[SirensOfTitan]

Companies are using the macro monetary environment as justification to undermine bargaining gains employees made during COVID. In the same way, companies have been using inflation as a cover to raise prices higher.

For established companies, I don't really buy the argument that the policy rate is forcing companies to focus on cash flow. Companies are just taking advantage--and since everyone in software thinks they're a top 10% performer no one wants to collectively bargain. And since workers cannot coordinate with each other, companies can do things like rolling layoffs to force individuals to come to the negotiation table with a much worse position.

I don't think that AI is a substantial reason for this. I'm reminded of the "No Silver Bullet" rule from Fred Brooks:

> there is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order of magnitude [tenfold] improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity.

... now sure, Brooks wasn't talking about AI, but LLMs are not AGI and more resemble a modern iteration of a search engine, in my opinion, than a technology that truly breaks the rule. It's really easy to build software demos that look compelling like Devin, but even if the videos weren't cherry picked examples, the hardest part of software development isn't writing the code.