Billionaire Duolingo CEO Luis Von Ahn has a message for his employees: he doesn’t want to lay them off. After receiving backlash this April for a staff memo posted on LinkedIn detailing the company’s “AI first” strategy, the tech leader clarified that the $16.8 billion language app doesn’t plan to fire full-time staffers. Instead, its contractors will fluctuate based on the company’s needs, while its salaried staffers get more done thanks to AI.

After Duolingo received backlash to its “AI-first” staff memo posted on LinkedIn this April—conjuring worries of mass layoffs — the company’s CEO Luis Von Ahn is setting the record straight. Now, the executive has doubled down that he doesn’t intend to “lay off humans.”

“This was on me. I did not give enough context,” Von Ahn told The

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