when only the executives have a job
Companies are bragging about record-setting layoffs thanks to AI, promising investors astronomical profits. How? They haven't gotten that far yet.
According to one of the self-appointed prophets of the AI singularity and the author of the techno-optimist manifesto, Marc Andreessen, while you, dear peasant, can be laid off and replaced by an app, the jobs of executives or VCs cannot be automated. For a CEO or VC bot to replace them, that bot will need far too much financial and historical experience, deal with too many unpredictable events, and meet with too many people to do a passable job.
Okay, fine. But is that true? Because believe it or not, the people who’ve been on the biggest kick to replace CEOs have been… CEOs. Rather than delivering their quarterly reports to investors, they’ve been showing up as AI avatars of themselves reviewing the fiscal highlights without even bothering to read them from a teleprompter in their office, as is the usual custom.
One of these CEOs is Zoom’s Eric Yuan, who’s been pushing AI avatars as a feature in his company’s platforms to virtually attend meetings and take minutes for you. He did show up for the Q&A but technically, he didn’t have to as the product could’ve done it for him. Hell, he could’ve taken a nap after brunch at a five star hotel instead of doing that earnings report.
But that was just a presentation which will end with what we can reasonably assume is a fairly predictable analyst and investor gab session. Not exactly rocket surgery to put it mildly. Surely, there are things CEOs do which require a lot more presence and flexing of their people skills, right?
“what is it that you do here exactly?”
That brings us to the question of what CEOs actually do on a day to day basis. Well, a typical CEO spends almost three fourths of their time in meetings. Of that time, they’ll meet with subordinates to get status updates 70% of the time, consultants, financial, and legal professionals 16% of the time, and the rest with board members, regulators, and industry groups.
Based on that data, nearly two thirds of their day can be handled by having AI avatars send some numbers at each other and output a summary. If two thirds of your job can be done by a machine, you’d expect your department to be consolidated, with a third of you left a few weeks after the data was consolidated and reviewed. Yet, executives and senior managers don’t seem to be facing layoffs, while over 10 million employees were handed their walking papers in the first six months of 2025.
Even worse, the appetite for layoffs is only increasing, turning tech workers into mass corporate executioners before it’s their turn, even though what highly skilled workers are being replaced with isn’t particularly good and is frequently rolled back. Many of those who live to work another day are suffering from dread and anxiety, questioning their self-worth and future since both are linked to one’s job in much of the industrial world, and the plan for those who get laid off is…
Meanwhile, back at the office or their computers, they’re suffering whiplash from the downright abusive environment that is now common in many workplaces and having to do work no one actually needs to be doing full time, if at all, all while the CEOs and executives eagerly talk about how many jobs they just can’t wait to cut to boost profit margins and “unlock efficiency gains.”
when work is an abusive relationship
Cue the constant the-sky-is-falling background drumbeat of social media and cable news, and the whole exercise of work as we know it today — outside of critical tasks like farming, healthcare, food service, and logistics — seems like a cruel joke at best and absurdist Kabuki theater at worst. Why are we doing this when our bosses don’t even want us there, the paychecks barely cover the cost of living if they even do, and our only rewards are burnout, inflammation, and muffin tops? Just because that’s the expectation? So we can demonstrate we’re worthy of existence?
At this point, if WW3 starts and nuclear blasts reduce civilization to radioactive ash, we probably wouldn’t be surprised if the very first priority of what government will be left is to restore internet service so we could update our bosses on the status of our latest project at the morning meeting in a prompt and professional manner.
“Nuclear apocalypse or not, the shareholders still expect us to hit every one of our Q Whatever deliverables, radiation sickness is no reason to be missing work, and that client presentation needs editing. Oh, and anyone who melts from the fallout will be replaced by AI as soon as enough data centers are back up. And John? Can you go off cam please? Half of your face just slid off and you’re gurgling blood. If you could please take care of that after checking in your code and submitting a pull request.”
Gallows humor and sarcasm aside, there is the question of what is the point in what we’re doing, and why we’re continuing to do it, given how little those in charge want us to have jobs and make money, but also how much they want us to buy more and more stuff every three months anyway.
We’ve been avoiding this conversation for the past 30 years despite trying to have it for the last 125. But with the adoption of AI, no matter how messy, problematic, and haphazard it is, we’re being pushed to have it sooner rather than later.
We cannot have a world of CEOs and executives making infinite money forever with virtually zero staff while billions of people whose jobs are being done by robots and AI have trillions to spend on the newest gadget and service. No matter how much we’re trying to pretend this will somehow all work itself out, it won’t unless we figure out the plan in advance. Otherwise, the executive doomsday bunkers may prove to be a wise and prudent investment. Well, until the food runs out and the staff gets mad.