had done some stellar machine learning work on seismic data processing, our contract was not written to incorporate AI. That would have to be a customer requirement with funding to support it. It would also require dedicated classified instances of the AI tools to keep the code isolated as required. It simply wasn't an opportunity that could be exercised.

[dfwgator]

The real problem is this; What does society do with all our idiots?

---

Yep, that’s the big question.

[Ignatz]

“The real problem is this; What does society do with all our idiots?”

That’s easy: We remove the warning labels from everything.
The problem of “idiots” will resolve itself in less than 5 years. Coincidentally, the Leftist (Democrat) Party will experience a shrinkage of membership that approaches zero within the same span of time.

[unclebankster]

The real problem is this; What does society do with all our idiots?

*********************

Make work employment for the idiots.

We’ve already witnessed it for 50 or 60 years with the public and private sectors showing hiring favoritism towards feminist, affirmative action, foreigner, & gay employment.

Flip the script

[Nervous Tick]

>> What does society do with all our idiots? Yep, that’s the big question

“Soylent Green”!

[SandwicheGuy]

Your post is BS. Modern programming is very difficult to learn.
I think he was talking about idiots learning to code... Lol

[dfwgator]

Or a World War.