IgniteTech CEO Eric Vaughan Says, 'Was Necessary, Would Do It Again' After Firing 80% Employees

Eric Vaughan, chief executive officer of IgniteTech, said in a recent statement that laying off 80% of the firm's employees in 2023 for refusal to adopt AI was "necessary" and that he would "do it again", according to a report from Fortune.

Vaughan did not give an exact headcount of how many were dismissed from their jobs across 2023, and the first quarter of 2024, citing a vague amount of "hundreds".

Fortune reviewed headcount reports confirming that it was 80% of the workforce. "It was extremely difficult…But changing minds was harder than adding skills," Vaughan said.

The IgniteTech CEO contended that AI posed an existential threat to "literally every company". He said that this drastic step was an attempt to get ahead of AI, believing that failure to do so would ruin the business.

According to Vaughan, he was met with resistance when he contended that they would get rid of existing routines and quarterly goals for regular AI training and an AI adoption programme.

He reimbursed AI tools and engineering classes and declared every Monday, 'AI Monday' where they would work on AI projects.

“Every single Monday was called ‘AI Monday'. You couldn’t have customer calls; you couldn’t work on budgets; you had to only work on AI projects,” he told Fortune.

This change applied across all departments and not just tech, with sales, marketing and more having to get with the new program.

Vaughan claimed facing the most resistance from the tech team. According to data from 'Writer' an agentic AI firm, one in three employees said they "actively sabotaged" AI adoption, which makes up 41% of millenial and Gen-Z workers.

This "sabotage" could be through deliberately turning in mediocre work, avoiding AI training or just refusing to use AI.

They cited frustration from AI tools that are below par in performance, fear of replacement by it, or a murky view of leadership's strategy.

“This sabotage isn’t because they’re afraid of the technology…It’s more like there’s so much pressure to get it right, and then when you’re handed something that doesn’t work, you get frustrated," Kevin Chung, Writer's chief strategy officer, told Fortune.

Vaughan said that this move generated financial success for the firm with the end of 2024 seeing the company have a nine-figure revenue and 75% earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation.