SUSE, the German Linux company owned by private equity firm EQT, is cutting about 10% of its staff, according to a memo from chief executive Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen reported by The Register on 2 November. “We are announcing a reduction of SUSE’s global workforce of approximately 10 percent”, he wrote, adding that “automation and AI are fundamentally shifting how software companies operate”.
EQT’s portfolio page says SUSE has “more than 1,900 employees”, which would put the cut at roughly 190 people or more, by our arithmetic. By our count of five job cuts we have covered since 1 October, four tie the cuts to AI in the employer’s own documents or an executive’s words, and SUSE’s 10% is the second-largest share of staff among the five, after F-Secure’s maximum of 24%.
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on span of control: how many people one manager directs, and why layers of management slow decisions. It explains the general idea and does not discuss SUSE.
The key insight: By our count of five job cuts we have covered since 1 October, four tie the cuts to AI in the employer’s own documents or an executive’s words; SUSE’s 10% is the second-largest share of staff among them, after F-Secure’s maximum of 24%.
The Register, which said it had seen the email sent to staff on Monday, quotes van Leeuwen as writing: “AI capabilities are advancing exponentially, forcing us to radically reimagine our work.” He continued: “This means that the organizational design and cost base that SUSE is built on today will not carry us forward successfully.”
The memo, as reported, says “modern tooling is already changing our daily workflows, enabling teams to move faster with less operational overhead and flatter reporting lines”. It adds: “The requirement for some existing roles has greatly diminished. Other roles will evolve over the next few years.” SUSE is “accelerating investments in high priority areas, and deprioritizing others”, the memo says.
Van Leeuwen wrote that the cuts are a “reflection of shifting organizational needs, not your talent or commitment”. He called the decisions “painful for our people, our culture, and our open source community”.
Job cuts FourWeekMBA covered from 1 October to 2 November 2026, by announcement date, as a share of each employer’s workforce, with the AI wording each employer used. Sources: F-Secure release (1 Oct), HubSpot 8-K and memo (6 Oct), Barclays Q3 results slide (22 Oct), CNBC and Benzinga on American Express (23 Oct), SUSE memo as reported by The Register (2 Nov). F-Secure’s 24% (145 of 597, a maximum) and SUSE’s roughly 190 (10% of EQT’s “more than 1,900 employees”) are our arithmetic. Not a complete list.
The Timetable
According to The Register, staff affected will be informed by 4 November, employee representatives will be nominated the following day, and one-to-one meetings will begin at the start of next week. The rest of the company will see the fiscal 2027 strategy on 16 November. The memo did not set out which roles are at risk, The Register reports.
In September The Register reported that SUSE had offered “voluntary separation” to eligible employees. A SUSE representative told the outlet then that SUSE “has introduced a voluntary separation and early retirement option for eligible team members”, with “no predefined targets”.
Who Owns SUSE
Van Leeuwen, a former Red Hat executive, is listed as chief executive on SUSE’s leadership page. The Register reports that EQT bought SUSE from Micro Focus in 2018 for $2.5 billion, listed it on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2021 and took it private again in 2023. It adds that in March, Reuters reported that EQT was considering selling the company.
Four of Five Cuts Name AI
We set SUSE beside the job cuts we have covered since 1 October, using each employer’s own wording. F-Secure said on 1 October it expects “a maximum reduction of 145 roles globally”, out of 597 employees, “as AI reshapes the market”; 145 of 597 is 24%, by our arithmetic. HubSpot’s cut of nearly 660 people, about 7% of its workforce, came with a memo saying it was “not driven by AI-related efficiencies”.
Barclays expects about 5,000 fewer full-time roles, which “impacts c.5% of employees”, and its slide lists “Organisational simplification and technology change efficiency driven by AI”. American Express is eliminating 5% of its global workforce; its CFO told CNBC the charge was to make the company “leaner, more agile, and also to prepare for AI.”
SUSE’s cut of roughly 190 roles, by our arithmetic, is the second-smallest of the five in number and the second-largest as a share of staff. Our log is not a complete list: Reuters’ factbox of AI-linked layoffs had 31 entries with a number on 22 October, which we summed to about 102,800 job cuts since October 2025.
Update, 2 Nov: Squarespace cuts about 19% of staff; its statement does not mention AI. Squarespace, the website-building company, is reducing its global workforce โby approximately 19%, representing around 300 employeesโ, spokesperson Jeff Seedman told TechCrunch; The Verge first reported the cuts. โThe changes are intended to simplify how we operate, sharpen our priorities and enable the company to move faster as we position Squarespace for its next phase of growth,โ Seedman said. The Verge puts the cut at around 300 of Squarespaceโs 1,800 employees and reports that affected staff will receive 16 weeks of base pay and healthcare benefits into May 2027. The statement, as both outlets quote it, does not mention AI. The AI context is TechCrunchโs framing: it writes that โvibe-codingโ website builders have โlargely upended the industryโ, citing Wixโs $80 million purchase of Base44, Lovable and Googleโs Stitch, and notes that Squarespace has announced Forma, an upcoming AI-native platform. On this pieceโs test, Squarespace sits with HubSpot among cuts not tied to AI in the employerโs own words: HubSpotโs memo ruled AI out, while Squarespaceโs statement is silent on it. With Squarespace, our log has six cuts since 1 October, four of which name AI, and Squarespaceโs 19% is the second-largest share of staff among them, after F-Secureโs maximum of 24% and ahead of SUSEโs 10%.
As we read it, the business lever is the cost base: the memo links AI tooling to fewer layers and fewer roles, and says the savings go to “high priority areas” that it does not name.
The Structural Read
As we read it, the memo makes an organisational argument rather than a product one: it names flatter reporting lines and less operational overhead as what modern tooling enables.
As we read it, the AI wording sits next to an ownership question: The Register reports that EQT took SUSE private in 2023 and that Reuters reported in March that EQT was considering selling it.
As we read it, the five employers in our log use AI in different ways: F-Secure as a market shift, Barclays as an efficiency source, American Express as preparation, SUSE as a change in how software companies operate, and HubSpot as not the driver.
Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, SUSE chief executive, in a memo to staff reported by The Register
“The requirement for some existing roles has greatly diminished. Other roles will evolve over the next few years.”
Three Implications
FOR SUSE STAFF The Register reports that affected staff will be informed by 4 November and that the fiscal 2027 strategy will be presented on 16 November.
FOR SOFTWARE COMPANIES The memo says AI capabilities are forcing SUSE to radically reimagine its work, and that its current organisational design and cost base will not carry it forward successfully.
FOR THE AI-LAYOFF COUNT SUSE adds roughly 190 roles, by our arithmetic, to a list that Reuters’ factbox put at about 102,800 AI-linked job cuts with a number on 22 October, by our sum.
The framework puts it this way: “This isn’t just a product shift. It’s a complete rewiring of how software companies build, monetize, and reach customers.”
As we read it, SUSE’s memo describes the same rewiring from the inside, in staffing terms: fewer layers, some roles no longer required, and money moved to priority areas. The framework is the owner’s argument and does not discuss SUSE.
We have not seen the memo itself; every quotation is as The Register reported it. SUSE has not published the number of roles, the functions or the countries affected. The 1,900 base comes from EQT’s portfolio page, which is undated and also cites fiscal 2020 results, so the 190 figure is an estimate. The memo does not say how many of the cuts AI tools replace. We did not contact SUSE or EQT.
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SUSE is cutting about 10% of its global workforce, and its chief executive wrote that “automation and AI are fundamentally shifting how software companies operate”, according to the memo The Register reported on 2 November.
A note on sourcing. The memo quotations are as reported by The Register, which said it had seen the email; we have not seen it. The 1,900 headcount is from EQT’s undated portfolio page. The roughly 190 figure, F-Secure’s 24% and the four-of-five count are our arithmetic from our own coverage, which is not a complete list. We did not contact SUSE or EQT.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
