Two weeks ago, I laid off more than 20% of our workforce. I did so not because Cloudflare was in crisis—but quite the opposite. Our revenue growth hit an all-time high, our cash flow is robust, and we’ve acquired new customers globally at a record pace. I made this decision because the business landscape is undergoing a seismic shift—and to win the future, Cloudflare must adapt.

Scour the annals of American business history, and you’ll struggle to find another publicly traded company that has cut 20% of its workforce while maintaining over 30% year-over-year growth. Yet what we did in the past two weeks may well become industry standard within the next year. This is a story about how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping everything—but unfortunately, many executives and commentators have fundamentally misunderstood how AI will disrupt business paradigms and who will be most affected.

To clarify this, I revisited an old book from 1954—older than me by two decades: Peter Drucker’s *The Practice of Management*. In it, Drucker dissected the myriad roles within organizations. I distilled these into three core archetypes: Builders, Sellers, and Measurers.

As the names suggest, “Builders” create products, “Sellers” bring them to market. Meanwhile, “Measurers” encompass everything else: internal audit, revenue recognition (a financial accounting term referring to the process of determining when a sale can be formally recorded as revenue on a company’s books), finance, legal, compliance, middle management, day-to-day operations, and far more.

Contrary to some analysts’ gloomy predictions, “Builders” are secure—they’re not going anywhere. If an engineer on my team today can now deliver ten times the output with AI, I’d hire every such talent available in the market.

“Sellers” also need not fear displacement. Budget holders remain human beings who still prefer to buy from those willing to listen, build trust, and step in when things go wrong.

“Measurers” are equally vital to the enterprise—but they differ profoundly from the other two. Top-tier Measurers are rare and invaluable. They labor behind the scenes tirelessly, uninterested in front-of-house recognition (like restaurant servers who interact directly with guests); ideally, they maintain objective independence from other departments. As Drucker noted, measuring performance is essential—but customers are ultimately won through building and selling. A truly exceptional company should allocate the lion’s share of its resources to these two core functions.

The AI wave isn’t aimed at Builders or Sellers—it’s squarely focused on Measurers. Today’s AI systems are tireless, fully autonomous, hyper-efficient, and perpetually online. When auditing and scrutinizing a company, their precision and granularity surpass even the best human performers of the past.

Take Cloudflare: previously, our internal audit team could only spot a few business risk points per quarter via sampling. Now, we’re deploying a new system that conducts continuous, real-time audits across every single risk point. Our financial close (the monthly or annual process of settling accounts and issuing financial statements) is faster than ever. Errors are rarer, and when they do occur, they’re caught with greater accuracy and reliability. As CEO, I now possess unprecedented tools to precisely measure overall operational health—and identify rising stars within our teams with surgical precision.

The vast majority of employees we let go last week were Measurers. We streamlined our entire middle management layer, because with AI assistance, managers can now oversee more direct reports while still delivering precise performance evaluations and effective guidance. We consolidated scattered operational roles into a unified Business Support Group, using AI to fill gaps requiring specialized expertise. We also significantly reduced our marketing team—like most companies, this function had long been a hotspot for Measurers. Furthermore, within our finance team, we identified ample opportunities for role consolidation and automation.

But the ultimate goal of this restructuring was never simply headcount reduction. In fact, the number of open positions we currently have is at an all-time high. I expect our total headcount to grow steadily over the next several years. It’s precisely because measurement no longer requires so many people that we can now redirect capital toward those who truly drive growth.

This summer, we received nearly one million resumes for just 1,111 paid internship spots. The cohort we selected weren’t merely outstanding—they are native to the AI era (AI-native, meaning individuals who grew up alongside AI, naturally integrating it into their thinking and workflow). Every single one is either a Builder or a Seller, and we anticipate the vast majority will receive full-time offers.

They are the next generation of innovators, poised to reinvent how we power our business. Thanks to AI, we can now measure their contributions with greater precision and identify future leaders with unerring accuracy. AI is not a harbinger of mass youth unemployment—it’s the opposite.

AI won’t eliminate all jobs, but it will transform every organization. Ultimately, time will prove Drucker right. AI will vastly enhance our ability to measure organizational performance, freeing our human teams to focus entirely on where they can truly create and capture value: building and selling.

Author: Matthew Prince, Translated by DeepTide TechFlow