Critic argues layoffs serve as pretext for AI narrative rather than proof
4 Sep 15 9:39 AM · 12d ago · 12 comments · 1 source · development 4 of 4
A commenter frames the revenue-per-employee gains as mechanically inflated by headcount reduction, contending that AI is being used as justification for layoffs rather than the chart demonstrating genuine AI-driven value creation.
“If you fire a bunch of people you temporarily make more money per employee without actually improving your product at all. Has nothing to do with AI except using it as a pretext for layoffs.”
brandongoer.bsky.socialCarl Quintanilla CNBC financial analyst
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Right. Turns out if you fire a bunch of people you temporarily make more money per employee without actually improving your product at all. Has nothing to do with AI except using it as a pretext for layoffs.
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Chart arrow escapes reality. This is a numerator/denominator ratio, and 2023 is exactly when Tech Bros did mass layoffs. Revenue-per-employee spike / headcount plunge = warped chart. That's not "AI creating value," that's "AI narrative justifying layoffs", and the distorted ratio mechanically jumps.
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They used to think people drove growth, now they think it's GPUs. It might just be the something else.
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Turns out a lot of people got paid a lot and produced very little.
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I am solo-building a video game in UE5 and I will say, AI in this particular regard has a lot of potential. But, it changes everything. For example, I built my own version of Teams/Slack/Discord. People will realize it is the deals and user base, not the software itself that matters for companies
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I want to see the subtabs. I suspect we are not going to see a normal distribution.
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Long b4 AI can kill us all, it will replace enough workers & massively reduce aggregate consumer demand so that 1st western digital economies will collapse, then the world economy. Then civil wars, regional wars & police state coercion will produce intensifying & enduring humanitarian catastrophes.
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Do they mean parabolic in the sense that revenue is now O (number of employees)^2 for a given firm’s head count? Or do they mean anything by it at all, other than “increase; new conditions”? Chart looks like a linear fit to me
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Rev/Employee chart where you completely ignore the denominator, great job Carl, you can mislead w/ the best of them. You really have them convinced you're one of us.
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they're firing employees and replacing eith "ai", they mention how much they're spending on that?
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