One by one, the tech CEOs apologized. They had failed to anticipate people’s behavior would return to normal once COVID restrictions lifted. So their projections for growth — in streaming, ecommerce and the like — were way off. With expenses mounting and growth stagnating, they’d need to cut costs dramatically. Mass layoffs were coming.
“This did not play out the way I expected,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“That bet didn’t pay off,” said Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke.
That Big Tech completely missed its COVID surge ending — something that seemed obvious — is astonishing, but it’s more than a simple oversight. These companies understood their lockdown-augmented growth curves might not last forever, but they planned as if they would.