Big tech CEOs like Zuckerberg, Pichai and Elk are all ‘taking full responsibility’ for massive layoffs—here’s why they’re all using the same language and what effect it has

“I take full accountability for the moves that got us here today,” Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek confessed while announcing that 6% of the company was being laid-off.

Elk gave employees a heads-up that around 600 of them were about to have one-on-one conversations about their future at the firm, in a post on the streaming giant’s blog on Monday.

He used the update on “organizational changes” to hold his hands up for his failure to rein in costs and thank the outgoing workers for “everything they’ve done”.

“In hindsight, I was too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth,” Elk admitted.

The memo is a far cry from generations of the “it's not personal, it's business" corporate catchall for bad news. He is part of a growing number of CEOs “taking full responsibility” for the mounting layoffs across the tech industry.

Earlier this month, Google announced that it was laying off 12,000 employees.

"This will mean saying goodbye to some incredibly talented people we worked hard to hire and have loved working with. I'm deeply sorry for that," Sundar Pichai, CEO of parent company Alphabet Inc, said. "The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here."

Mark Zuckerberg similarly publicly held himself accountable for the first major layoff in Meta’s 18-year history, which saw more than 11,000 employees lose their job.

"I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here,” Zuckerberg wrote in a note to staff in November. "I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that," he added.

Stripe cofounders Patrick and John Collison, and Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey, also offered a mea culpa to water down news of company failings, massive layoffs, and poor performance.

Why are CEOs taking responsibility for layoffs?

President Harry S. Truman frequently used the phrase "the buck stops here”. He even had the motto turned into a sign for his desk to remind himself that he was ultimately responsible for the actions of his administration.

Likewise in the long and short of it, when a business fails or has to scale back it falls down to the person running it: The CEO.

“Big tech CEOs are paid the big bucks, in good times and in bad. It is perhaps to be expected that when the chips are down, they step up and take responsibility,” says Debbie Zaman, CEO and founder of the PR agency With.

And the nearly identical language used between them is no accident.

Zaman says that statements of “taking full responsibility” are carefully crafted to balance strong leadership with empathy.

“Just as data breaches have been called ‘glitches’ or inappropriateness in governance labeled ‘missteps’, it is not uncommon for multiple companies to reach similar conclusions on what this message looks like”, she adds.

Art Shaikh, serial entrepreneur and CEO of the tech firm Digital Will more cynically echoes that in the first instance, “claiming responsibility for layoffs might seem like a noble move”, but in reality, "it is advice given by PR professionals".

"CEO's are attempting to let the public know that the buck stops with them,” he adds.

Accepting blame or taking credit?

Society has a trust problem.

Nearly 6 in 10 say their default tendency is to distrust something until they see evidence it is trustworthy. Meanwhile, around 40% of people don’t trust businesses, according to Edelman’s 2022 trust barometer.

By accepting blame, leaders can appear to be honest and trustworthy - both to the public and to those still working for them.