Stack Overflow lays off 28% of its total workforce amid challenges posed by generative AI

Stack Overflow is laying off 28% of its staff. In an announcement on Monday, CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar revealed that the company is reducing its total workforce by about 28% as part of cost-cutting measures to address new challenges.

Over the past year, Stack Overflow continued to grapple with challenges posed by generative AI technology, which has begun encroaching on its market share. The decision to reduce its workforce comes at a time when developers are increasingly turning to AI chatbot tools, such as ChatGPT, for their support needs.

In an announcement on Monday, CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar revealed a 28% reduction in the company’s workforce as part of cost-cutting measures in response to the challenges it’s currently confronting.

In a blog post, Chandrasekar said, “Over the last 15 years, we’ve built Stack Overflow into an industry-crucial knowledge base for millions of developers and technologists. During this time we’ve experienced years filled with opportunities and challenges. This year is no different.”  Chandrasekar continued:

“This year we took many steps to spend less. Changes have been pursued through the lens of minimizing impact to the lives of Stackers. Unfortunately, those changes were not enough and we have made the extremely difficult decision to reduce the company’s headcount by approximately 28%.“

To address these challenges, Chandrasekar said the 15-year-0ld company has “successfully launched OverflowAI to deal with the ongoing threats to customer budgets shifting due to the macroeconomic pressures impacting the entire tech industry.”

“This is why we have been so focused on our path to profitability, even as we commit to the continued product innovation of Stack Overflow for Teams and the health of the public platform by building out our AI/ML capabilities,” he added.

Founded in 2008 by Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood, Stack Overflow is the largest, most trusted online community for anyone who codes to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. More than 120 million unique visitors come to Stack Overflow each month to help solve coding problems, develop new skills, and find job opportunities, making it one of the 50 most-visited websites in the world.

To date, Stack Overflow partners with top companies such as Microsoft, Wix, Expensify, and more to help them enable, understand, hire, and engage the world’s developers, with products and services focused on knowledge sharing and collaboration, developer marketing, advertising, and technical recruiting. Stack Overflow is headquartered in New York, with offices in London and Munich.