How to Care About Your Job When It Doesn't Care About You

>> And perhaps the darkest trend in recent times is the holy grail for CEOs—not hiring people in the first place

I believe this complacency that companies currently have (i.e. everything will be the same except we'll need fewer people) will soon give away to fear. Companies will realize that they are in a race and now is the dumbest time ever to let people go as they will need every possible advantage to win. Lazily sitting around and waiting for AI to replace people while doing some layoffs here and there is really max complacency. These companies are going to get their butts handed to them by competitors who focus on leveraging AI + people.

Maybe at some point in the future when things have stabilized it might make sense to try to trim costs. Right now though, the ground is shaking and they need to move or die.

If everyone employed by the company is doing something that somehow contributes to revenue I think your position is correct. If a significant percentage of employees activities don't contribute to revenue, then your position isn't entirely correct. Performing layoffs of those employees should improve revenue outcomes.

But it is also incorrect to assume that since some employees don't contribute to revenue that layoffs are going to improve the companies profitability. Executives may not have the information to know exactly who to layoff. Or they may have that information, but actively chose to ignore it. But if you're willing to engage in something vaguely equivalent to the shotgun debugging of your personnel, you probably can cut more non-revenue generating staff than revenue generating staff.

I mean sure, cut people that will slow you down. Keep people that will speed you up. I don't think saving an insignificant amount of money today is going to be the differentiating factor for future success. Yet, this is what lazy companies are doing today - laying people off and implementing token "we're doing AI" programs. All I can say to those companies is RIP.

> All I can say to those companies is RIP.

This is why this commentary doesn't matter. Either it'll work, in which case, great, cheaper products and services, or it won't work and the company folds and a competitor who didn't do it replaces them, or it won't work and they realise in time and stop it.

It's capitalism, baby.

Agree. My main point is I think we will see a shift from "AI complacency" to "AI fear" in the next 6 months or so. Right now we are at peak complacency I would say.

Capitalism babies seem to have forgotten that somebody needs to actually pay them for the stuff they peddle. Unfortunately, that part of the deal takes a while to kick in and initially VC money creates the illusion that they can fire everyone, have AI do all the work, and money will magically appear out of thin air.

I agree. That is what I mean by the "AI complacency" phase that we are now in. Companies think that the only thing that will change is the employee part of the equation. Everything else - customers, revenues, etc. will of course just stay the same so they can just chill and casually lay people off (essentially classic arrogance and complacency).