This week's narrative, sponsored by AI and Jeffery
Cloudflare blamed AI for cutting a fifth of its staff; the man who sells AI says that's mostly cover. The Nasdaq hit a record on a jobs print that doesn't survive a second look; Michael Burry yelled about it from his car. Bella Hadid skipped Jeff Bezos's Met Gala on Monday; by Friday it looked like the right call.
Cloudflare blamed AI. The man selling AI isn't buying it.
Cloudflare cut 1,100 people on Thursday and blamed agentic AI. Sam Altman, who sells the AI, said this week: "Almost every company that does layoffs is blaming AI, whether or not it really is about AI." The stock dropped 24% on Friday anyway.
AI is definitely enabling 10x operators across every discipline. And if you are on top of your game using all the resources and productivity tools at your disposal you should be operating at 5x-10x what you were just last year. This means that companies can either do so much more while maintaining headcount or reduce headcount to maintain the status quo because they have too much labor capacity for their current roadmap. A blend of the two feels reasonable in a lot of situations but when you think back on the last 6 years there is more to this story.
During the pandemic capital was pouring into companies and they hired very quickly. You might remember talks of VCs being frothy and LPs desperate for places to put capital (low rates = need a place where funds can win). We believe, and have witnessed, that when you hire that quickly things start to slip. This includes the quality of your hiring. Many orgs became headcount heavy; you could call it bloat. And within that not everyone is a strong performer pulling their weight by staying ahead of the curve, or contributing in a way that justifies their comp.
What and why Cloudflare laid off precisely 1100 people is likely a mix of AI, overhiring, and an excuse to get rid of low performers. AI gives companies an easy out from executive accountability.
That gets us to our next topic.
More jobs? But what kind…
The Nasdaq closed at a record 26,247.08 Friday, while the S&P 500 also hit a record and logged its sixth straight weekly gain. The stated reason was the April jobs report: 115,000 jobs added, unemployment steady at 4.3%.
And while it’s not necessarily “fake news” there are two things to think about: what kind of jobs and how reliable the data is.
The growth was concentrated in health care, transportation and warehousing, retail, and social assistance. Health care added 37,000 jobs. Transportation and warehousing added 30,000, with couriers and messengers doing the heavy lifting. Retail added 22,000. Social assistance added 17,000. Meanwhile, information lost 13,000, financial activities lost 11,000, and manufacturing slipped by 2,000.
A labor market where logistics, care work, and retail are carrying the growth while information and finance shed jobs is not the same thing as a broad, high-wage hiring boom. It is a narrower economy, with AI capex and market optimism sitting on top of a labor market that looks increasingly uneven underneath. Like we talked about on Monday, this is more and more of the K-shaped economy grasping tighter on America.
The source has a credibility problem too. The BLS spent 2025 revising prior reports downward; full-year 2025 was revised from +584,000 to +181,000 when the benchmark closed in January. And our current administration has a history of manipulating or suppressing important data. I mean, how many years into the Epstein investigation are we, with just 1% of the files released? A lot of what we get to read is self-serving to those in power. Jobs report definitely included.
The move here is to treat every headline that benefits the current administration as something to evaluate.
The Met went to Bezos. Bella Hadid went to a cottage.
Monday's Bezos-funded record didn't sit well across the rest of the week. Variety renamed it the "tacky Bezos Ball." Activists planted roughly 300 fake bottles of urine inside the museum, a reference to the longstanding claims that Amazon warehouse workers don't get bathroom breaks. Bezos ended up skipping his own red carpet. Sánchez walked it alone.
Bella Hadid did not show up at all. She liked an Instagram video calling out the sponsorship, the kind that made the point about ICE-out pins not coexisting with a Bezos check.
Then on Friday, five days into a week the gala-goers spent doing damage control, she posted a series of sun-soaked photos from a backyard somewhere warm: Chloé prairie minidress with bell sleeves, brown clogs, three white-heart emojis. The dress was technically for Thursday's launch of Ôrəbella's body and hair mists at Cento Raw Bar in Los Angeles. The post was for the week.
Zendaya, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Meryl Streep also skipped, citing schedules. Hadid was the one who said something. Monday's read was that tech was buying cultural legitimacy. By today it's clear that didn’t work. The cultural authority moved to the women who decided the night didn't deserve them.
The brand riding shotgun is Ôrəbella, almost as a side effect: Hadid put her time into it instead of the gala, which is more powerful than anything the line could have bought.
Ôrəbella is her fragrance line, alcohol-free and bi-phase, built on the idea that perfume should layer with your skincare instead of fighting it (Hadid started it because the alcohol in regular perfume wrecked her sensitive skin). The original four are perfumes. Salted Muse if you want a marine that doesn't smell like Abercrombie. Nightcap if you want something boozy and warm with cardamom and ginger. Window2Soul if you want a clean rose-and-jasmine floral that doesn't read as bridal. Thursday's launch was the body and hair mists, which apply lighter and layer over the perfumes. Golden Brulee (plum, tonka, vanilla) is the one your friend who wears Le Labo will steal. Nectar Dew (fig, pear, peony) is the everyday pick.