Handshake

Handshake laid off 96 employees (15% of US workforce) in October 2025 as part of an AI pivot. CEO Garrett Lord called it a "refounding" moment, launching Handshake AI to connect academic experts with AI labs for model training. The company's AI unit scaled from 15 to 150 employees rapidly. Affected roles included software engineers, recruiters, marketers, and senior managers. VP of People Camila Ribeiro stated "We regret the need to implement this layoff."

Handshake launched Handshake AI in October 2025, connecting PhD students and professionals with AI labs for high-quality training data creation. The MOVE (Model Validation Expert) Fellowship provides a formal on-ramp for experts joining AI training work. Handshake acqui-hired Cleanlab, a data quality auditing startup, to bolster output quality. The AI unit generates step-by-step reasoning chains, preference rankings, and domain-specific evaluations across mathematics, physics, and computer science.

Laid off 15% of US workforce in 2024. Bob Bakish ousted. Merger uncertainty. Streaming losses.