Business
Hundreds of applications, no jobs and AI competition: California’s brutal tech work landscape
Laid-off tech worker Joseph Tinner has spent almost a year hunting for a job. It has been a depressing crash course on the sea change in Silicon Valley.
The former product instructor from the San Francisco Bay Area has ridden the tech wave throughout his career, easily jumping from Verizon to Fitbit to Workday. Since losing his job early last year, the 59-year-old has hit a wall.
He applied for hundreds of roles — sometimes going through multiple rounds of consideration — only to get rejected again and again.
“It’s been a roller coaster,” he said. “It just takes a lot of resilience, honestly, to be in this job market.”
He isn’t alone.
Tech companies that aggressively hired during the COVID-19 pandemic have been slashing tens of thousands of jobs. For workers like Tinner, it has been a rough realization that the Silicon Valley shakeout is stretching into another year.
Just last week, Block — the financial tech company that owns payment services Square, Cash App and Afterpay — said it is laying off 4,000 people, or half of its workforce.
Many other tech companies outside the hot artificial intelligence sector are slashing staff. Block blamed AI, saying the powerful technology means it no longer needs as many people.
“The intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company,” Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Block and a founder of Twitter, said in a post on X.
U.S.-based tech employers announced more than 33,000 job cuts from January to February, up 51% compared with the same period last year, the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Thursday.
Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for the firm, said he used to be skeptical that companies could replace workers with AI, but he’s starting to become convinced.
“Artificial intelligence has overtaken the attention of these companies in such a dramatic way,” he said.
Mass layoffs in the tech industry started in 2022, after a hiring surge during the pandemic, when demand for online services increased as people were stuck at home.
But many of the world’s most powerful tech companies have continued cutting, even as their profits have grown. They’ve cited various reasons for layoffs, from strategic shifts and restructuring to pivoting to smaller teams and fewer managers.
An advertisement promoting an AI-powered company is seen downtown on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025 in San Francisco, CA.
(Manuel Orbegozo/For The Times)
Tech companies such as EBay, Meta, Google, Autodesk, Pinterest, Salesforce and others have been shrinking their workforces. Layoffs have also hit the media and entertainment companies, including Los Angeles video game developer Riot Games.
On LinkedIn, laid-off workers who have been out of work — some for more than two years — have been asking for help finding a job. They’ve been sharing stories about their financial and emotional struggles, including losing their confidence, homes and savings as they search for work.
Tech workers who have seen their employers grow over the last decade have noticed a shift in corporate culture. Workers who have been laid off before said it has been tougher and taken longer to land a new job than in previous years.
A longtime Salesforce employee, who was recently laid off and asked to remain anonymous, concerned that speaking to the media could affect their severance, said the sales software company used to be more focused on helping its employees. Salesforce broadcast this value by highlighting its “ohana,” culture, using the Hawaiian word for family.
“I was just incredibly grateful every day to be able to wake up and make a positive change in the world,” the worker said. “I thought that the company was devoted to the same thing.”
But the tone at Salesforce shifted in 2023 as the company faced pressure to cut costs and increase profits. New leaders came in, and the focus changed.
“The company is trying to erase any semblance of the way that it used to be,” the worker said.
Salesforce has said AI is helping it squeeze more profit from fewer people.
“AI is doing 30% to 50% of the work at Salesforce now,” the company’s co-founder and Chief Executive Marc Benioff told Bloomberg.
Salesforce didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce Inc., during a Bloomberg Television interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
(Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Although technology is changing the way people work, experts and even some AI executives think companies sometime use AI as an excuse to cut workers in what’s referred to as “AI washing.”
Enrico Moretti, a professor of economics at UC Berkeley, said other factors besides AI are fueling layoffs. As a company grows larger and matures, it doesn’t hire as much as before.
“It’s a shift in their position and the maturing of their product, and therefore the technologies and their employment needs,” he said.
Roger Lee, an entrepreneur who created a website to track layoffs, Layoffs.fyi, in 2020, said in an email that tech companies are pouring billions of dollars into AI investments, and cutting headcount helps offset those costs.
When he started tracking layoffs six years ago, Lee wanted to create awareness around tech layoffs and help laid-off workers find their next job. He never anticipated the layoffs would continue today.
“I do think 6 years of persistent layoffs have led many tech workers to re-evaluate the perceived ‘safety’ of tech jobs and their relationship with the industry overall,” he said in an email.
According to Layoffs.fyi’s latest count, there have been more than 35,000 layoffs in the tech sector worldwide so far this year.
Close to half of that total is from Amazon alone.
Unemployed tech worker Tinner was laid off from Workday, a Pleasanton company that provides a platform to businesses, universities and organizations to manage payroll, benefits, finances and other tasks.
In 2025, Workday slashed roughly 1,750 jobs, or 8.5% of its global workforce, citing a prioritization of investments in artificial intelligence and platform development. Then in February, the company said it plans to cut 2% of its workforce, or roughly 400 employees.
As job cuts pile up, Tinner is up against intense competition in a job market flooded with talent from the top companies in tech.
As he ponders his next career steps, he’s also redefining his identity and relationship with work.
He’s even tried pouring beer for fun or thought about doing more artwork.
“Maybe what I need to do is just celebrate all I’ve done instead of getting back into this rat race, on this treadmill, and look for something totally different,” he said.
Business
Regulators may seek to suspend State Farm’s license, citing widespread mishandling of L.A. wildfire claims
California regulators may seek to suspend State Farm’s license for up to a year and levy millions in penalties against the insurer, alleging it mishandled January 2025 wildfire claims in Los Angeles County.
In an extraordinary step, the Department of Insurance announced Monday that it filed an administrative action against the state’s largest home insurer after an investigation into 220 sample claims found 398 violations of state law in about half of them.
“Our investigation found that State Farm delayed, underpaid, and buried policyholders in red tape at the worst moment of their lives,” Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement. “That is unacceptable, and we are taking decisive action to hold them accountable.”
The department is seeking a cease-and-desist order to stop the insurer from engaging in unfair or deceptive practices — and to possibly suspend State Farm’s “certificate of authority” for up to a year, meaning it could not write policies during that period, department spokesperson Michael Soller said.
While the terms of the proposed suspension aren’t clear, the move could prevent the insurer — which covers more than 1 million homes — from issuing new policies at a time when the state is facing an insurance crisis.
The case will be heard by a state administrative law judge, who will provide a recommendation to Lara on a possible monetary penalty and whether to carry out the license suspension. State regulators declined to comment on the action or how it might affect policyholders.
State Farm on Monday rejected the department’s claims that it engaged in a “general practice of mishandling or intentionally underpaying wildfire claims” and said it will further respond through the legal process.
“California’s homeowners insurance market is the most dysfunctional in the country,” State Farm said in a statement. “The California Department of Insurance should take responsibility for regulatory delays and uncertainty that have contributed to fewer choices and higher costs for consumers.”
State Farm said it has paid more than $5.7 billion and handled more than 11,700 residential and auto claims. That is nearly one-third of those filed after the Jan. 7, 2025, fires that damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.
The department in June 2025 launched a “market conduct exam” into State Farm General — the subsidiary of the giant Bloomington, Ill., insurer that handles California home insurance — after complaints by victims of the fires in Pacific Palisades, Altadena and nearby communities.
The Times reported that within two months of the fires homeowners were getting frustrated with the insurer over its handling of smoke damage claims. They contended that State Farm was resisting hygienic testing for toxic chemicals and was trying to minimize cleanup costs, which the company denied.
Later, anger was directed at Lara, with fire victims saying he wasn’t cracking down on State Farm. More than a dozen homeowners told The Times this year that the department did little to resolve a wide range of complaints they filed against State Farm.
Los Angeles County also has an ongoing investigation into the insurer.
Nevertheless, the threat to suspend State Farm’s license because of the alleged violations was met with skepticism. The company has a roughly 20% market share. It’s unclear where its policyholders could find coverage.
State Farm’s decision to not renew some 72,000 residential policies in March 2024 because of its losses after a series of wildfires sparked fears that California’s home insurance market could be on the brink of collapse.
“Given how the department has bent over backward to prevent State Farm from carrying out its threats to leave the state due to its alleged financial problems, it’s hard to believe,” said Carmen Balber, executive director of Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog.
Soller said the terms of a possible suspension — including whether it would apply only to new policies or existing policyholders — would be set after the hearing.
“Any order must define the terms of a suspension based on the evidence at a hearing. We cannot predict what an order after a hearing on the evidence will be,” he said.
The results of the market conduct exam were released Monday in support of the legal action.
It found that the company failed in numerous cases to pursue a “thorough, fair and objective investigation” into claims, failed to come to “prompt, fair, and equitable settlements” and made settlement offers that were “unreasonably low.”
Other alleged violations included a failure to give timely responses to claims, provide a factual or legal basis for claim denials and give victims a primary point of contact after assigning three or more adjusters in a six-month period.
The legal filing also faults the company’s handling of smoke damage claims, including denials of payments for hygienic testing.
The company denied it was at fault in some cases and admitted it was at fault in others, often saying that the problem was due to issues with specific adjusters, and that it held meetings with adjusters after hearing about the alleged violations.
State Farm said Monday that the “additional payments tied to the issues identified in the Market Conduct Examination were about $40,000 in the context of more than $5.7 billion paid.”
The alleged violations each carry a fine of up to $5,000 in general and up to $10,000 if they are found to be willful.
The department said the alleged violations could bring penalties of $2 million or more. Soller said regulators also want State Farm to make policyholders whole, but does not have authority to order restitution
Soller noted that is why the department is sponsoring a bill by state Senate Insurance Committee Chair Steve Padilla (D-Chula Vista) that would require insurers to pay restitution directly to policyholders.
State Farm released a statement April 22 that outlined five “commitments” to policyholders.
They included providing single points of contact and improved communication so there are “fewer handoffs, fewer repeated explanations, and seamless support.”
Fire victims have long called for a crackdown on the insurer and to bar a rate increase State Farm was seeking until it resolved their complaints. They also called for Lara’s resignation, claiming he was not enforcing the law, while he contended the market conduct exam needed to take its course.
The company was ultimately granted a 17% rate hike in March after a three-way agreement that also involved Consumer Watchdog, which had intervened in the matter as allowed under state law.
Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group that led the calls to stop the rate hike and for Lara’s resignation, said the insurer must make harmed policyholders whole.
“We call on the department to act on every outstanding complaint, and report transparently on outcomes. State Farm’s parent sits on $240 billion in assets. They have the money to fulfill their obligations to L.A. fire survivors,” Chen said.
Possible sanctions against State Farm are a “positive development” but mean little in practice for Pacific Palisades property owner John Hurley, who continues to fight the insurer to mediate asbestos and heavy metal contamination from the fire nearly 16 months ago.
He said State Farm stopped reimbursing him for lost rent on the unrepaired house. Hurley has filed at least half a dozen complaints with the state insurance department, to little avail.
“I unfortunately feel the insurance companies and the state are somewhat allies,” Hurley said. Even if the state agency were to prevail in sanctions against State Farm, “who gets the money? The state … or the insured?”
Times staff writer Paige St. John contributed to this report.
A few months ago, Matt Bedsole got a call from two real estate developers asking for his help. Their plan to build a four-story apartment complex in Chattanooga, Tenn., had a financial hole that no backer seemed eager to fill. The developers needed $8 million. Would Mr. Bedsole be interested in stepping in?
Mr. Bedsole is not a normal investor. He is the chief executive of Invest Chattanooga, a fund set up by the city of 200,000 to invest in local apartment projects. Unlike private equity firms — the main backers of new construction — he judges deals not solely on their financial return, but on how much housing they can deliver the city.
The apartment complex cleared that hurdle. It called for 170 new units that would replace a self-storage center ringed by barbed wire, in a gentrifying part of the city. But Mr. Bedsole had terms. In exchange for the $8 million investment, he got a 51 percent stake in the building and an agreement that 30 percent of its units be priced below market rate. The developers said yes. They closed the deal over pastrami sandwiches.
“Money is tight and developers don’t have a ton of options for capital right now,” Mr. Bedsole said in an interview. “We have it, but we want affordable units in the deal.”
Invest Chattanooga is part of a new class of government-backed funds that invest directly in new housing. The aim is to speed up construction and create housing that is permanently affordable and controlled locally. In the process they are rewriting how local housing programs have traditionally operated.
Each effort is a little different, but the guiding principle is to get developers to build more housing, with lower rents, in exchange for public investment. Instead of asking a high rate of return, as a private investor would, these funds require less money back from developers but stipulate that a portion of the units carry below market-rate rents.
They come at a time when a mix of higher interest rates and rising costs for insurance and materials like lumber have caused investors to run from new construction. Economists estimate the nation needs about 2 million new housing units, yet the pace of home building slowed last year.
Some states, like Hawaii, have created funds that lend money to developers on more favorable terms than Wall Street or a bank would, while others, including New York, have created funds to accelerate stalled projects. Atlanta aims to use public land to stimulate new home building: The city’s Urban Development Corporation contributes city-owned land to private development projects and keeps a stake after the building is completed.
Then there are public investment funds like the one in Chattanooga.
There are about two dozen of these funds in the United States, said Shaun Donovan, the chief executive of Enterprise Community Partners, which recently created a team to help them and is trying to set up its own fund to augment their efforts. The funds provide “capital, but capital at this moment of maximum impact, which is getting the building out of the ground,” said Mr. Donovan, who served as the housing secretary in the Obama administration.
Most of these efforts were inspired by Montgomery County, Md., whose Housing Opportunity Commission has for decades been a kind of national laboratory for affordable housing innovation. Mr. Bedsole has been something of a human catalyst in this process: He helped create Atlanta’s system based on the Montgomery County model, then took these ideas to Chattanooga last year.
“The cavalry isn’t coming, so we have to figure this out on our own,” said Tim Kelly, Chattanooga’s mayor.
From Public Housing to Patchwork
Figuring out how to produce low-cost housing for people who cannot afford market rents is a riddle that has vexed cities throughout the modern era. Governments have spent much of the past century veering between public and private sector solutions. Today most new affordable housing is delivered by a hybrid system, in which public subsidies finance private development.
That system is a product of shifting politics more than considered policy design. Starting in the 1970s, the federal government essentially stopped building public housing as part of a broader shift away from welfare benefits. What replaced it was a patchwork of rental vouchers and tax benefits — the biggest of which, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), was created in 1986 — for companies that provide affordable housing. Local governments now depend on that credit to build everything from low-cost apartments for teachers to supportive housing for people leaving homeless shelters.
One of the problems with low-income tax credits is that they are complicated to use and expire over time, often between 15 and 30 years, at which point the building’s owner can start charging market rents. It’s a galling turn for cities, since they often give millions in grants to finance affordable projects. To prevent building owners from evicting low-income tenants after the affordability restrictions lapse, many governments end up buying buildings back.
“So now the state has paid for the building twice — initially with subsidies, and then by giving a wad of cash to the developer,” said Stanley Chang, a state senator in Hawaii. “That is obscene.”
A Small Chip at a Growing Problem
Mr. Kelly, the mayor of Chattanooga, said he created Invest Chattanooga to prevent that obscenity. A businessman who ran car dealerships and co-founded the local soccer club, he was elected in 2021 (and re-elected last year) on an affordable housing platform.
At first, Chattanooga responded to its housing crisis by overhauling its zoning laws to allow more density, and legalizing backyard units on residential lots. This was the formula followed by many state and local governments over the past decade as rent and house prices have ballooned. But, as in many cities, the construction that followed leaned heavily toward higher-end buildings, where rents are too expensive for large swaths of the work force.
According to a city report, over the past five years Chattanooga has lost about half of its apartments that rent for less than $1,000 a month. The new apartments rent for too much, while federal programs do not produce enough units to meet the need.
But there are two ingredients in construction: land and money. So Chattanooga decided to focus on the second of these and became an investor, putting up $20 million to create Invest Chattanooga and hiring Mr. Bedsole from Atlanta to run it.
Invest Chattanooga is run like a business that makes money, then turns profits into cheaper housing. It puts up the initial cash, usually a mix of equity and debt financing, that developers need to get a bank loan. In exchange for the money, projects built with the fund must have at least 30 percent of their units reserved for families making below the median income in the area.
The city gets a return but it’s low — about 8 percent on the recent deal to replace the storage center, versus private equity firms that in many cases ask for double that amount. That difference can mean a developer saves several million dollars on a multiunit building, making it possible to lower the rent. And unlike units built with federal tax credits, Invest Chattanooga owns the building so can capture the upside of higher land values down the line.
Mr. Bedsole said Invest Chattanooga has a relatively modest goal of producing 100 affordable units a year by 2030, and to raise an additional $20 million for more projects. It is one little chip in a problem that gets bigger every day. Unlike the public housing agencies of old, his agency is not replacing developers in the process of building housing. Rather, it is trying to replace the financiers who decide what does and does not get built.
“I’m not competing with developers,” Mr. Bedsole said. “I’m competing with private equity.”
State Sen. Ben Allen (D, El Segundo) addresses the crowd during the California Democratic Convention in San Francisco.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Ben Allen, 48, is a third-term Democratic state senator who represents the Palisades fire zone and, since the blazes, has authored bills that provide tax relief to fire victims and raise payments for personal property losses. He previously made a name for himself on environmental issues, including leading the effort to put a successful $10-billion climate bond on the 2024 ballot. A native and resident of Santa Monica, Allen attended Harvard and has a law degree from UC Berkeley. He previously served on the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board. He is endorsed by California U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla.
Jane Kim is running for California insurance commissioner.
(Jane Kim)
Jane Kim, 48, is a Democrat from San Francisco who served as a city supervisor (2011-19) and has a progressive record. Her accomplishments include leading a groundbreaking campaign to make the city’s community college tuition free. She served as California political director for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential run and is endorsed by Sanders, the progressive independent senator from Vermont. The daughter of Korean immigrants, she attended Stanford and has a law degree from UC Berkeley. Prior to her political career, she was an attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and is a leader of the Working Families Party.
Steven Bradford is running for California insurance commissioner.
(Steve Bradford)
Steven Bradford, 66, served as a Democratic state senator from 2016 to 2024, representing parts of south Los Angeles County and the South Bay. Key accomplishments included a bill that created the first statewide process to decertify police officers who commit wrongdoing. He previously served in the Assembly and in 1997 was the first African American elected to the city council of Gardena, a community he grew up in and where he continues to reside. He worked at IBM and Southern California Edison before entering politics full time. A graduate of Cal State Dominguez Hills, he is endorsed by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
Patrick Wolff is running for California insurance commissioner.
Patrick Wolff, 58, is a Democrat, chartered financial analyst and real estate investor who’d never run for public office but has been active in local San Francisco politics. He serves on the citizen oversight committee for the San Francisco Unified School District bond program. A chess grandmaster who once played professionally, he pursued a career in finance, founding a hedge fund, working at a family office and building the auto and home insurance brokerage business of Capital One — relevant experience, he says. A graduate of Harvard, he has donated $500,000 to his campaign and loaned it another $100,000.
Robert Howell is running for California insurance commissioner.
(Robert Howell)
Robert Howell, 71, of San José, was the Republican candidate in the 2022 general election for insurance commissioner, which he lost to Lara by 20 points. He is the owner of Silicon Valley electronics testing firm Exatron and has been involved in GOP politics for years. A populist, Howell founded one of the first Tea Party groups in the state and is a member of the Santa Clara County Republican Central Committee. Howell also has run for state Senate and lost. He is endorsed by the conservative California Republican Assembly.
Stacy Korsgaden is running for California insurance commissioner.
(Stacy A. Korsgaden)
Stacy Korsgaden, 62, is a Republican and Grover Beach financial adviser who owned a Farmers Insurance agency for decades. A free market advocate who cites her industry experience, Korsgaden says Proposition 103, which regulates the industry, has limited the availability of insurance. She has lost in runs for Grover Beach mayor and for a seat on the San Luis Obispo County board of supervisors. A graduate of Cal Poly, she is endorsed by state Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones. Korsgaden attended the Jan. 6, 2021 rally at the U.S. Capitol but said she abhors the violence that took place. She is endorsed by the California Republican Party.
Merritt Farren is running for California insurance commissioner.
(Merritt Farren)
Merritt Farren, 65, is a lifelong Democrat who switched parties to run for insurance commissioner as a Republican. He is a newcomer to political office whose campaign leans heavily on his personal experience of losing his Pacific Palisades home in the fire. Last year, he intervened as a consumer advocate in State Farm’s request for a rate hike, seeking to tie it to its claims-handling practices. He points to his experience as an in-house legal counsel for Amazon and Disney as good preparation for running the insurance department. He is a graduate of Stanford and obtained a law degree from UC Berkeley.
Also running are Republicans Sean Lee, a financial services executive, and Eric Thor Aarnio, a contractor. Eduardo “Lalo” Vargas, a science teacher, is the Peace and Freedom Party candidate. Keith W. Davis, an insurance agent, is the American Independent Party candidate.
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