و اخيرا ربطت هاد الblog

مع الدومين التاريخي mounir.blog

لتستمر الكتابة.

The letter of the day is M.

M is for Medium, as in the size of men's clothing, as in the size of the sweatpants I'm wearing this morning.

For the last few decades, after I gained weight immediately after retiring from my job as a UPS delivery driver, most of my clothes were XL or XXL sized. I can't wear any of those clothes now. Some XL tops I can wear, but the XXLs are like trying to wear tents. The XXL pants literally slide right off me, as do most of the XLs.

Best sizes for me now: tops are mostly XL, shoulders are still pretty broad; bottoms are probably Ms or Ls, depending on the items and their cut.

At the same time as the above clothing sizes are changing, my body weight is consistently much lower than previously, as is my blood pressure.

And the adventure continues.

Stay entertained thanks to our Weekly Tracker giving you next week's Anticipated Movies & Shows, Most Watched & Returning Favorites, and Shows Changes & Popular Trailers.

Anticipated Movies

• Klara and the Sun
• Wildwood
• A Talent for Murder
• Wicker
• The Cycle
• ☆ Clayface
• The Only Living Pickpocket in New York
• Made in Abyss: Mezameru Shinpi
• Ali G: Who Iz I?

Anticipated Shows

• Love in Disguise
• Phony
• ☆ YAGA
• Newlyweds

Returing Favorites

• ☆ Cyberpunk: Edgerunners — Season 2
• Vanderpump Rules — Season 13
• The Terminal List — Season 2
• Nobody Wants This — Season 3
• Lupin — Season 3
• This City Is Ours — Season 2

Trending Shows Status Changes

• Where the Mask Ends — In Production → Returning Series

Most Watched Movies this Week

• = Spider-Man: Brand New Day
• new Animals
• new Matchbox the Movie
• +3 Runner
• -3 Insidious: Out of the Further
• new Practical Magic 2
• new Hope
• -4 The End of Oak Street
• -3 Fall 2: Deadpoint
• new Buddy

Most Watched Shows this Week

• +2 MobLand
• +2 Slow Horses
• new VisionQuest
• +2 Carrie
• -3 Ted Lasso
• +4 South Park
• -2 Dark Matter
• -7 Lanterns
• new Below
• -2 Marshals

Popular Trailers

• Are you in? — Street Fighter
• The possibilities are endless. — Clayface
• We all know someone who has that Marianne mentality — Sense and Sensibility
• Stream Now Only on Disney+ — VisionQuest
• In Cinemas Now — Verity
• will make your jaw drop — Whalefall
• Experience Other Mommy in cinemas TONIGHT — Other Mommy
• Too many funny moments to pick from — Forgotten Island
• The World Is Grey — Spider-Man: Brand New Day
• Watch at Home September 29 — The Uprising

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Hi, I’m Kevin 👋. Product Manager at Trakt and creator of Rippple. If you’d like to support what I'm building, you can download Rippple for Trakt, explore the open source project, or go Trakt VIP.

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No Golden Eras

I don’t think YouTube is in its best time. I am suspicious of it. If I happen to scroll through it, I feel very disappointed in humanity in general. It is also aggressive with guessing what I want instead of just letting me tell it. I don’t understand some options like posting like social media and nothing happening. But, considering the alternatives for storing a video online, I suppose it isn’t that bad, after all.

I can’t wait to livestream

Almost a month ago, I ventured back to YouTube. I have video content, and I enjoy playing for the camera. I am also starting a livestream soon, and I like YouTube for that too. So talking in front of the camera now helps me for then. Getting angles and lighting right. Getting content together. Then? LIVE! SOON!

Debbie’s Daughter, Live

I uploaded a video yesterday called “Debbie’s Daughter Live.” It is an older song, and I played it for the camera and Myrtle microphone. It was fun. I will do it again. I have lots of songs that work like that.

Gray Matters

I uploaded “Gray Matters” for this morning too. Also an older tune. I love it still. I think it brings up important points. I also think the sound is cool.

What’s in a thumbnail?

I will be using this YouTube channel. I have even read about thumbnails, uploading in advance, easy stuff to make the videos pop that doesn’t feel cheesy or wrong. I hope it all helps, but am not terribly bothered if it doesn’t. It was easy and fun to do. Not wasted time or anything.

“The Crab Song, Tape 24 Demo”

I have nearly 800 views already on a demonstration video. I don’t think that means much, but I also don’t mind it. Haha.

Back to collaborating

I talked recently about how I want to take care of collaborators. I want them to have links for friends. I want them to be able to look at something if they need to, reminding them of their handiwork. I want them to have enjoyed the song, enjoyed the project, and like the mementos coming from it. This is that. But I am also a collaborator too. I like it for myself, as well. YouTube may not be at a high point, but it is at an easy one. Take what we can get.

Even though I am on YouTube, please avoid scrolling that thing.

I do think scrolling YouTube is bad for your brain, though. It is infuriating. It is like someone guessing what you are trying to say all the time and being wrong about it, interrupting your story. My brain is like that. It gets distracted. It forgets. When the computer throws guesses at me, I get sidetracked and a little pissed. I know what I want. I wouldn’t be trying to type on the computer if I didn’t. You’d think it’d know that much. Maybe it does. I can’t tell.

You’re right to be suspicious

I am suspicious of everything about YouTube, to be honest. But I am also lonely with a ton of content. I need to be “out there” somehow, and I don’t like streamers, don’t like Bandcamp really, but I do it. I think YouTube is very invasive. It wouldn’t surprise me if they recorded you sleeping and posted it somewhere. Nothing surprises me in that realm anymore. Privacy is an antiquated notion. None of us have it if we can’t afford it. It is a privilege.

We don’t have to love it and trust it to use it, just like anything else.

I just make video content I want you to see if you like our stuff. So while I don’t trust YouTube as far as I can throw it, I do know if I use a smaller video service, I might be out some money. I won’t get folks to click on my shit. And I have the learning curve of a new platform. Plus, other video services seem deeply tied, almost integrated with social media of some sort, and I am not interested in that vibe in my life right now.

The Crossroads decision, every meal.

These decisions are circling every single company right now. It sucks, a lot. I do not feel “good” about using anything with a brand name on it. I feel like I wouldn’t even know they existed without micro-targeting, and that isn’t “good.” The profit motive makes them come off like crooked politicians, offering services in exchange for part of my soul. Posting a video shouldn’t be the crossroads kind of decision, but it is. Anything is. Eating fast food is a moral dilemma. Pick your battles. Enjoy your lunch.

I am struggling, frankly, in some ways

I have a hard time navigating this world. I feel like in the early 2000s, the world started heading one way, and I was on another path. I get the sensation we are too far down our perspective paths to reunite. It’s not like I want to lose the world; I am willing to meet it in a few spots. But some of the demands, I find utterly ridiculous. I refuse to be on a social media gridline of thoughts, beliefs, rants, and the computer feeding me what it’s paid to, not what I want or am looking for. It even disguises what it is paid to present me as what I am looking for. I hate that deception. It is world-altering. It doesn’t even help if I am smart. I am lonely. That means I am a target audience.

But Keri

I don’t feel like I belong here at all. I don’t feel accepted. I don’t feel respected. I don’t feel loved by anyone except Keri. I am happy for that though. Keri is more than most folks get in their whole life. We have built for over a decade together. No matter what happens, we were lucky for that.

This isn’t my world. I get it. So YouTube. yeah.

Kelly Kintner

Youtube

I may have unlocked promotional god mode.

Since I started posting on instagram more regularly just a handful of days ago (especially with the reels), orders for THE SOLAR GRID hardback have been pouring in (at an average conversion rate of about 10%) and my follower count has made a 5% jump (And we're getting so many applicants for the producer job).

The danger of course is getting too swept up by the social media sinkhole. We are after all, only human, and it is exactly the seductive lure of social media sinkholes that forces us to run for our lives away from these platforms from time to time (my old Z Flip actually helped immensely with weening me off social media; you're less inclined to reach for your phone every few mins if there's no big screen on its face calling out to you). Shunning social media is certainly a necessity when you'd like to lock in on a project and just get to work with as little distraction as possible. A little less of a necessity when work on the project is done and it's time to get the word out about it.

Instagram can be a time suck, especially if you're making reels for it. Quite the workload in its own right. Difficult to add more work to your plate when you're in the middle of working on something else, let alone something big. But once you're done with said big work (especially big work you might've poured 10 years of your life into), isn't it worth it to put just as much effort into promoting it?

What can I say, I'm kind of an all-in sorta guy.

#work #tsg

Réception [par l’œil de soi] des nuiteuses lumières publiques, espacées, fragiles, réparties en constellations, et de plus faibles lueurs d’ampoules s’éclipsant des maisons. Carte du ciel bas de la ville qui désoriente effraies, ducs petits ou grands et souris-chouettes. Un long trait de néon rouge traverse horizontalement la partie supérieure gauche de l’image, celle de droite étant rayée d’une courte ligne verte, clignotante, perpendiculaire et fluo.

Mais du fond du couloir [où se tient le soi] l’entaille rouge, à gauche, ne se voit pas, seulement sue on la devine, comme on imagine, sans le vouloir vraiment, celle qui déchire la gorge des bœufs, du côté droit. [Le soi oscille entre ce qui, possiblement, ouvre au rêve, à son invention, et ce que la violence enferme dans le cœur humain.]

#Fenêtresurville #Didascalies

Nog een laatste blik Dan moet hij haar laten gaan Het afscheid valt zwaar.

Wer heute auf die 1990er-Jahre zurückblickt, tappt schnell in die Nostalgiefalle. Doch zwischen dem Mauerfall 1989/90 und den Anschlägen vom 11. September 2001 liegt ein Jahrzehnt, dessen „Greatness“ uns in den 25 Jahren seither spürbar abhandengekommen ist, besonders den USA. Damals wurde vom amerikanischen Politikwissenschaftler Francis Fukuyama voreilig das „Ende der Geschichte“ ausgerufen – in Wahrheit war es bloß ein kurzes Kapitel am Übergang vom Analogen ins Digitale und in eine neue Weltordnung.

Rückblickend wird vieles sentimental weichgezeichnet, dabei waren diese 10 Jahre durchaus „shaky“. Als ich bei einem freiwilligen Schulausflug nach New York, es muss 1996 oder 1997 gewesen sein, noch im World Trade Center eine Führung bekomme, ist New York erst auf dem Weg zu einer halbwegs sicheren Großstadt – das Einschussloch im Fenster des Hotelzimmers ist mein Zeuge. Die obligatorischen Fotos mit den Piloten im Flugzeug-Cockpit und das entspannte Rauchen am Flugzeugtresen sind Artefakte einer vergangenen Zeit. Doch die Weltpolitik dreht noch einmal kurz das Licht auf. “It´s the economy, stupid!”, sagt damals James Carville, der Chefstratege des US-Präsidenten Bill Clinton. Denn die Wirtschaft floriert und das Leben ist gut. Clinton lacht mit dem sichtlich betrunkenen Boris Jelzin, spielt Saxophon im Fernsehen und mit Monica Lewinsky im Oval Office, bevor die ersten Al-Kaida-Anschläge auf die US-Botschaften in Kenia und Tansania ihre dunklen Schatten vorauswerfen.

Kulturell liefern NBC und Warner Bros. mit „Friends“ das letzte große analoge Lagerfeuer, in dem man noch stundenlang ohne Smartphone auf der Kaffeehaus-Couch mit Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Ross und Chandler Bing abhängt. Chuck Klosterman bringt dieses Lebensgefühl in seinem Buch „The Nineties“ treffend auf den Punkt: „Keine Story ging viral. Kein Promi trendete. Man musste keine Meinung haben, und es war jedem egal, ob man eine hatte oder nicht..“ Und Geld war nicht “alles”. Musikalisch bleibt Grunge mit dem “neuen Jesus” Kurt Cobain & Nirvana ein kurzer Lichtblick. Ein Wimpernschlag in der Geschichte, in dem Underground-Rock, Punk und Metal mithilfe von MTV plötzlich Mainstream werden – ganz im Gegensatz zum Hip-Hop, der sich dauerhaft an der Spitze gehalten hat. Gleichzeitig rückt die Welt spürbar zusammen: Grenzen verschwinden, das Ozonloch wird erfolgreich bekämpft, von Wien (Menschenrechte) über Rio (Nachhaltigkeit) und Beijing (Frauenrechte) bis Kyoto (Klima) gibt es die berechtigte Hoffnung, die großen Probleme tatsächlich gemeinsam lösen zu können. Wie die österreichische Journalistin Corinna Milborn vor Kurzem treffend in einem Posting festhielt: „Es war nicht alles gut, bei Weitem nicht – aber es gab globale Bewegungen und Bestrebungen, alles besser zu machen, und berechtigte Hoffnung, dass das gelingen kann.“

Heute wirkt im Vergleich dazu vieles fragiler und nervöser. Zwischen geopolitischen Verwerfungen, Polarisierung und einem digitalen Dauerfeuer aus Empörung ist uns vor allem die Gelassenheit abhandengekommen. Dabei verstellt dieser permanente Krisenmodus den Blick auf die harten Fakten – denn global gesehen stehen wir heute massiv besser da: Seit 1990 ist der Anteil der Menschen in extremer Armut laut Weltbank & UNO von knapp 38 Prozent auf unter 9 Prozent eingebrochen, die weltweite Kindersterblichkeit ist um 60 Prozent gesunken, die durchschnittliche Lebenserwartung ist von 64 auf über 73 Jahre geklettert und der Anteil der erwachsenen Analphabeten hat sich von damals 25 Prozent auf heute rund 13 Prozent fast halbiert. Dazu kommt, dass der große Wirtschaftszyklus der 90er-Jahre sichtlich am Ende ist: Die Ära der Globalisierung bröckelt an allen Ecken & Enden, aber genau dieser Umbruch macht Mut. Nach Jahrzehnten der Entgrenzung beginnt jetzt wieder die Zeit der kleineren, verlässlichen Netzwerke – im Wirtschaften genauso wie im Sozialen, wo geschützte Communities die lauten Massenplattformen ablösen. Deshalb lohnt sich der Blick zurück ohne verklärte Wehmut: Man würde die jüngere Generation zwar gerne kurz in die 90er mitnehmen, um ihr eine Welt ohne Dauerpanik zu zeigen. Schließlich sind wir auch heute nicht allen Krisen zwingend ausgeliefert. Wenn wir die Rückkehr zum Regionalen & Überschaubaren mit dem pragmatischen Optimismus der 1990er-Jahre verbinden, liegt das beste Kapitel erst noch vor uns.

© Reisig & Taylor/NBCUniversal

18 octobre 2026

On est toutes ensemble ce soir sauf Asu et ka chan qui ne pouvaient pas venir. T chan est très étonnée et heureuse de voir qu'on s'intéresse à elle, complètement intimidée mais ses yeux brillent. On a déjeuné ensemble, chacune avait amené un truc, on s'est régalées, on a oublié nos peines, on a fait la fête à notre petite.

#Tchan

What photograph —this— of glimmering fake? A pixelated divinity or momentum-brushed slate? Where down in the valley does bones chatter lead with a chittering encore bled from the unfed?

Oh, crafty peculiar! Oh, host wry on strife! Oh, pardons of margins that disable life! Oh, where does the specter turn his back to the knife when the states converge to din?

What lights up false radar with means to lean end? The woodchucks are starving and teethe on pretend. Where trundles the loads leveraged counter to balm in a city divested to harm with alarm?

Oh, crafty peculiar! Oh, host wry on strife! Oh, pardons of margins that disable life! Oh, where does the specter turn his back to the knife when the states converge to din?

What calculates plenty to schuck out high score? A levy of merchants confessed to deplore where children and scapegoats all die on the floor for the greed of those in charge.

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

Pernahkah kita menyadari bahwa saat menikmati konten di media sosial, sistem seakan-akan mampu membaca pikiran kita? Video yang terus bergulir seolah tahu persis apa yang sedang kita minati. Banyak orang mengira fenomena ini semacam sihir modern yang diciptakan oleh handphone dan internet.

Namun nyatanya di balik aktivitas kita menggunakan handphone rupanya aktivitas tersebut direkam oleh sistem yang menciptakan algoritma. Padahal, ia juga bekerja di atas fondasi logika matematika yang sangat terstruktur. Bagaimana umpan balik kita dalam menciptakan algoritma media sosial tersebut? Di balik personalisasi timeline yang terasa personal dan terdapat penerapan konsep dasar mengenai logika teori himpunan. Hal ini juga didukung dengan pencapaian dari tujuan tertentu yang ditetapkan oleh sistem mengharapan pengguna lebih lama menggunakan media sosial tersebut. Dengan melakukan pengumpulan data yang dapat berkaitan satu sama lain tanpa melupakan elemen-elemen dari data pengguna.

Penerapan dan Kilas Balik: Pemahaman Teori Himpunan secara Sederhana

Dalam konteks ilmiah algoritma mengacu pada suatu prosedur yang diikuti secara bertahap untuk menyelesaikan suatu masalah atau melakukan perhitungan. Algoritma dalam matematika adalah proses bertahap yang membantu menyelesaikan masalah melalui perhitungan dan mempertimbangkan beberapa variabel secara logis. Kedua jenis algoritma ini harus memiliki akhir yang pasti untuk mencapai solusi.

Di media sosial algoritma matematika merepresentasikan perilaku kita dalam istilah data yang bisa dianalisis oleh sistem komputer. Segala sesuatu mulai dari menulis komentar,menekan tombol suka, memposting sesuatu, menonton video selama beberapa detik semuanya diubah menjadi matematika dalam bentuk titik data.

Teori Himpunan terdapat pada matematika dan ilmu komputer yang menganalisis mengenai interaksi antarobjek melalui representasi visual dan sisi. Apabila dikaitkan dengan konteks media sosial, setiap pengguna yang melakukan aktivitas pengumpulkan data dengan follow, like, komentar pada konten yang disukai bahkan membagikannya. Pengumpulan elemen-elemen tersebut akan membuat suatu rangkaian sistem algoritma yang dapat membantu menganalisis pola pertemanan, konsumsi konten hingga merekomendasikan konten maupun teman baru yang memiliki minat yang sama.

Secara sederhana, himpunan dari data pengguna adalah sebuah wadah yang terstruktur atas data yang memiliki definisi yang jelas. Dalam himpunan data tersebut terdapat batas-batas yang disebut dengan elemen. Menurut ilmu matematika murni, objek dapat berupa angka maupun variabel yang berupa konteks digital yang akan dimuat dalam satu akun pengguna saja.

Untuk menghubungkan elemen-elemen yang ada, matematika mengenalkan operasi dasar yang disebut, irisan, gabungan, dan komplemen. Irisan dapat disebut sebagai, wilayah premis yang memiliki kesamaan konten. Kedua adalah gabungan, yaitu kumpulan dari keseluruhan data yang dimuat oleh pengguna selama menikmati konten. Terakhir adalah komplemen, yang merujuk keluar premis yang sudah dimuat oleh pengguna itu sendiri. Ketiga logika dasar matematika ini sangat berpengaruh untuk menjadi mesin utama dari berjalannya algoritma media sosial.

Dampak Eksplorasi Media Sosial terhadap Penggunanya

Pada dasarnya penggunaan media sosial dapat memilih konten-konten yang diinginkan dengan cara mencari konten terkait, frekuensi penayangan konten juga mempengaruhi algoritma. Namun akan ada masanya konten media sosial yang sedang booming akan lewat di beranda pengguna karena jumlah penayangan atau hanya sekedar bagian dari promosi.

Penerapan algoritma pada media sosial nyatanya memberikan dampak yang significant pada kehidupan nyata pengguna. Penemuan informasi atau konten media sosial yang begitu cepat dan tepat dengan minat pengguna dinilai sangat membantu. Algoritma juga membantu pengguna bertemu dengan audiens lain yang memiliki minat yang sama lewat komentar atau konten beranda. Ketersediaan ruang ekspresi diri yang terarah bahkan menjadi sarana hiburan semakin membuat pengguna betah scrolling media sosial. Pada algoritma ini juga menjadi penolong bagi pelaku UMKM dalam menjangkau calon konsumen melalui iklan terpersonalisasi maupun berbayar.

Tidak lupa di sisi lain dari dampak positif dari algoritma media sosial juga menyebabkan dampak buruk bagi penggunanya. Kecanggihan ini menyimpan konsekuensi yang besar dan perlu diwaspadai karena pengguna dapat terjebak dalam efek ruang gema atau echo chamber. Pengguna dibuat mengonsumsi putaran konten yang disukai saja hingga hanya dikenalkan dengan satu sudut pandang saja tanpa ada pembaruan berita penting lainnya. Akibat terpersonalisasi konten secara terus-menerus dapat memicu kesehatan mental menurun, ketergantungan dan menurunkan kepekaan pengguna terhadap interaksi yang ada di dunia nyata.

Refleksi dan Penutup

Keterkaitan antara matematika dan media sosial membuktikan betapa canggihnya teknologi saat ini. Di satu sisi ia memudahkan kita, namun di sisi lain ia menciptakan ruang gema yang mempersempit cakrawala informasi. Oleh karena itu, digital awareness sangat dibutuhkan agar kita tidak sepenuhnya dikendalikan oleh sistem. Terkadang, kita harus keluar dari zona nyaman dengan menjelajahi hal-hal di luar rekomendasi algoritma, membiarkan diri terpapar oleh pemikiran yang komplementer, dan merebut kembali kendali atas apa yang kita konsumsi. Sebab di balik layar kaca yang dingin itu, kita bukan sekadar angka atau variabel dalam algoritma bahwa kita adalah manusia yang memiliki hak penuh untuk menentukan arah navigasi digital kita sendiri.

Perlu diingat bahwa peran kita sebagai individu sangat berpengaruh besar dalam menciptakan elemen dalam semesta himpunan yang terus beririsan. Namun semua itu dapat kita kendalikan dengan menentukan batas-batasnya.

Daftar Pustaka

Rahman Rudi, dkk. (2025). Pengaruh Algoritma Media Sosial Terhadap Pola Konsumsi Informasi di Kalangan Gen Z di Universitas Hang Tuah Pekanbaru. 13(2). 351-358.

Lanman McCall. (2026, Juli 1). A marketer’s guide to how social media algorithms work and how to master them. Sproutsocial

Tenny Tjia. (2026). Dampak Algoritma Media Sosial pada Pola Pikir Generasi Muda. Radio Republik Indonesia

Dr. Hidayaturrahman, S.Kom., M.T.. (2025). Cara Kerja Algoritma Media Sosial yang Mengatur Feed Kita. Binus.ac.id

Isnainiuha. (2024). Himpunan. Kanal Pengetahuan dan Menara Ilmu Fakultas Matematika dan Ilmu Pengetahuan Alam Universitas Gadjah Mada

I came back from LA with friends just now. It was me and 4 other girls, and we got food several times, and spent a ton of the day at this Korean sauna. We spent a good amount of time in the nude portions which were gender separated and I had a blast, but then we grouped back up and spent a lot of time in the coed area. We all napped together, traded some massages, yapped and relaxed. And then we drove home and got ready to see eachother again tomorrow for a movie with other friends. And no one was afraid of me, in the way my mother instilled into me. My friends feel safe and comfortable around me, and do not view me as a monster solely due to my gender. I have friends who feel safe with me, want to have sleepovers, and accommodate me. I wish I could go back and tell younger me this, and counter condition sooner this schema I carried forth for so many years.

#procesos

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Créditos · © 2026 Juanma Menéndez

Esta obra está licenciada bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución 4.0 Internacional (CC BY 4.0).

Esto significa que puede ser compartida, copiada, adaptada y distribuida en cualquier medio o formato, incluso con fines comerciales, siempre que se dé el crédito adecuado al autor.

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Même si aujourd’hui, personne ne me lit. Au fond, ce que je cherche à faire, avec ces bouts de pensée, c’est les confronter au monde et exister.

C’est partager l’expérience empirique de moi-même dans l’espoir qu’elle parle à d’autres.

Et d’être compris.

Cette expression (« l’expérience empirique de soi-même ») revient à Alain De Botton. Je l’ai trouvé magnifique et décidé d’en faire quelque chose.

As the woman pulled him deeper into the heart of the shadow district, Simon didn't offer resistance. It was only later that he'd learn her name, his savior, but at that moment, he couldn't fathom mustering the will to break free from her iron grip. Her fingers clamped firmly around his wrist, compelling him to tread the path she had set before him.

The sun, climbing toward its zenith, cast a diminishing array of shadows from the towering, decrepit stone structures. The district earned its name for the rare sunlight that breached the overhead canopy only when directly overhead. The intricate network of sky bridges connecting the buildings created an intricate labyrinth. In this place, Simon knew escape was improbable.

Deep within the district, where multiple sky bridges converged to form a domed ceiling, the stony world took on an eerie twilight. The only sources of light emanated from dim storefronts and a scattering of feeble lampposts, their meager, orange glow absorbed by the pervasive darkness. It was here that Kit pulled him into an establishment, the faded name of 'Enchanted Chalice' barely visible, having eroded with age and neglect.

The exterior of The Enchanted Chalice was unpretentious, its modest façade veiled by layers of ivy and the relentless march of time. Weathered wooden boards groaned beneath the weight of entering patrons, shrouding the atmosphere in perpetual twilight. The air bore a heavy scent of aged oak, incense, and an elusive aroma that eluded Simon's senses.

Dimly lit lanterns dangled from the rafters, casting a warm, amber radiance that danced with the encroaching shadows. The walls featured tapestries displaying mythical beasts, ancient maps of uncharted territories, and other enigmatic subjects, their details obscured by the dense smog from the fireplace and lit pipes.

Simon's gaze darted around the establishment, attempting to take in the surreal scene. He pondered if he would ever emerge from this place. Behind a scarred bar counter, the innkeeper, a weathered woman swathed in a patchwork cloak, served a bubbling concoction to a patron who appeared to float, the lower half of their body resembling that of a serpent.

In another corner, a fortune-teller hunched over a deck of well-worn cards, her eyes aglow while she animatedly conversed with a disinterested companion. Kit unceremoniously thrust Simon into a corner booth, its rough-hewn wood offering minimal comfort. He scooted to the farthest corner as she slid in beside him. A striking, dark-skinned girl approached, clad in a faded blue skirt that cascaded to her feet, a soiled white chemise, and a dark lace bodice that scarcely contained her, its loose strings dangling at the sides.

“Didn't expect to see you back so soon, Kit,” the young woman drawled, her tresses resting on her shoulders.

“Hey, Nidi. Negotiations with the Fen didn't go as planned,” Kit grumbled as she accepted a flagon of ale, thumping it down in front of her. “He's as stuck up as Tavith thought.”

Nidi gestured toward Simon, who was doing his best not to seem like he was cowering in the corner. “Who's the kid?”

“Simon Barter,” he replied, striving to mask the tremor in his voice.

“Found him wandering the shadows,” Kit explained, taking a few swigs of her ale. “The idiot thought he could rescue me from Fen's bruisers. I suppose I took pity on him.”

“You could have just shown me the way out,” Simon suggested.

Kit raised her gloved hand, silencing him. “Hush.”

Nidi interjected, raising an eyebrow, “You want a beer? If you're old enough to drink, that is.”

There was no way Simon was about to reveal his money pouch. “No, thank you,” he added quickly.

Nidi giggled, resting her hands on her hips. “Oh, we've got a polite one. You should keep this one.”

Simon retorted, “I'm not anyone's property.”

Kit, in the middle of her drink, pointed to the door. Thumping the flagon down, she wiped her mouth. “There's the door, kid. If you think you can find your way out.”

Simon surveyed the space between him and the exit, populated by a motley crew of unsavory characters. “I'll stay here. I'm tired.”

“Tired, right.”

Those condescending smirks grated on him, but what other option did he have? He had left home and already found himself in the seediest part of town, where a single misstep could spell his disappearance, never to be seen again.

“Let me know if you want any food, Kit,” Nidi finally said as she turned to walk away. “On the house for ya.”

Simon couldn't help but watch the sway of her hips as she departed.

“She's quite easygoing,” Kit interrupted his thoughts, a touch of mirth in her voice. “Fifty silver talons, and she'll show you her bed and a good time.”

“No!” Simon balked at the woman's crudeness, his face turning scarlet. “Uh... I mean, no thank you. I'm just trying to get out of the city.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Kit said, leaning back and propping her feet on the table. “The new bag, your age, your sheer bewilderment, and your apparent fear of women.” “I just got turned around,” Simon attempted to defend himself. “And I'm not scared of girls.”

“Sure.”

Doubt dripped from that word, but he didn't have a chance to respond before Kit downed more of her drink. Silence settled between the two, and during this lull, Nidi returned, placing a plate of steaming potatoes and slices of meat in front of him.

“I didn't order—”

“Shut up,” was Nidi's curt response before she walked away.

The smile on Kit's face grew a bit. “I guess she likes you. Eat up. Don't insult the tavern by turning down their gift.”

“Oh.”

The concept of a “gift from the tavern” had reached Simon's ears before. It was the practice of offering travelers and nobility complimentary items as a form of respect. He couldn't fathom why this particular tavern had extended him this courtesy.

“Kit Morigin,” the woman said, leaning forward, her feet off the table. “Where are you headed?”

“Simon Barter,” he replied, with a mouthful of potato. “I was on my way to Oakridge.”

“Why?” Kit inquired.

“Why do you ask?” Simon countered.

“I'm bored,” Kit admitted. “There's nothing to do until a friend of mine returns. Why are you heading to Oakridge? It's larger than here, and the chances of getting lost are pretty high.”

“The Traveler's Guild.”

Both of Kit's eyebrows shot up, her beautiful yet well-worn face reflecting surprise. “You're a Traveler?”

“I want to apply to be a Traveler,” Simon confessed. What else could he say or do? He was at the mercy of this person.

Kit erupted into laughter, earning curious glances from a few hooded individuals who then returned to their conversations. “What's so funny?” “You. You want to be a Traveler? You're an idiot.”

“Hey!” Simon protested, his anger beginning to surface. “What do you mean by 'idiot'?”

“Where's your weapon, boy?”

Weapon?

“Uh... what?”

“Do you know how to wield a sword? A dagger? A bow?”

“Ummm... no.”

Kit's grin widened as she leaned back. “The Traveler's Guild isn't a social club, cub. It's composed of men and women seeking their fortune through cunning or combat. You possess no skills that would interest them.”

“How do you know?”

With a swift motion, she reached into her cuirass and retrieved a medallion. It was as battered as her other equipment, but Simon recognized the silver piece bearing the symbol of an eagle, the Traveler's Mark.

“You're a Traveler?” Simon exclaimed in shock.

“Yeah, I've been one for quite a while. Earned my silver a few years back,” Kit said with a nonchalant shrug. “It's no walk in the park. It'll devour dreamers like you.”

Why had that not dawned on him? Simon looked down at the wooden table that had seen many years of wear, tear, and knife points. He had some basic sword steps from a few guards when he was younger but that had been more to amuse themselves than to actually teach him. He looked up to see the keen look on the Traveler crossed from him. Simon took in a breath and nodded with resolve. 

“I can learn. My father used to say that the most useful skill is to be able to learn, then nothing is impossible.”

“You're willing to learn as you go? That's a great way of getting killed.”

Simon frowned and folded his arms.

Kit seemed to contemplate something, then stood and made her way into the crowd.  Simon watched her vanish in the crowd, fear spiking being left alone.

Like a predator though, Nidi slid into the booth by him.  

“Hey, sweetie,” The barmaid said with a grin that now made him more nervous than scared. “She left you all alone.“ 

“She'll be back.” Goddess, he hoped she would be coming back.

“Was the food good?” She asked. “Made it myself. Thought you deserved more than Thrak would slop on a plate.“ 

Simon swallowed and glanced down at the plate. She scooted closer and leaned over giving him a full view down her chemise. The young man immediately found something interesting on the table beside her.  

“Anything else I can do for you?” She cooed.   “I'm good. Thank you.“ 

“We could go upstairs. I can let Kit know you and I want to get 'better acquainted.'“ 

Simon's throat got dry at the proposition. The thought of this young lady without clothes on a bed caused his heart rate to jump.   She giggled seemingly reading his mind.  

“I appreciate it but...“ 

“You got a maid waiting for you?” She quizzed letting her hand creep on top of his.  

“N..n...no.“ 

“Then why not? I think you're cute. Plus, I like giving young men their first 'experience'. Free of charge!“ 

“Hey! I'm not—–“ 

Nidi's laughter tinkled around him. 

“It's written all over your face, my hero. Come. I promise it'll be memorable.“ 

Simon was now praying he was facing the shady people instead.  

“Nidi!“  Kit had returned and whatever trance she had on him broke. She sighed.  

“Leave the poor boy alone. He looks like a rabbit about to run.“ 

Nidi sighed and scooted back.  

“I was just being sociable, Kit.“ 

“Sure,” Kit responded sitting down across from him again. “And I'm a priestess of the Cult of Purity. Be gone harlot.“ 

Simon winced at such a strong word, but all Nidi did was give his arm a squeeze, laugh, and flounce back to work.

“Sorry, forgot to warn you she's a bit of a predator.” Kit laughed and dropped an item on the table.  

“What's that?“ 

Kit leaned back in her chair, her eyes glittering with a mix of nostalgia and mischief as she gestured grandly at the weathered scabbard, which lay like a slumbering guardian between them on the rugged, wooden table. Its leather surface, once vibrant and polished, had seen its fair share of battles and adventures. “This,” Kit said, her voice a warm, inviting drawl, “is your first sword. I convinced Thrak to give it up as he's too old to be adventuring anymore.”

Simon's eyebrows furrowed in curiosity as he glanced at the scabbard, then back at Kit. “Thrak? The Cook?”

A fond smile tugged at Kit's lips as she began to weave the tale. “Oh, yeah. Thrak used to do a lot of adventuring until an unfortunate incident when a new initiate wasn't being careful. Poor guy took an arrow to the knee, and he hasn't been the same since,” she continued with a wistful sigh, her eyes dancing with a hint of mischief. She pushed the scabbard closer to him, the leather surface bearing the scars of countless journeys.

Simon intrigued and somewhat baffled, reached for the weathered scabbard gingerly. His fingers brushed over the rough surface, feeling the history it held. Carefully, he gripped it and pulled the blade gently out of the leather sheath, which held it securely in its embrace. The blade that emerged was simple, only about twenty-four inches long, with a hilt that was a quarter of that size. It had only one cutting edge, with a slight curve near the point. The crossguard was simple black steel, unadorned and utilitarian, yet it felt surprisingly solid in his hand.

“Thrak says her name is 'whipped cream',” Kit explained, her tone laced with humor.

Simon blinked in confusion. “I'm sorry, what?” He turned to see the massive green hulk of a person in the doorway, a goblin named Thrak, his imposing presence contrasting with the cozy atmosphere of the room. Thrak's four long braids of black hair ran down his back, his stained shirt, and wide, unblinking eyes fixed on Simon, his massive arms crossed over his chest.

Kit shrugged and offered a cryptic smile. “Don't ask me. I don't know goblin culture. He expects you to do honor to his 'sword wife.' He expects you to take care of her, make sure she stays sharp, keep her close, and give her a kiss before you sleep. Thrak says she will serve you well if you do.”

Simon's curiosity got the better of him. “Is...it magic?”

Kit chuckled heartily. “Oh, hell no. Goblins are just particular about their swords.”

Simon slid the blade back into her...its sheath and set it down on the table. “I don't know if I could do her justice for Thrak.”

Kit slid the scabbard back to him, her tone serious. “Too late. You can't turn her down. Thrak would take that as a severe insult.”

Simon, realizing he had no choice, accepted the sword, looking over to Thrak and bowing in respect. In return, the goblin did the same and lumbered back into his kitchen, a gesture of trust and camaraderie.

“Now, you have a sword. You can have this from me,” Kit said, her voice shifting to a more business-like tone. She handed over a sealed piece of parchment with a wax seal on it. Simon raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“This?”

“A letter of introduction from me to the Oakbridge Guild,” Kit explained. “It'll guarantee you at least one mission to try it out. You aren't accepted; it just asks that you be allowed a trial before consideration. Better put your best foot forward. Leader Hordak is not one to suffer fools.”

Simon's eyes sparkled with gratitude as he accepted the letter and placed it in his pouch with great care. But then, he hesitated, studying Kit with suspicion.

“Why are you helping me?”

Kit leaned in, her gaze piercing. “Because, unlike what you might be thinking, I don't like the idea of pretty boys getting slaughtered because they're damn fools. At least this way, I have a bit of salvation in case you wind up impaled on an Elven death pole.”

Simon hadn't thought about that aspect of his future adventures, and it sent a shiver down his spine.

“Now!” Kit exclaimed, her infectious enthusiasm returning. “Let's get you going!” She stood abruptly, ready to usher Simon into a world of uncertainty and adventure.

Simon hesitated and she looked over to Nidi who was watching them. “Unless you'd like to take an hour with Nidi! She's been salivating since we arrived.”

Simon hopped up.

“Let's go!”

Kit laughed.

Oracle's most honest document this autumn was a cash flow statement.

It was filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 11 September 2026, in the quarterly report covering the three months to 31 August, and it lays out with a bookkeeper's calm where the money came from and where it went. Revenue rose from $14.9 billion to $19.3 billion, and net income climbed 63 per cent to $4.76 billion. Capital expenditure, almost all of it data centres, came to $28.5 billion, against $8.5 billion a year earlier. Oracle sold roughly 141 million new shares through an “at-the-market” programme for net proceeds of $19.9 billion, using up the entire $20 billion facility in a single quarter. And in a note on restructuring, the company recorded that “subsequent to August 31, 2026, our management supplemented the 2026 Restructuring Plan by approximately $700 million to reflect additional actions that we expect to take,” lifting a plan previously estimated at up to $2.1 billion to roughly $2.8 billion.

The same note describes what the plan is for. It exists, Oracle says, “to implement certain strategic measures and further improve operational efficiencies, including through the adoption and integration of artificial intelligence technologies across certain functions”.

Three days after the quarterly report was filed, the additional actions began. On Monday 14 September, according to The Deep Dive and The Week, affected staff, including employees in India, lost access to company systems and received an email early that morning, signed by Oracle Leadership, telling them their roles had been eliminated and that “today is your last working day”. Oracle has not said how many people were affected. The only public count is partial: Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices dated 14 September cover 359 employees in Washington state, at two Seattle offices or working remotely, according to FOX 13 Seattle, and 441 in California, at Redwood City, Santa Clara and Pleasanton, according to TheStreet, with separations scheduled from 13 November. TheStreet counts at least 2,578 Oracle job cuts in US WARN notices so far in 2026, but those notices cover only some US sites, so the figure is a floor, not a total. Its annual report for the year to 31 May had already recorded a fall in headcount from about 162,000 to about 141,000, a net loss of 21,000 people, or 13 per cent.

The story of the email has been told, including in these pages. This piece is about the cash flow statement, because it answers a question the email never could. When a profitable, fast-growing company pays for its AI buildout partly by cutting its wage bill, who is actually underwriting the AI transition?

Five Parties Paid For The Quarter

Start with the ledger, because the popular version of this story gets the proportions wrong in an interesting way.

The popular version says Oracle sacked workers to pay for data centres. The filings say something more complicated. In the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Oracle's operations generated $23.1 billion of cash, up 184 per cent on a year earlier. Much of that came from customers, and according to chief financial officer Hilary Maxson on the earnings call, most of the new contracts signed in the quarter used customer prepayments, “bring your own hardware” deals or similar structures that will not need extra capital from Oracle. New shareholders put in $19.9 billion. Lenders already hold $125 billion of Oracle's senior notes and other long-term borrowings, after the company raised $42.7 billion in senior notes during fiscal 2026 alone. Those are the big cheques.

Now find the workers. Oracle's income statement shows that, compared with the same quarter a year earlier, sales and marketing expense fell from $2,063 million to $1,811 million, research and development from $2,491 million to $2,401 million, and general and administrative stayed flat at $376 million. These are the personnel-heavy lines; Oracle's own annual report attributes the $320 million fall in sales and marketing spending during fiscal 2026 “primarily” to lower employee-related expenses. Taken together, the three lines fell by about $342 million year on year.

Put those numbers next to each other and the arithmetic is almost embarrassing. Oracle's interest expense rose by $505 million over the same period. Depreciation rose by $1.8 billion. The quarter's capital expenditure was more than 80 times the year-on-year saving on those three people-heavy lines.

Even across a full year, the scale holds. Oracle's 2026 proxy statement puts the total compensation of its median global employee at $94,740. As a crude illustration only, since nobody knows what the departing staff actually earned, 21,000 people paid that median would cost about $2 billion a year. Oracle spent $55.7 billion on capital expenditure in fiscal 2026 and ran negative free cash flow of $23.7 billion. Payroll cuts cannot fund a buildout of that size. At most they trim its edges.

So the honest answer to “who pays for the data centres” is: customers first, then new shareholders, then bondholders, with workers a distant fourth in dollar terms. A fifth party, the taxpayer, appears later in this story.

The reason this matters is that it turns the question round. If payroll savings are too small to pay for the buildout, why cut payroll at all? The answer is that the payroll line is not where the money comes from. It is where the risk goes.

Why The Smallest Contribution Carries The Heaviest Loss

Every party on that ledger is underwriting the transition, but they are doing it on very different terms.

A shareholder who bought into Oracle's at-the-market programme chose to buy, at a price they accepted, in a liquid market they can leave tomorrow. A bondholder lends at a yield priced for the risk, and that risk has been spelled out. On 9 July 2026, S&P Global Ratings cut Oracle's long-term rating from BBB to BBB-, one notch above speculative grade, admitting that it had “underestimated the scale of the investments required to expand the AI business” and noting that OpenAI accounted for about half of Oracle's $638 billion contracted backlog. Lenders who stay have been told the risk and are being paid to carry it. In the first quarter alone, Oracle paid $1.565 billion in dividends to preferred and common stockholders and booked $1.428 billion of interest expense.

The departing employee's contribution works differently. It is not chosen, not priced and not diversified. Reporting by Business Insider, summarised by Business Today in April 2026, set out the US severance formula: four weeks of base salary for the first year of service, one additional week for each further year, capped at 26 weeks. Unvested stock, which for many technology workers is a substantial part of their pay, is forfeited. Reported terms for India, drawn from employee accounts rather than any company statement, are structured differently and vary by location.

Twenty-six weeks is half a year. The best long-run evidence on what job loss actually costs comes from the economists Steven J. Davis and Till von Wachter, whose 2011 Brookings Papers on Economic Activity study tracked American workers through Social Security records from 1974 to 2008. Men displaced in mass layoffs when national unemployment was below 6 per cent lost, on average, the equivalent of 1.4 years of their pre-displacement earnings in present-value terms, discounting over twenty years. When unemployment exceeded 8 per cent, the loss doubled to 2.8 years. The study is not specific to technology workers and is not a prediction for any individual. But it sets a benchmark, and the maximum severance Oracle offers in the United States covers roughly a third of the typical loss in good times.

There is one more asymmetry. In the first quarter, according to the 10-Q, Oracle made $324 million of cash payments under the 2026 Restructuring Plan. Dividend payments in the same quarter were nearly five times that figure. Both are legitimate obligations. One is a return on capital that its owners chose to commit. The other is the closing payment on a contribution its providers never agreed to make.

How Severance Learns To Look Like Modernisation

To see how a person becomes a modernisation cost, follow the accounting.

Under US generally accepted accounting principles, severance sits in one of two places. Benefits paid under an ongoing, established plan fall under ASC 712 and are accrued when they are probable and can be reasonably estimated. One-off packages fall under ASC 420, the standard for exit and disposal costs, and, as PwC's accounting guidance sets out, a liability is generally recognised when the plan has been communicated to employees in enough detail for each of them to work out what they would receive. Either way, the cost lands in a line Oracle calls “restructuring and other”.

That line is then removed from the number most investors watch. Oracle's first-quarter earnings release reconciles GAAP results with non-GAAP ones, and restructuring is one of the items stripped out, alongside stock-based compensation and the amortisation of acquired intangible assets. In the quarter, GAAP operating margin was 35 per cent. Non-GAAP operating margin, with restructuring and the other adjustments removed, was 42 per cent. The non-GAAP earnings per share figure that led the headline, $1.92, carries no trace of severance.

Excluding restructuring is standard practice and Oracle discloses every adjustment in full. The point is what the convention implies. A restructuring charge is presented as something outside the business's ongoing performance, a one-off cost of transition. Yet Oracle has recorded restructuring expense every year: $404 million in fiscal 2024, $299 million in fiscal 2025, $1.779 billion in fiscal 2026. Its quarterly report says the company expects “to incur additional restructuring expenses in future periods”. The cost recurs, but it is reported as if it were exceptional.

The most revealing sentence, though, is not in the accounting notes. It is in management's discussion, where Oracle explains what happened to the money it saved. Certain of the savings from the 2026 Restructuring Plan, it says, “were offset by investments in resources and geographies that we believe better address the development, marketing, sale and delivery of our cloud-based offerings, including investments in the development and delivery of our second-generation cloud infrastructure.”

That is the reallocated payroll, described by the company that reallocated it. Savings from one set of people and places were moved to other resources and other geographies. Severance is booked as the cost of making that move, then removed from adjusted earnings, so the move looks almost free.

The Taxpayer Was Underwriting Before Anyone Was Fired

The fifth party on the ledger did not sign anything either, and its contribution started long before September.

In 2020, Daron Acemoglu, Andrea Manera and Pascual Restrepo published a paper through the Brookings Institution and the National Bureau of Economic Research asking whether the US tax code favours automation. They found that it does. Effective tax rates on labour stood above 28.5 per cent, while the effective rate on capital invested in equipment and software had fallen to about 5 per cent. Their conclusion was that the heavy taxation of labour and light taxation of capital encourage firms to automate more tasks, and use less labour, than is socially optimal. Under the tax structure they modelled as optimal, labour would be taxed at around 9 per cent and capital at around 22 per cent.

The authors traced much of that low capital rate to generous depreciation provisions passed between 2002 and 2017. The most generous of them has since been made permanent. The 100 per cent bonus depreciation introduced in 2017 had been phasing down, reaching 40 per cent for 2025, until legislation signed in July 2025, commonly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, permanently restored it for qualifying property acquired after 19 January 2025. The Internal Revenue Service issued interim guidance in Notice 2026-11 in January 2026. In general, qualifying property means assets with a recovery period of 20 years or less, which covers the servers, storage and networking equipment that fill a data centre, though not the buildings. A company buying those assets can deduct the whole cost in the year it places them in service, rather than spreading it over their useful life.

Oracle's effective tax rate in the first quarter of fiscal 2027 was 15.1 per cent. Its filings do not break out how much of that reflects accelerated depreciation, and nothing here suggests Oracle is doing anything other than using the law as written. But the structure is clear. Each dollar of salary carries payroll taxes. Each dollar of qualifying data centre equipment can now be written off immediately. When a company shifts spending from people to machines, public policy is pushing it the same way.

Then there is the safety net. In the United States, displaced workers can turn to state unemployment insurance, which typically replaces only part of lost wages for a limited period. A large share of Oracle's workforce sits outside that system altogether: of roughly 141,000 employees at the end of fiscal 2026, about 92,000 worked outside the United States, where severance, notice and benefits are governed by national law and, in many places, by much thinner public provision. Whatever severance does not cover is met by the worker's savings, by family, and by whatever state they happen to live in.

Shareholders Are Paying Too, On Different Terms

None of this means shareholders are getting a free ride, and the strongest version of Oracle's case deserves a hearing.

The share price has taken a beating. Fortune reported on 26 September 2026 that Oracle had closed at $137, down 53 per cent over the previous twelve months. The new shares sold through the at-the-market programme went for an average of about $141 each, and the share count rose by about 5 per cent in a single quarter, from 2.88 billion to 3.02 billion. Anyone holding Oracle stock owns a smaller slice of a company that S&P projected in July would run a free cash flow deficit of nearly $42 billion in fiscal 2027, up from the agency's earlier forecast of about $24 billion. Seven years ago this ledger ran the other way: in fiscal 2019, Oracle spent $36.1 billion buying back its own shares. In the most recent quarter it bought back none.

Even the executives' headline pay is less certain than it looks. Oracle's 2026 proxy statement reports fiscal 2026 total compensation of $627.5 million for co-chief executive Clayton Magouyrk and $256.6 million for co-chief executive Michael Sicilia, against $94,740 for the median employee, a ratio of 6,623 to 1 for Magouyrk. Those totals are largely the accounting value of one-time stock option awards made when the two were appointed in September 2025, awards the proxy itself values at $250 million and $100 million at target. Fortune reported that by the end of the fiscal year all of the options granted to Magouyrk, Sicilia and executive chair Larry Ellison were underwater, and the proxy says the awards “had no intrinsic value” at that date. They may never pay out.

Ellison, who according to the proxy beneficially owns 38.2 per cent of Oracle's common stock, has also signalled that he is staying put. Oracle's quarterly report disclosed that he adopted a trading plan on 22 June 2026 allowing him to sell up to 50 million shares. On 12 September, the company announced that he had cancelled it, that no shares had been sold under it, and that he had no other plans to sell.

So the people at the top are exposed to the same bet, and in paper terms they have lost a great deal on it. The difference is not whether they bear risk but what kind. A stake of 1.158 billion shares, at the $2.00 per share in common dividends Oracle declared in fiscal 2026, would generate roughly $2.3 billion a year in cash, more than the entire $1.779 billion restructuring expense of fiscal 2026. A falling share price reduces wealth that remains. A severance letter ends income that was the wealth. Both are losses, but only one can be recovered by waiting.

A Record Low For Labour's Share Of Output

Oracle is one company, but its pattern fits a national trend that was under way long before anyone mentioned large language models.

On 15 September 2026, the day after Oracle's emails went out, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics published a short note. Labour share in the nonfarm business sector, the fraction of output paid to workers as wages, salaries and benefits, was 52.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2026, “the lowest level ever recorded” in a series that begins in 1947. For most of the post-war period it ranged between 60 and 66 per cent. It began a sustained decline after the turn of the century, and it stood at 56.3 per cent at the end of 2019.

The productivity figures released a few days earlier explain why the decline matters. Nonfarm business productivity rose 1.4 per cent at an annual rate in the second quarter and 2.2 per cent on a year earlier. Real hourly compensation, meanwhile, fell at an annual rate of 3.3 per cent in the quarter. Output per hour is rising; the share of it paid to the people producing it is falling.

It would be wrong to blame that decline on AI, and the BLS makes no such claim. The trend predates the technology by two decades, and economists still disagree about what drives it. But the Oracle quarter is a small, precise example of how the macro statistic is made: revenue up 30 per cent, operating income up 57 per cent, personnel-heavy expense lines down, capital spending more than tripled. At the national level, labour share is just a ratio of totals. It falls one company at a time, through decisions like these.

Microsoft, Meta, Amazon And Salesforce Run Variations

Is Oracle the leading edge of a new corporate normal? The comparable firms suggest the pattern is real but varies, and the variations show who is underwriting the change.

Microsoft employed about 223,000 people at 30 June 2026, according to its annual report, down from about 228,000 a year earlier. In April, chief financial officer Amy Hood told investors that headcount had fallen year on year and was expected to keep falling, while the company booked about $900 million of charges for a voluntary retirement programme. Microsoft's additions to property and equipment rose by almost 80 per cent, from $64.6 billion in fiscal 2025 to $115.9 billion in fiscal 2026. And it still returned $48.7 billion to shareholders over the year, $22.3 billion in buybacks and $26.4 billion in dividends. Microsoft can pay for the buildout out of its own cash flow and keep paying shareholders. Its workforce is shrinking anyway.

Meta told staff in April that it would cut roughly 10 per cent of its workforce, about 8,000 people. Its second-quarter results recorded $1.18 billion of severance expense tied to the May reduction, headcount of 75,472, down 1 per cent on a year earlier, and revenue up 28 per cent to $60.8 billion. It narrowed its 2026 capital expenditure outlook to between $130 billion and $145 billion. Free cash flow for the quarter came to just $784 million.

Amazon announced 14,000 corporate job cuts in October 2025 and around 16,000 more on 28 January 2026, together about a tenth of its corporate workforce. By its second quarter of 2026 it was planning capital spending of around $220 billion for the year, and free cash flow on its trailing measure had turned negative, at minus $7.6 billion. Andy Jassy, the chief executive, has explicitly rejected the AI reading of his cuts. “The announcement that we made a few days ago was not really financially driven, and it's not even really AI-driven, not right now at least,” he told analysts in October 2025. “It's culture.”

Salesforce gave the clearest statement of reallocation. In September 2025, chief executive Marc Benioff said on The Logan Bartlett Show that AI agents had allowed the company to cut its support headcount from about 9,000 to about 5,000. “I've rebalanced my support headcount,” he said, “so I can now put those people into sales.”

Together the cases show both the pattern and its limits. Every one of these firms is growing revenue, holding headcount flat or cutting it, and raising capital spending to levels without precedent. Every one has made workforce reductions while doing so. But the headcount changes at Microsoft and Meta are small in percentage terms, Amazon's chief executive denies the causal link, and the cash that pays for the data centres overwhelmingly comes from somewhere other than payroll. The debt markets show where. JPMorgan, in research reported by Bloomberg in August 2026, raised its forecast for technology, media and telecoms bond issuance this year to $540 billion and estimated that hyperscaler debt alone would reach $317 billion.

Oracle stands out because it has the weakest balance sheet of the group. Microsoft funds the buildout from cash flow. Meta and Amazon are pushing their free cash flow towards zero and below. Oracle has had to sell equity at depressed prices, borrow at the lowest investment-grade rating, and ask customers to prepay. When every source of funding is under strain, the one that requires nobody's consent comes under the most pressure. That makes Oracle less an exception than a stress test. It shows what the pattern looks like when the balance sheet runs out of room.

Payroll Has Become The Adjustable Line

So is this the new normal? The evidence supports a narrower claim than the headlines, and a more durable one.

It does not support the idea that AI is about to empty corporate offices. Microsoft's headcount fell about 2 per cent in a year and Meta's 1 per cent. The cash going into data centres comes overwhelmingly from operating income, bonds and new shares. Even at Oracle, the quarter's saving on personnel-heavy expense lines came to roughly 1 per cent of its capital expenditure.

What the evidence does support is a change in the order in which claims on a company's cash are met. In the buyback era, which at Oracle peaked with $36.1 billion of repurchases in fiscal 2019, shareholders came first and payroll was a fixed cost of doing business. In the AI buildout, capital expenditure comes first, contractually locked in through long-term leases and supplier commitments that Oracle's own annual report warns could leave it “locked into multi-year commitments” for surplus capacity if demand disappoints. Shareholders come next, still paid their dividends while buybacks are largely paused. Payroll has become the variable that absorbs the difference: the one line that can be cut within a quarter, by email, without renegotiating anything with anyone.

That is what the Oracle pattern reveals about who underwrites the AI transition. Customers and investors pay most of the bill, and they choose to. Taxpayers subsidise it through a code that, on the best available evidence, taxes labour far more heavily than equipment. Workers carry the part of the risk that has nowhere else to go, at a price nobody negotiated with them, and their losses are recorded in a line that the preferred measure of corporate performance leaves out.

The arrangement is not unique to AI. What AI adds is a justification. Oracle's filings tie the restructuring explicitly to “the adoption and integration of artificial intelligence technologies across certain functions,” and its annual report states that the adoption and deployment of AI “have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce.” Whether AI actually did the work of the people who left, or merely made it easier to explain why they were no longer affordable, is something no filing can settle. Either way, the effect on the ledger is the same.

The Ledger Line That Cannot Be Refinanced

What becomes of the workers whose severance is booked as a cost of modernisation?

The evidence offers a sobering but bounded answer. The US unemployment rate was 4.2 per cent in September 2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which places today's American job losers in the better of the two scenarios Davis and von Wachter measured. Their benchmark for such times is a loss equivalent to well over a year's earnings, spread across the years after displacement, rather than permanent exclusion from work. Some, particularly in countries with weak protections and in roles that AI tools can increasingly reach, will find it harder. In every case, their severance and their losses will appear in Oracle's accounts only once, in the restructuring line, and then be adjusted away.

A different arrangement is imaginable, and some of it is already on the record. Acemoglu, Manera and Restrepo argued that rebalancing the tax treatment of labour and capital would raise employment. Severance formulas, notice periods and the treatment of unvested stock are policy choices, set by companies and in part by law. The disclosure rules that already make Oracle state a cost estimate for its restructuring plan, down to the $700 million supplement, could be extended to say how many people that cost represents, and where.

Until then, the ledger works like this. Shareholders who lost half the value of their stock this year can wait for a recovery. Bondholders are paid interest for the risk they knowingly took. The company can raise capital again next quarter, and almost certainly will. The people on the restructuring line have no equivalent. A career, once booked under “restructuring and other”, cannot be refinanced.

On 18 November 2026, Oracle's shareholders will cast an advisory vote on the pay of its named executive officers. The people who left on 14 September get no ballot. Their contribution to the AI transition has already been recorded, and then adjusted out of the figures.

References & Sources

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

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