The oracle has spoken, spelling out a tragedy for Indian techies

THirty k jobs feature simply been skip from Oracle’s rolls. Of those, 12,000 were in bharat. Engineers, analysts, and back-office stalwarts were confronted with a stark reality: they were merely dispensable line items on a balance sheet that needed to be cleaned up. Politely labelled as “unfortunate layoffs at a time of AI transition,” this is, in fact, the unfolding narrative of a company in the midst of a reckoning. To understand why 12,000 families in Bengaluru and Hyderabad are staring at blank screens today, the gaze must shift past the software. It must instead look towards the company’s billionaire promoter, Larry Ellison.“I think Larry got distracted,” the founder-chairman of one of India’s most prominent tech companies told me. The assessment from Akhil Handa, a man deeply enmeshed in the AI ecosystem and former president at Bank of Baroda, places this in stark perspective: “In a regulated environment, Oracle has been a dominant player, with minimal competition for on-prem deployments. There are core systems that are closely tied to its technology. It’s very difficult to replace in-flight.”But when nudged, the developer ecosystem offers another verdict: they don’t like Oracle. “In an environment where it is the largest vendor, there is no ignoring it,” a Bengaluru-based developer said. Data resides in Oracle’s pipes. Exiting the Oracle ecosystem is not an option because the cost to “rip and replace” these pipes would be catastrophic for any entity. So, in theory, it is a digital utility. It is essential, but deeply resented.Staying essential on legacy software means remaining engaged with labour-intensive, low-margin work. It requires thousands of humans to maintain. But as we move into the age of AI, humans are viewed as low-productivity assets that drag down the valuation of the firm. When viewed from the top floor of Oracle’s headquarters, where Ellison sits, the logic is simple: a company can be more valuable with 130,000 people than with 162,000.The strategy, then, is to trade people for servers. While a human engineer requires a salary, a server cluster asks only for electricity. In turn, it generates high-margin, capital-intensive revenue around the clock. For him, this is not a layoff; it is an excavation. Labour is being hollowed out to make room for capital.But the timing of this move suggests something more urgent than a mere shift in business strategy. It explains the “distraction” mentioned earlier: a $111 billion media empire.The Ellison family office is currently in the final stages of a massive merger involving Skydance Media, Paramount Global, and Warner Bros. Discovery. To fund this Hollywood ambition, Ellison has used his primary asset—1.16 billion shares of Oracle—as collateral. As of April 2026, markets have turned volatile. Oracle’s stock has plunged from a 2025 peak of $345 in September 2025 to roughly $145 now. When the value of collateral drops by more than 50%, the banks providing the financing do not offer sympathy. They issue a margin call. They look at credit default swap (CDS) spreads—the market’s way of pricing the risk of default. What they see is the “risk metre” flashing red. They see a company that has borrowed $100 billion to build AI data centres while its chairman is preoccupied with CNN and HBO.From 10,000 miles away, it is safe to hypothesise that the company had to project radical operational discipline to calm lenders and compress CDS spreads. The 12,000-person layoff in India was, in effect, a collective sacrifice to the bond market. By cutting human costs, Oracle artificially inflates its margins and signals to Wall Street that the “distracted” leadership is still focused on the bottom line. This protects the stock price, stabilises the collateral, and ensures the Paramount deal reaches the finish line. The Indian tech worker, once celebrated as the backbone of global software, has been reduced to a tactical pawn in a billionaire’s personal finance play.The question that remains is this: can Oracle truly grow in an AI-driven world? Scepticism from industry veterans suggests it may not be in a position to innovate its way into the future. Oracle lacks the native AI muscle to power past new-age players that are actually inventing the intelligence; instead, it appears to be settling into the role of a high-tech landlord, renting out floor space and silicon to those who truly innovate.Even more troubling are industry whispers that this 30,000-person cut is merely the first tranche. More rounds of layoffs are expected as the company continues to shed its intellectual capital to manage its debt. How this narrative plays out is anyone’s guess. For now, it appears that thousands are out of work so that a billionaire can stay in the movie business.(Charles Assisi is co-founder of Founding Fuel. He can be reached on assisi@foundingfuel.com)