#hyperscaler · How AI Is Reshaping Work

The Mag-4 finished Q1 earnings and the 2026 AI-capex number revised up from a $650B Q1 guide to $725B — a 77% jump on 2025. In the same window, layoff trackers crossed 95,878 workers across 249 events at 864 a day, while ~275,000 AI-skill job postings sat unfilled. Big Tech is funding the build-out by cutting the workers it does not need, and the workers it does need are not the same people.

Multiple outlets reported between April 29 and May 1 that Anthropic has preemptive offers to raise around $50 billion at a valuation of roughly $850–900 billion. The board meeting that finalizes it is scheduled for May. Annual revenue run rate has gone from ~$9B at end-2025 to roughly $30–40B today — most of the growth from coding-agent products. The chart that won the valuation argument is the same chart that explains why entry-level engineering hiring is collapsing.