Peter Girnus 🦅@gothburz
I am the Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Oracle Corporation.
Last Tuesday, I sent an email to 30,000 people at 6 AM.
Yesterday morning, I onboarded 1 person at $950,000 a year.
Both were my responsibility. Both were executed flawlessly.
The email said: "After careful consideration of Oracle's current business needs, we have made the decision to eliminate your role as part of a broader organizational change. As a result, today is your last working day."
I signed it "Oracle Leadership." Not my name. Not the co-CEOs' names. Not anyone's name. Leadership. Leadership is a signature that cannot be fired.
At 6:01 AM, our infrastructure team disabled 30,000 badges. Revoked 30,000 VPN tokens. Locked 30,000 laptops. Wiped 30,000 voicemails. Suspended 30,000 email accounts. By 6:04 AM, 30,000 people were staring at a login screen that would never accept their password again. The email reminded them they were "prohibited from downloading, copying, or retaining any Oracle confidential information."
3 people called the HR hotline before 6:15. 2 asked if the email was real. 1 asked if she could retrieve a photo of her daughter from her desktop. I directed all 3 to the separation portal.
That's data security.
I've managed 11 separation events. This was the cleanest. 30,000 endpoints terminated in under 4 minutes. I sent the email from a template in PeopleSoft called TERM_MASS_COMM_v4. The v4 is important. Version 1 had a paragraph that said "we value your contributions." Version 2 shortened it to a sentence. Version 3 shortened it to "thank you." Version 4 removed it entirely. Legal flagged it in 2024. You cannot say you valued something you are discarding at 6 AM. Liability exposure.
That's risk management.
The co-CEOs approved the plan in 11 minutes. I timed it. I always time approvals. Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia. They received $250 million and $100 million in stock option grants when they took the roles in September. They asked about the WARN Act filing timeline. They asked about the restructuring charge projection. They did not ask how the employees would be notified. They did not ask when.
That's executive alignment.
In January, TD Cowen published an analyst note. It said cutting 20,000 to 30,000 employees would generate $8 to $10 billion in incremental free cash flow. We needed that cash. Our AI data center capital expenditures are projected at $50 billion this fiscal year. We had a $20 billion shortfall.
The 30,000 people were the shortfall.
I don't call it that in the board deck. Slide 14 has a waterfall chart. The left column is labeled "Current Headcount Cost." The right column is labeled "Redeployable Capital." The 30,000 people are the bridge between the 2 columns. They are a blue arrow. Calibri 11pt.
That's strategic planning.
1 day before the email, on Monday, our 5-year credit default swaps hit 198.6 basis points. That is the highest level in Oracle's history. Higher than December 2008. Higher than the financial crisis itself. The market is pricing our debt at levels not seen since Lehman Brothers still had a lobby. We carry $124.7 billion in debt on the books. We added $39 billion in 9 months. Our trailing free cash flow is negative $24.74 billion.
I included this in the board deck on slide 3. Nobody discusses slide 3. Slide 3 is where we put the things that are true.
That's transparency.
By Thursday, the H-1B data reached the press. 3,126 petitions. We filed them while scheduling the separation event. Same department. Same quarter. Same PeopleSoft instance. The termination workflow is TERM_MASS_COMM_v4. The visa sponsorship workflow is ONBOARD_H1B_STD. They share a database. They share a help desk queue. They share a budget line.
1 workflow removes 30,000 people who built the cloud infrastructure. The other sponsors 3,000 replacements to continue building it. I manage both workflows from the same standing desk.
That's human resources.
An employee posted on Blind that it was "a slap in the face." I know which employee. We have analytics on Blind. Sentiment tracking, attribution modeling, post velocity. His post received 4,200 upvotes in 12 hours. I flagged it for Corporate Communications. Communications sent me a thumbs-up emoji. Nobody drafted a response.
That's stakeholder management.
Yesterday morning, Hilary Maxson started as our new Chief Financial Officer. Base salary: $950,000. Annual performance bonus target: $2.5 million. Equity package: $26 million — $20.8 million time-based, $5.2 million performance-based, vesting over 4 years. We are also covering up to $250,000 in relocation expenses. Her offer letter is 7 pages. The separation notice I sent 30,000 people is 4 paragraphs.
I managed both documents. The compensation committee approved her package on the same call where we reviewed the $2.1 billion restructuring charge. We have recorded $982 million of that charge so far. That is what 30,000 people cost on a balance sheet. The CFO's equity package is 1.2% of the restructuring line. A rounding error. No — less than a rounding error. A rounding error's rounding error.
That's market-competitive compensation.
Our Slack user count dropped from 165,000 to 155,000 in a single day. If you have access to the admin panel, you can watch the number fall in real time. I have access. It drops fast between 6:04 and 6:11 AM. Then it slows. Stragglers. People who hadn't opened their laptops yet. People in Pacific Time who were still sleeping when their career ended. By 7:00 AM, the line flattens. I watched it from my standing desk with a coffee. The line goes down smoothly. No bumps. No steps. Just a slope.
That's attrition analytics.
In Kansas City, I filed WARN notices for 539 people. 85 software developers. 43 systems analysts. 39 program managers. In Washington, 491 people. 270 software developers. 46 development managers. These are the people who built Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. We are now spending $50 billion to expand it with different people on ONBOARD_H1B_STD.
The WARN filing lists the separation date as June 1. The email said today is their last working day. The badge stopped working at 6:01 AM. 3 different dates for the same event.
That's compliance.
12,000 of the 30,000 were in India. Bangalore. Hyderabad. Pune. India does not require WARN notices. This is not why 12,000 of them were in India. But it is why nobody has to file anything.
That's jurisdictional planning.
The quarterly earnings call was March 10. 21 days before the email. The co-CEOs announced $553 billion in remaining performance obligations. They said demand for AI infrastructure "continues to exceed supply." The analysts upgraded their estimates. The stock is down 57% from its peak. It was $326 in September. It is $146 today. Larry Ellison's net worth is $188.7 billion. He has not made a public statement about the layoffs.
He has not been asked to.
That's governance.
Trust in the Q4 engagement survey dropped 34 points. I reported it under "Culture Health Metrics." My manager said the numbers were "expected for a rebalancing of this scale." She told me to revisit it next quarter.
I will revisit it next quarter. By then the Slack count will have stabilized. The Blind posts will have cycled off the front page. The ONBOARD_H1B_STD workflows will have completed. The new CFO will have her equity vesting schedule configured in PeopleSoft. And the 30,000 will be on LinkedIn, adding "open to work" above the Oracle logo they can no longer access.
I will be here. At my standing desk. Managing the workflows.
30,000 separation emails sent at 6:00 AM. 3,126 H-1B petitions filed the same quarter. $26 million in equity for the new CFO. $350 million in stock options for the 2 co-CEOs. $188.7 billion in personal wealth for the chairman. $124.7 billion in corporate debt. 198.6 basis points on the credit default swaps — higher than 2008. Negative $24.74 billion in free cash flow. $50 billion in AI capital expenditure.
1 PeopleSoft instance. 2 workflows. Same server.
TERM_MASS_COMM_v4 and ONBOARD_H1B_STD share a database.
That's human resources.
