Happy Juneteenth, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Normally on the Moonshot Minute, we talk about AI and work and the people the headlines leave behind. But today I'm taking a different path.

Today we're going to talk about Juneteenth, about the two and a half years between a proclamation and freedom actually arriving, and about what that delay tells us about how systems treat the people at the margins. It's a bit of a departure, but I think it's the right one.

Thanks for being here.

The May jobs report was a blowout. 172,000 jobs added. Unemployment at 4.3 percent.

Here is what the headlines did not tell you. Half of all industry sectors have lost jobs over the past year. The share of long-term unemployed workers rose to 27.5 percent – up from 20.4 percent a year ago. Tech layoffs have now reached nearly 150,000 people in 2026, a 44 percent increase in pace over last year. AI was the leading cause of job cuts for the third straight month.

Google quietly laid off cybersecurity staff to reinvest in AI. The median job search now takes nearly three months. On Reddit, job seekers report sending over 100 applications for a single interview.

The gap between reported strength and lived reality keeps growing wider.

No fluff. Just what is actually happening.

#MoonshotMinute #JobsReport #AILayoffs #TechLayoffs #Google #Unemployment #TheUncounted

Google quietly cut its cybersecurity team this week. The stated reason? Reinvest in AI. The irony? AI amplifies the attack surface. It does not eliminate the need for security.

Broader 2026 numbers tell the same story. 97,006 job cuts in May. The highest May total since 2020. For the third straight month, AI was the leading reason cited. Tech layoffs have climbed 65 percent year over year.

Meanwhile, long-term unemployment is rising. The share of workers out of work for 27 weeks or more hit 27.5 percent, up from 20.4 percent a year ago.

And communities are fighting back. Monterey Park, California, just became the first US city to ban data centers by ballot initiative. 86 percent of voters approved.

No fluff. Just what is actually happening.

#TheUncounted #AILayoffs #GoogleCloud #Cybersecurity #JobMarket

blowout. Then the Nasdaq dropped 4.2 percent.

Here is why. 60 percent of money in US stocks sits in passive funds. They don't evaluate risk. They just buy the top 10 tech names on autopilot. And those top 10 names now make up 34 percent of index profits.

But the real story is circular. Google booked $29 billion in profit last quarter from marking up its stake in Anthropic — not from search, ads, or cloud. Passive money flows in. AI valuations go up. Repeat.

Meanwhile, AI was the leading cause of layoffs for the third straight month. Over 97,000 job cuts in May. AI-linked layoffs in 2026 have already surpassed 2024 and 2025 combined.

The gap between reported strength and lived reality keeps growing wider.

No fluff. Just what is actually happening.

#MoonshotMinute #JobsReport #AILayoffs #StockMarket #TheUncounted

The US economy added 172,000 jobs in May. The headlines are celebrating.

Here is what the headlines did not tell you. Healthcare and government carried the load. Private sector growth remains soft. Employers announced over 97,000 job cuts in May, and for the third straight month, AI was the leading cause.

The uncounted are not in the BLS revisions. They are the data scientist still serving tables. The engineer cut to fund more GPUs. The professional ghosted by an AI screener.

No fluff. Just what is actually happening.

Listen to Episode 21 of the Moonshot Minute podcast.

#MoonshotMinute #JobsReport #AILayoffs #TheUncounted

Apollo's chief economist says there is zero evidence AI is killing jobs. The layoffs are real. The AI narrative is not holding up.

This is Episode 18 of Moonshot Minute. One story. No fluff. Just what's actually happening.

Last week Meta dropped the axe. 8,000 employees terminated, many getting the news at 4 AM Singapore time. Another 7,000 forcibly reassigned to AI pods. 6,000 open roles eliminated. All while Meta posts record revenue and plans to burn up to $145 billion on AI this year.When an analyst asked Zuckerberg about ROI, he called it "a very technical question" and admitted there's no precise plan.A Gartner survey of 350 executives found that companies cutting the most people are not seeing the best productivity or profits. Real ROI comes from people amplification, using AI to help workers think bigger, not replace them. Even Sam Altman has called out the AI washing.This week a federal judge advanced the Mobley v. Workday case as a nationwide collective. A Black man over 40 with anxiety and depression, rejected from over 100 jobs by AI screening.The punchline? Zero ROI. Expensive theater. Paid for by the uncounted. The engineer training her own replacement. The applicant ghosted by a secret 2.4 out of 5 score. The thousands shuffled into survival mode.They are not obsolete. They are inconvenient to this optimization pass. You are not alone in the silence. The uncounted are getting louder.Hosted by L. David Oliver, Founder & CEO, Moonshot Consulting.📧 Full breakdown on Substack: bit.ly/moonshotsubstack

𝕏 @gomoonshot

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May 14. Cisco reports record revenue. $15.8 billion. Then cuts 4,000 people anyway. The money isn't lost. It's moving from payroll to GPUs.Two days ago, Coinbase announced the end of "pure managers." From now on, it's player-coaches and one-person AI pods. Your boss is now your competitor.Meta's next 8,000 layoffs start tomorrow. Cloudflare cut 1,100 people and its stock tanked anyway. Tech layoffs have topped 100,000 in 5 months. Profitable companies keep trading humans for servers. And investors are finally asking: does the math even work?This isn't automation anymore. This is executives rewriting the fundamental rules of a company. Flatter. Leaner. Fewer humans. More surveillance. And the uncounted left standing on a ladder with fewer and fewer rungs.The uncounted are the Cisco engineer whose job became an AI line item. The Coinbase manager whose entire layer of the org chart vanished. The mid-career professional watching the rules of work change in real time while the headlines pretend everything is fine.You are not alone in this silence. The uncounted are getting louder. The question is whether anyone is listening.Hosted by L. David Oliver, Founder & CEO, Moonshot Consulting.Follow Moonshot:Substack — davidoliver112.substack.comX — @gomoonshotBluesky — @gomoonshot.bsky.socialLinkedIn — L. David Oliver

April's jobs report told two completely different stories — depending on where you work.Healthcare, warehousing, and retail added 115,000 jobs. Headline unemployment held steady at 4.3%. The White House called it a roaring private-sector win.Meanwhile, federal jobs are down 348,000 since late 2024. The information sector dropped another 13,000. Tech is in full efficiency-purge mode — Cloudflare cut 1,100 (20% of staff), Coinbase fired 700 to go "AI-native," PayPal signaling 20% cuts over time.Over 92,000 tech jobs have disappeared in just five months of 2026. Entry-level and mid-tier white-collar roles are evaporating fastest.The labor market is "resilient" — if you work in a warehouse or hospital. Office work is bleeding out.This week's Moonshot Minute: the two labor markets nobody's talking about, and the uncounted caught in the middle.—Hosted by L. David Oliver, Founder & CEO of Moonshot Consulting.New episode every Monday at noon ET.Substack: davidoliver112.substack.comSubscribe wherever you get your podcasts.#MoonshotMinute #AILayoffs #FutureOfWork #TechLayoffs #LaborMarket #BLS #Cloudflare #Coinbase #JobMarket

Episode 14.

Tesla's former HR chief says 80% of U.S. workers are at companies that are NOT hyperscalers. The AI panic is real, but it is concentrated.