Cloudflare fights AI crawlers

Plus: more Microsoft layoffs; Robinhood’s private stocks

Author

Joey Padgett
July 03, 2025

Hey people!

Welcome back to Forests Over Trees, your tech strategy newsletter. It’s time to zoom-out, connect dots, and (try to) predict the future.

A quick thank you to this week’s partners:

  • Fathom — win every meeting with free AI notes

  • Looka — let AI design your logo and website

  • Folk — make your CRM effortless

Cloudflare fights AI crawlers

Plus: more Microsoft layoffs; Robinhood’s private stocks

⚡ Tech News Takes ⚡
(3 stories)

  • What’s up: Cloudflare launched Pay per Crawl, an experimental feature that makes AI companies pay for any scraped publisher content.

    • Cloudflare runs cloud infrastructure powering 20% of the web, and its customers (website owners) will be able to set scraping prices.

    • Traffic from AI apps to scraped publishers is low (Google at 7%; OpenAI at 0.07%).

  • So what: If it works, this will save publishers from extinction, but they’ll still need to evolve. Humans on your site care about taste, voice, and brand. Bots crawling your site just need the raw info!

  • What’s up: Microsoft is cutting ~4% of staff — its third major layoff in 2025 — to flatten management layers and boost agility.

    • The cuts primarily affect gaming, but CNBC reported multiple impacted teams/geographies.

    • Microsoft has a history of layoffs, with ~11K in 2023, ~4K in 2024, and ~15K so far in 2025.

  • So what: In big tech, announcements like this give other firms air cover. Expect them to follow suit…

  • What’s up: Robinhood acquired stakes in private companies, tokenized those stakes, and is letting EU users trade the tokens.

    • In addition to private companies like OpenAI and SpaceX, there are also tokenized versions of 200+ public stocks and ETFs for 24/7 trading.

  • So what: Putting aside the legal questions (and whether private companies will try to stop this), this is a powerful idea. With fewer IPOs, value generation accrues mostly to institutional investors with access to venture capital, etc. This lets normies get in on the action!

🛠️ Tool of the Week 🛠️

My calendar looked full — but my priorities weren’t on it…

Have you ever missed lunch to prep for a meeting, only to have it canceled a few minutes after it was supposed to start?

Or skipped a workout when an unscheduled “urgent thing” came up?

For me, this has been happening too often lately.

So here’s what I tried:

  1. Made a list of what mattered most

  2. Connected my calendar to Reclaim

  3. Let AI start protecting my time

You tell it the habits you want (an actual lunch, a workout class, 10 focused hours per week). Then it scans for open spots and blocks your calendar so you can follow-through. They even have a dashboard to track where you’re spending your time.

Added to a last-minute meeting? AI re-plans the week so you stay caught up.

Trying (again!) to build a meditation habit? Add it to Reclaim so you stick to it.

I’ve reclaimed 5 hours a week so far! But not by “grinding” — just by using a smarter calendar. Reclaim is a partner… but I’m not gonna lie, I’m impressed.

So if you’re tired of other people’s priorities always trumping yours, give it a shot. They even have a free plan you can play with.

(p.s. – if you know other cool AI tools I should demo, reply to let me know)

🌲 F/T Shoutouts 🌲

  • Infectious energy from ex-CEO of Microsoft — I had heard of Steve Ballmer and seen the iconic video of him jumping around at a Microsoft event… but wow. I wasn’t prepared for how engaging and thought-provoking he was in this Acquired podcast. For my fellow tech strategy nerds, this is a must listen/watch.