Decimate (verb): the brutal practice of the army of ancient Rome where a unit found guilty of a severe crime (such as mutiny) was punished by having it execute every tenth man. From the Latin decem, meaning “ten,” also the origin of decimal and decade.
In business, as in war, decimation again raises its ugly head. However, whereas war is usually seen coming, companies can strike employees suddenly and without warning. Such was the case with Autodesk, which recently announced that it was going to lay off 1,350 employees, or about 9% of the total number of over 14,000 worldwide.
Thanks for a great year. Now get out of here.
Did anyone see this coming? Autodesk had just posted a great 4th quarter and a great year. Revenue was up 12% for the quarter and the year. The company posted a record revenue of $6.1 billion for the 2025 fiscal year. Profit surged a ridiculous 23% to $1.1 billion, or 18% of revenue, the most profit since 2021, when it was primarily due to a one-time tax benefit.
Why would a company lay off after what, after all accounts, would appear to be a windfall year? Could it be the beginning of the feared AI-cost-me-my-job storm? A ruthless trim-the-fat move, expected in companies acquired by private equity firms? However, Autodesk had not been acquired and was still very much the master of its domain. Or perhaps just part of the cyclical nature of tech, an industry prone to creative job titles and descriptions. Really, when was an evangelist anything but a religious calling before?
“Companies do this every few years. They make too many jobs and then they have to let them go,” says Oleg Shilovitsky on a Masters of Technology Happy Hour. Oleg was an Autodesk employee after his company was acquired but left on his own volition to form OpenBOM.
Not Autodesk’s First Massacre
Maybe we should have been ready. A quick look at the last 16 years reveals somewhat of a 5-7 year pattern. Autodesk had a big layoff in 2009, two in 2016/2017, skipped the yearly 2020s (deference to COVID, perhaps), and then started again in 2025.
- November 2017: The company reduced its workforce by 1,150, about 13%, to streamline operations and shift towards a subscription-based business model.
- January 2016: Autodesk announced 925 layoffs, approximately 10% of its total employees, as part of its “transition to the cloud and subscription business.”
- January 2009: The company implemented a workforce reduction of 5% in response to economic challenges during that period.
The two-year period starting in January of 2016 was the bloodiest in Autodesk’s history. Carl Bass was CEO at the time. Bass resigned following pressure from investors. Andrew Anagnost and Amar Hanspal took over as co-CEOs. Anagnost became the sole CEO in June of 2017. Seven months later came the company’s biggest layoff to date in terms of numbers (1,150)and percentage (13%). In less than two years, Autodesk had reduced its workforce by over 20%.
Bay Area’s Tech Woe
The biggest expense for a software company the size of Autodesk is salaries. While Autodesk’s headquarters in San Francisco gives the company access to tech talent, it is also where the talent is the most expensive. So, no surprise that the Bay Area would be the hardest hit from the 2025 layoffs. A total of 289 employees at the Market Street office will be losing their jobs.
The Bay Area is reeling from job losses. HP announced an additional 2,000 layoffs, bringing its total to 9,000. Cruise, the robotaxi company started by GM, announced it is shutting down operations and laying off 1,000 people, estimates TechCrunch.
Autodesk says the reason for the layoffs is strategic restructuring that aims to A) reshape itself into a direct-to-customer sales company (from a sell-to-reseller company), B) make more significant investments in AI and cloud technology, and C) get lean.
Watch Out Sales and Marketing
Autodesk gives AI as a reason for the layoffs and, at the same time, says AI is its future.
Autodesk will not state specific job categories or departments at risk, and a casual search on LinkedIn and Glassdoor reveals no preponderance of type or pattern among recent Autodeskers that have declared themselves available for work.
It may be reasonable to think that developers would be the most affected. ChatGPT is, after all, really good at writing code. There is a rumor that ChatGPT has passed the infamous Google programming test. But Autodesk is at its heart a software development company and when a company is cutting the fat, it makes more sense to target departments that are on the periphery or have been added in the last few years.
In the public announcement of the layoffs, which supposedly contained notice to the laid-off employees, Andrew Anagnost took full responsibility for the recent decimation. No “third-party pressure” was applied – a likely reference to pressure from investors, including activist Starboard Value LP, which has publicly criticized Autodesk’s financial performance.
In a letter to Autodesk’s CFO Stacy Smithe dated June 25, 2024, Starboard’s Managing Member Jeffrey Smith calls out Autodesk for “years of underperformance” and suggests the “the largest opportunity to reduce costs lies within the Company’s sales and marketing organization, where Autodesk spends considerably more as a percentage of revenue than its peers.”
Sudden Death
Employees were caught off guard by the recent layoff notice.
“The hardest part of a layoff is its suddenness. In an instant, no prior warning, unrelated to job performance, you’re severed,” said Jason B. Love from Autodesk’s PR team in a LinkedIn post.
“It’s not how I imagined leaving,” says Darren Brooker, Narrative Director at Autodesk, also on LinkedIn.
Parts of Anagnost’s letter to the departed were read out loud by Neil Cross on YouTube in an episode entitled “Aks me again why I never joined Autodesk.” Cross does not expect Autodesk’s UK employees to be affected due to the country’s labor laws but has sympathy for U.S. employees who often have no protection whatsoever. California, for example, is a right-to-work state – a euphemism for a right to fire.
“It’s savage over there,” says Cross.
Indeed, we have seen some of Autodesk’s most ardent and faithful supporters let go over the years, including Lynn Allen, who held thousands at Autodesk University audiences in rapt attention, and Shaan Hurley, who lovingly maintained an Autodesk museum of sorts, including memorabilia from Autodesk’s early days.
Despite an apparent ruthlessness, Autodesk still managed to be named a “Best Place to Work for Innovators in 2023” by Fast Company. The company was 15th on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work in 2025 and made Forbes’ World’s Best Employers in 2024, which highlighted “its commitment to employee satisfaction and workplace excellence.