Oracle Fired 30,000 People Days Before Their Stock Vested. It Made $6B Last Quarter.

By Ahmed M. Abdelfattah · Published April 15, 2026 · 1 min read · Source: Level Up Coding

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Oracle Fired 30,000 People Days Before Their Stock Vested. It Made $6B Last Quarter.

A 34-year employee says an algorithm decided who got cut. The pattern she found points to money.

An empty corporate office with a vacant desk and chair, cleared of all personal belongings, fluorescent lighting overhead — `Photo by` Brian Wangenheim `on [Unsplash]`

My first thought when I read Nina Lewis’s LinkedIn post was: she’s going to get sued for this.

After 34 years at Oracle, Lewis woke up on March 31 to a termination email from “Oracle Leadership.” No manager call. No name signed. Just a few lines about “broader organizational change” and system access already revoked.

She wasn’t alone. Across the U.S., India, Canada, and Mexico, somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 employees received the same email at roughly 6 a.m. Internal Slack channels reportedly dropped by thousands of users by afternoon.

The largest mass layoff in Oracle’s history was delivered the way you’d send a shipping confirmation.

Then Lewis posted the thing that got my attention.

“It seems layoffs follow an algorithm of high level individual contributors and mid-level managers,” she wrote, “especially those with outstanding stock options.”

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