Pinterest has fired two engineers who created a software tool to identify which workers had lost their jobs in a recent round of cuts and then shared the information, according to reports.
The digital pinboard business announced significant job cuts earlier this month, with the chief executive, Bill Ready, telling staff he was “doubling down on an AI-forward approach”, according to a LinkedIn post by a former employee.
Pinterest, which is based in San Francisco and has an office in London, said the cuts would affect about 15% of its workforce, or about 700 people, but did not specify which teams or staff members would be affected.
Two engineers at the company then wrote code to identify sacked staff.
A spokesperson for Pinterest said: “Two engineers wrote custom scripts improperly accessing confidential company information to identify the locations and names of all dismissed employees and then shared it more broadly. This was a clear violation of Pinterest policy and of their former colleagues’ privacy.”
It is unclear whether the engineers, who have not been named, shared the information with colleagues, or with people outside Pinterest.
The script – a set of commands written to automate a task within existing software or change its function – was aimed at internal tools for workers to communicate, the BBC reported, citing an anonymous source.
The source, whom the BBC said was “familiar with the firings”, said the code created an alert as to which employee names were being removed or deactivated.
Pinterest has been investing heavily in AI to create more personalised content for its users and automated tools for marketers. But shares in the company have dropped by more than 20% this year as investors assess the threat from more advanced AI platforms.
Ready said in a company-wide meeting that while “healthy debate and dissent are expected, that’s how we make our decisions”, according to CNBC, which first reported the news.
The chief executive said Pinterest was facing a “critical moment” and that staff should consider a job elsewhere if they were “working against the direction of the company” and disagreed with its mission, CNBC reported.
It comes amid a wave of job cuts in the techy sector, as businesses increasingly rely on AI. Last week, Amazon announced it would cut 16,000 roles worldwide, its second round of redundancies in three months.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said it would cut more than 1,000 jobs from its Reality Labs division to redirect resources to AI wearables and phone features. Meanwhile, Autodesk, a design software maker, announced plans this month to cut about 1,000 jobs.
