[burnte]

True, however the pitch itself is telling. They're not saying "we're expecting AI to boost the productivity of our employees by 20% with no increase in labor costs." They're saying "we're going to spend less on humans" because investors are more ok with spending money on machines than people. That's the problem, they're not looking at how AI enhances people, they're looking at how it can eliminate people.

[thunky]

Why would you expect different?

Companies don't exist to benefit their employees (or their customers).

[bredren]

Boosting second sentence here, because I think it is a foundational problem for a company trying to behave like Apple.

If the company was owned primarily by employees and customers I think it would be more likely to carry out its mission.

[burnte]

I would expect different because there are two major philosophies in business, and they indicate the direction a business will go. There is the philosophy of focus on profit/growth, or focus on costs/value-extraction.

Before anyone straw mans "but you can do both", yes, you can, but only one can be the MAIN way you run a business.

A focus on profit and growth will lead to seeing employees as strategic resources ready to be deployed to serve the business and generate revenue. One wants to enable those employees with the best matching tools that enable the employee to do more. In this case, a growth leader would say "AI can make our people 20% more productive without adding headcount, and lets us refocus another 10% of employees to more productive/profitable tasks, better utilizing the internal knowledge those employees have. These are the companies that tend to become more profitable and successful because leaders understand that good employees are an asset, not a liability.

The other focus, on costs and value extraction, see the business as a zero sum game; in order to increase profits, we must decrease costs or find a way to extract more value from customers. These are the companies that will reduce service levels with no change in pricing to improve profits. They'll understaff a facility to see the "true minimum number of employees" (the bare minimum), depending on some employees to go "above and beyond" to get things done for no additional compensation. They'll get rid of expensive employees, settle for replacements employees who are 75% as good but will work for 65% of the money, and keep headcount the same; worse service, but proportionally lower costs. These are the companies that maybe be huge, but they're not market leaders, they're reactive and basically rent takers.

When a leader begins to resent employees being paid to do their work, it's time for that leader to go, because they'll simply start that company on a decline.

Basically, there are those who understand the difference between cost and value, and those who are too focused on cost to even understand value. If your first response to AI is "we can cut people" you're in the latter camp. Your first reaction is to cut costs, rather than to exploit the new tech for even higher profits.

Eyes on the future instead of the past is how you grow and succeed. Employee success leads to company success. Employees are not a cost center.

[thunky]

Respecfully disagree...

We all know the story of WhatsApp having a billion users with 50 employees. While Slack had significantly more employees and not necessarily a better product/business.

If Slack were to cut their staff down to 50, that would mean they are the ruthless type that only care about value extraction and doesn't value their employees, right? But if they started with 50 and kept it there, they'd be celebrated for efficiency like WhatsApp?

Point is, there is no way to know how efficient a company is, or what their philosophy is, just by looking at their financials and their headcount. Even if the headcount moves.

[burnte]

All generalizations are false, and I wasn't trying to say that's a hard and fast rule for every single company.