Samwise High Tech Recruiting Newsletter
Saturday, September 12, 2026
Nscale Taps Ex-OpenAI Exec Fidji Simo for Board Ahead of AI Infrastructure IPO
UK-based AI data center startup Nscale has added Fidji Simo—former CEO of AGI Deployment at OpenAI—to its board of directors, the company announced Thursday. Simo joins board members Sheryl Sandberg, Susan Decker, and Nick Clegg as Nscale prepares for a potential IPO this fall to raise up to $3.5 billion. The appointment underscores a broader trend: AI infrastructure startups are recruiting high-profile executives to signal organizational maturity to institutional investors. Simo departed OpenAI in July 2026 citing health reasons. She previously served as CEO of Instacart, where she led the company through its 2023 NYSE listing.
Sources: TechCrunch
Khosla Ventures Opens New York Office, Citing Executive Talent as Key Motivation
Khosla Ventures is opening its first office outside Sand Hill Road—on Manhattan’s 14th Street—this fall, the venture firm announced Thursday. The New York location will house partner Keith Rabois and other Khosla investors, along with an executive briefing center where 10 to 12 portfolio companies can meet with Fortune 500 executives four days a week. Rabois cited a structural talent problem as the primary driver: proven executives are increasingly unwilling to relocate to the Bay Area for a five-day in-office role when they can work in a major city closer to their networks. The office marks Khosla’s first physical presence outside Silicon Valley in its history.
Sources: TechCrunch
Oracle Q1 AI Cloud Revenue Surges 62%, Signaling Accelerating Demand for Infrastructure Talent
Oracle reported Q1 fiscal year 2027 revenue of $19.35 billion on Thursday, up 30% year-over-year, with cloud revenue climbing 62% to $11.6 billion and cloud infrastructure revenue surging 121%. The company booked more than $30 billion in new AI contracts during the quarter and posted net income of $4.7 billion, a 60% year-over-year increase. Oracle has tripled its capital expenditure to $28.5 billion to fund data center construction, while carrying more than $125 billion in long-term debt. The AI cloud boom is driving Oracle’s strongest revenue growth in years, reflecting sustained enterprise demand for cloud and AI infrastructure.
Oracle Expands Restructuring Plan by $700M as AI Debt Load Accelerates Workforce Cuts
Oracle is expanding its restructuring plan by an additional $700 million, Bloomberg reported Thursday, as the company grapples with the mounting cash demands of its AI infrastructure buildout. Oracle has tripled its capital expenditure to $28.5 billion and now carries more than $125 billion in long-term debt. The added restructuring costs come the same day Oracle reported Q1 fiscal 2027 revenue of $19.35 billion—up 30% year-over-year—suggesting the workforce reductions are designed to offset the cost burden of AI investment rather than respond to a revenue shortfall. The scale and pace of Oracle’s restructuring signals the high financial stakes of the enterprise AI race.
Indeed Hiring Lab: Aging Workforce and Immigration Slowdown Are Squeezing the Talent Supply
Demographic change is fundamentally reshaping the US labor market, according to research published Wednesday by Indeed Hiring Lab economists Felix Aidala, Laura Ullrich, and Sneha Puri. The authors find that an aging workforce, slowing immigration, and diverging labor force participation rates by gender are reducing the size and shifting the composition of the available talent pool. The report, titled “The Goalposts Moved,” argues that traditional labor market signals are no longer reliable guides for employers because the structural supply of workers has changed in ways that pre-pandemic benchmarks cannot capture. For tech recruiters competing for scarce technical talent, the research suggests tightness may be structural rather than cyclical.
Sources: Indeed Hiring Lab
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