Laid Off at Zillow: 500 Cuts, One Email

Charles: A meeting invite, no title, just fifteen minutes with your VP. Thomas Doan: And her badge stops working before that call even ends. Charles: The VP reads from a script, two words in it, AI-driven restructuring. Thomas Doan: That's how our guest walked out of Zillow, and Charles, she's far from the only one. Charles: Skillsyncers tracker already puts this year's tech layoffs past two hundred thousand workers. Thomas Doan: Tough numbers. We talked to her about her severance ask, what she left unsaid, and the answer she rewrote eleven times before it finally worked. Charles: Plus the one line she'd hand someone standing exactly where she stood two years ago. Thomas Doan: So let's start with that morning. Charles: Before we go further, a quick reminder, we love hearing from you. If you have questions or topics you'd like to cover, head to the link in the description and submit your question. We read every single one. The invite just said Team Sync nine fifteen, no agenda. Her badge stopped scanning before the call even ended. Thomas Doan: And the VP read from a script word for word. She told us it didn't even sound like his voice anymore. Charles: The phrase that stuck was AI-driven restructuring. Not your role, not performance, just that. Thomas Doan: Nine people on her team that morning, four by lunch. Charles: Zillow's August round cut just over five hundred roles company-wide. IBTimes reported it alongside similar cuts at TikTok, Etsy, and Google that same week. Thomas Doan: Her team wasn't singled out. That's almost worse, isn't it? You can't take it personally, but you also can't fix it. Charles: Skillsyncers tracker had three hundred and twenty-two layoff events and two hundred and five thousand, eight hundred and thirty-two people impacted as of yesterday. That already edges past all of twenty twenty-five. Two hundred and five thousand, seven hundred and seventy-three people across three hundred and thirty-eight events. Thomas Doan: Roughly eight hundred and ninety-one people a day by that count. Charles: What I keep circling back to, two weeks before that invite, what did she actually know? Thomas Doan: She knew her manager stopped looping her into planning docs. The AI roadmap meetings moved to a channel she wasn't in. Charles: So why not update the resume that week? Thomas Doan: Because nine years in, you convince yourself it's a reorg. Charles: Two weeks of signals, and she still walked into a blank invite unprepared. Thomas Doan: She told me she reread her calendar that morning, hunting for a title that wasn't there. That night, she didn't lead with the number to her husband. She led with the sentence, "AI-driven restructuring." Took her three tries to say it without apologizing. Charles: Why would a phrase like that change what she thinks she owes anyone an apology for? That phrase followed her home. Thomas Doan: It also changed the math. When your packet blames AI investment instead of performance, you're not negotiating from an apology. Charles: So she stopped saying sorry on the call. Thomas Doan: TechJournal cited Challenger, Gray & Christmas data showing AI named in around forty percent of May's layoffs. In January, that figure sat near seven percent. Charles: Seven to forty in four months. The label moved faster than the actual technology did. Thomas Doan: What does that shift mean for someone sitting across from HR? Charles: A company cutting from strength while funding AI spend has a story to protect. That's a different negotiating position than a company that's actually broke. Thomas Doan: So what did she land on? Charles: Three extra weeks of pay. COBRA covered through year-end, and her equity vesting date pushed. Thomas Doan: What'd she leave on the table? Charles: She never asked about outplacement support or a negotiated reference. Says she regrets that now. Thomas Doan: Did she even know how much time she had to decide? Charles: Severance guidance for workers over forty generally points to twenty-one days minimum to consider an agreement. Forty-five in a group layoff, plus a week to revoke after signing. Thomas Doan: She used maybe half that window. Charles: Common move. People sign fast because they want the whole thing over. Thomas Doan: That same urge to just make it stop is what turned her first interview answer into an apology. Charles: The line she landed on wasn't the first draft. Eleven drafts, actually. The first explained herself for four sentences and lost two screens. Thomas Doan: What worked instead? Charles: Two sentences. She named the restructuring, No adjectives, Nothing asking for sympathy. Thomas Doan: And then what happened six weeks out? Charles: Sixty-eight applications. Four first round conversations came out of that pool. Thomas Doan: Four out of Sixty-eight. That's a rough ratio to carry into every interview. Charles: The offer didn't come from those Four, though. It came through a former colleague who forwarded her resume before the posting even went up. Thomas Doan: So the polished answer opened doors, but the door that mattered opened because someone already trusted her. Charles: Right. Write the Twenty-second layoff answer in week One before the shame sets in. Thomas Doan: And say it out loud to Three people who will tell you when it sounds bitter. Charles: People who will flag it before it lands wrong in a room. Thomas Doan: A rule she set for herself. Nothing flowery about it. Charles: If there's one tactic from this episode, it's hers. Write the twenty-second layoff answer in week One, not draft Eleven. Thomas Doan: And test it on Three people who will tell you the truth, Not just nod along. Charles: Solid advice for anyone bracing for that call. Thomas Doan: Share this with whoever's texting you at midnight about their own move. Subscribe and find us on LinkedIn. Thanks for being here.