Old and Fired? Suck It Up, Buttercup
March 26, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
A fellow 54 years old claims age discrimination. The senior director of monetization analytics wrote an article that makes clear he believes the estimable Meta dumped old people. Full disclosure: I am 82 and I think a person who is a bit more than a quarter century younger than I am is not what I would call old. I completed college at a one-horser in the Midwest and managed to fool enough people that I deserved a graduate degree. I had been working in “real” jobs with a secretary and staff (believe it or not) before this Franchet fellow was conceived.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Sort of bad, but good old Google Gemini fixed up your output. Is that why having just one AI system is a really lame idea? I think it is.
The same whimpers were emitted when IBM (another outstanding company) identified employees who bumped up health care liabilities, wanted vacations with pay, and expected retirement accounts. Why keep these dodders around when cheap and good enough professionals were available in the idyllic city of Bangalore, India? Some of these people who were allowed to find their future elsewhere posted in social media about their job loss. How did that work out? It didn’t. The opportunity to push boundaries was not withdrawn. That hot desk in New Jersey went to a contract worker somewhere forcing the manager to obtain a world clock to schedule a video conference F2F or face to face.
“Meta Unfairly Targeted Older Workers During Layoffs Last Year, Lawsuit Claims” explains:
“Employees 40 and older were 1.5 times as likely to be included in the layoffs than employees under 40, and employees 50 and older were 2.5 times as likely to be terminated than employees under 40,” the lawsuit reads, allegedly citing data provided by the company to laid-off workers.
Am I, an authentic dinobaby, surprised? You have to be kidding me with that stupid question. Let me explain why Silicon Valley-type outfits and the BAIT outfits (big AI tech firms) do not want people who appear to be old timers to their leadership. I will give three reasons and make them really simple and clear:
- Cost
- Cost
- Cost
Now there may be other issues; for example, a dinobaby like myself listens, questions, and then when warranted, pushes back. How many zippy computer scientists under the age of 23 want that? Answer: Zero. How many MBAs want to have their cherished boilerplate game plans disabused? Answer: Zero. How many Peter Principle promotees want to be reminded they are making a bad decision? Answer: Zero.
I find the idea that Meta is culling old cattle believable and part of the playbook. Many of these outfits senior managers struggle with imposter syndrome. These individuals sense that something is amiss. Therefore, a wide range of coping mechanisms come into play. Examples range from forming a squishy bond with another humanoid to buying a vehicle with a big engine, from ignoring physical exercise to a gym rat (albeit a gym with chrome machines and odor free plastic on the weight bench). I would include the odd cruise ship scale yacht and trophy wife or companion. Yes, these icons of American business have to deal with those inner anxieties. (I will not mention drugs, Epstein Epstein Epstein, and causing a discarded companion to attempt suicide. No, I definitely will not.)
The terminated Franchet is the source of this passage in the cited article:
Six months before his termination, in August 2024, Franchet received an “At or Above Expectations” performance rating. Just a few months later, Meta introduced a new “lowest performer” category. The lawsuit claims the review process used ahead of the layoffs was less rigorous than usual. During that process, Franchet received a “Met Most Expectations” performance rating and was classified as one of the company’s lowest performers.
So the personnel procedure did not work. How many systems and policies regarding people work at Meta? I don’t know the answer, but there is the occasional suicide attributed to the firm’s “bringing everyone together” system. I have heard that law enforcement in some cities checks Facebook Marketplace for that area if there is a notable robbery. One officer told me a couple of years ago, “Who needs a fence. There’s Facebook Marketplace.” I thought this was an interesting observation.
Net net: Old people belong in the warehouses for the soon to be unliving. Get used to it. Worrying will take years off your life. Be a happy dinobaby and don’t litigate. That reduces one’s changes for a consulting gig. Former employees who take a big company to court may get a “lowest performer” hashtag.
Stephen E Arnold, March 26, 2026
AI Spending Killing Jobs, Not AI Technology
November 21, 2025
Another short essay from a real and still-alive dinobaby. If you see an image, we used AI. The dinobaby is not an artist like Grandma Moses.
Fast Company published “AI Isn’t Replacing Jobs. AI Spending Is.” The job losses are real. Reports from recruiting firms and anecdotal information make it clear that those over 55 are at risk and most of those under 23 are likely to be candidates for mom’s basement or van life.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Pretty lame, but I grew bored with trying different prompts.
The write up says:
From Amazon to General Motors to Booz Allen Hamilton, layoffs are being announced and blamed on AI. Amazon said it would cut 14,000 corporate jobs. United Parcel Service (UPS) said it had reduced its management workforce by about 14,000 positions over the past 22 months. And Target said it would cut 1,800 corporate roles. Some academic economists have also chimed in: The St. Louis Federal Reserve found a (weak) correlation between theoretical AI exposure and actual AI adoption in 12 occupational categories.
Then the article delivers an interesting point:
Yet we remain skeptical of the claim that AI is responsible for these layoffs. A recent MIT Media Lab study found that 95% of generative AI pilot business projects were failing. Another survey by Atlassian concluded that 96% of businesses “have not seen dramatic improvements in organizational efficiency, innovation, or work quality.” Still another study found that 40% of the business people surveyed have received “AI slop” at work in the last month and that it takes nearly two hours, on average, to fix each instance of slop. In addition, they “no longer trust their AI-enabled peers, find them less creative, and find them less intelligent or capable.”
Here’s the interesting conclusion or semi-assertion:
When companies are financially stressed, a relatively easy solution is to lay off workers and ask those who are not laid off to work harder and be thankful that they still have jobs. AI is just a convenient excuse for this cost-cutting.
Yep, AI spending is not producing revenue. The sheep herd is following AI. But fodder is expensive. Therefore, cull the sheep. Wool sweaters at a discount, anyone? Then the skepticism of a more or less traditional publishing outfit surfaces; to wit:
The wild exaggerations from LLM promoters certainly help them raise funds for their quixotic quest for artificial general intelligence. But it brings us no closer to that goal, all while diverting valuable physical, financial, and human resources from more promising pursuits.
Several observations are probably unnecessary, but I as an official dinobaby choose to offer them herewith:
- The next big thing that has been easy to juice has been AI. Is it the next big thing? Nope, it is utility software. Does anyone need multiple utility applications? Nope. Does anyone want multiple utility tools that do mostly the same thing with about the same amount of made up and incorrect outputs? Nope.
- The drivers for AI are easy to identify: [a] It was easy to hype, [b] People like the idea of a silver bullet until the bullets misfire and blow off the shooter’s hand or blind the gun lover, [c] No other “next big thing” is at hand.
- Incorrect investment decisions are more problematic than diversified investment decisions. What do oligopolistic outfits do? Lead their followers. If we think in terms of sheep, there are a lot of sheet facing a very steep cliff.
Net net: Only a couple of sheep will emerge as Big Sheep. The other sheep? Well, if not a sweater, how about a lamb chop. Ooops. Some sheep may not want to become food items on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in plastic with a half off price tag. Imagine that.
Stephen E Arnold, November 21, 2025
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