McKinsey, the consulting giant that has spent a century advising companies on how to cut costs and restructure operations, is now turning that advice inward as it plans to eliminate thousands of jobs across its non-client-facing departments over the next 18 to 24 months. The firm's leadership has discussed a roughly 10% headcount reduction in support functions, according to Bloomberg. McKinsey's revenue has hovered around $15 billion to $16 billion for the past five years after a decade of rapid expansion that saw employee count climb from 17,000 in 2012 to 45,000 by 2022. The headcount has since slid to about 40,000. The cuts come as consulting firms face cost-conscious clients, Trump administration pressure on government consulting spending, and reduced payments from Saudi Arabia, which had been paying McKinsey at least $500 million annually in the decade up to 2024. McKinsey cut about 1,400 jobs in 2023 under a plan internally labeled Project Magnolia, and axed 200 global tech positions last month. The firm still plans to hire consultants even as it shrinks support staff.

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Once a star of the self-driving hype cycle, lidar maker Luminar has filed for bankruptcy amid legal turmoil, layoffs, and a cooling autonomous-vehicle market. It plans to sell off its assets before shutting down entirely. The Verge reports: As part of its bankruptcy, Luminar is seeking permission to sell both its lidar and semiconductor businesses, the latter of which it has already agreed to sell to Quantum Computing for $110 million. The company plans to continue to operate during the bankruptcy proceedings "to minimize disruptions and maintain delivery of its LiDAR hardware and software." That said, Luminar will cease to exist once the process is complete. "As we navigate this process, our top priority is to continue delivering the same quality, reliability and service our customers have come to expect from us," CEO Paul Ricci said in a statement. After launching in 2017, Luminar muscled its way to the front of the autonomous vehicle industry as a top maker of lidar systems, a key technology that driverless cars use to sense the shapes and distances of objects around them. Luminar has sold sensors to Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Audi, Toyota Research Institute, Caterpillar, and even Tesla, which has dismissed lidar sensors in favor of traditional cameras. The company was valued at nearly $3 billion when it went public through a reverse merger with a SPAC in 2020.

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