CEO laid off nearly 80% because they refused to adopt AI fast enough

8 ripe 10 8/17/2025, 7:45:24 PM finance.yahoo.com ↗

Comments (10)

al_borland · 7h ago
> Vaughan was surprised to find it was often the technical staff, not marketing or sales, who dug in their heels. They were the “most resistant,” he said, voicing various concerns about what the AI couldn’t do, rather than focusing on what it could.

Because the technical staff are the ones the blame will fall on when the AI doesn’t live up to the hype, and they’ve seen these hype waves countless times.

duxup · 7h ago
I assume this is a case of:

“It doesn’t do that well…”

“You’re not a team player.”

duxup · 7h ago
I question if the CEO has the ability to make any of his determinations he claims to have made accurately.
WheelsAtLarge · 3h ago
I started reading but got tired of the blah blah without the story letting us know whether the company is in better shape. Are they in better shape?
jqpabc123 · 5h ago
What he was insisting on was religious devotion to an unproven and questionable methodology.

What his workers were insisting on was convincing evidence that it was anything else.

The failure here is his --- a failure to provide rational leadership.

Cults assume many different forms with varied belief systems. The fired workers may not realize it yet but they are probably lucky to exit early and leave this dysfunctional cult environment behind.

buyucu · 6h ago
I've never heard of this company or it's CEO, they don't even have a wiki page about them. The only pages that come up are about this story.

Why do we care about this nobody?

sema4hacker · 5h ago
The article claims:

>Vaughan disclosed that the company, which he said is in the nine-figure revenue range, finished 2024 at “near 75% EBITDA”—all while completing a major acquisition, Khoros.

duxup · 6h ago
So many AI fairy tale stories out there.

I’ve done the same search and found companies that seem far smaller than implied, already in trouble, or even non existent.

I think a lot of this is just resume building.

chairmansteve · 6h ago
They seem to sell AI products.... So it's just a CEO hyping his own crap.
al2o3cr · 6h ago

    Vaughan says he didn’t want to force anyone.
Because "use this or you're fired" isn't "forcing anyone", I guess. What a piece of lying shit.