Corporations hire masses of people to create the illusion of growth. Then they fire masses of people to create the illusion of competence. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.
this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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CEO: We missed our made up numbers. Lets do some layoffs. McKinsey, what is this year's scapegoat?
McKinsey: Last year it was RTO. This year is AI.
CEO: We're reducing headcount due to AI efficiencies.
You forgot to put it in a PDF and charge $2 million.
Or AI efficiencies
Nothing makes a worker accept a doubling of their workload with no raise like seeing their colleagues get laid off.
And in turn the billionaires should fear the guillotines
Sure
Listen, you guys. I was gonna fire half of you no matter what. But it sounds a lot better if I say it's because a computer does your job now. See ya!
CEOs have been blowing smoke for as long as CEOs have existed.
The one thing I am gleefully waiting for is the inevitable price gouging.
I am refusing to use AI as much as possible, I work hard to keep my skills independent of AI, so when the pivot happens I am not dependent on it.
I do the opposite. Managers only understand money. So I show them how expensive AI is.
I use ChatGPT for free so it costs OpenAI money. Soon as they charge money I bail out. In fact, I could bail out earlier because they are asking for ID to keep using it. Fuck that.
I was right there with you until they started requiring an account, I won't even give them the data revenue
Same, trying to ride that line between becoming a brain dead AI-zombie and a luddite..
This story reminds me of something else I have been pointing out for a very long time. It is not so uncommon to see layoffs after McKinsey drops by the building for a while (could also be bein or other consultancies in the same field), and more often than not, ceos like to say " they made me do it!!". So.... To be clear, you do not have agency and you are not control whatsoever about these layoffs? Really? Sounds difficult to believe.
human beings don't like direct/personal accountability, and will pay lots of money to avoid it.
easiest way to do this is to blame a third party for 'forcing' you to do things.
people do it all the time in their personal lives too. the sales person 'forced' them to buy something, etc.
And that is also true, however, as a CEO you are paid for mostly 3 things:
- company steering
- company vision
- accountability
If a CEO fails the accountability part.... Why is he even being paid? I had a discussion over the years about managers that don't take responsibility if someone on their team messed up and throw under the bus whoever did the thing wrong. If I was in a position of power, I am sure I would fire the manager on the spot. It is literally part of your function to take responsibility in a collective level
accountability is to the shareholders. not the employees.
The shareholders don't seem to care about the companies they own implementing AI poorly though
Sometimes they just hire an outside consultant as a scapegoat. You can't tell me the CEOs don't know they need to fire people to lower operational costs. Consultants help to decide who to fire and how to package it for employees, the board, shareholders and the public. That way the CEO can cover his ass.
You are not wrong, but if you read between the lines it says the message exactly as I mentioned, claiming "they did it", like the CEO has nothing to do with it
While I agree that the consulting firms usually come up with the layoff plans, I've never heard of any CEO ever saying they MADE him do it.
Reminder - AI does not need to be able to replace anyone to lead to layoffs. All it needs to be able to do is increase productivity in some sector by some measurable or perceived, or expected amount.
Or just eat up all the budget.
In an healthy company with a long term outlook, increased productivity is used to increase revenue, not to cash in by reducing short term expenses.
most of them think like PE firms now, unfortunately. get in, mess everything up to extract as much profit, and get out before you end up holding the bag, or in prison.
In a healthy company not beholden to shareholders
It depends if the shareholder is really investing in a company they believe can reliably generate profit or playing a game of poker with people's lives as tokens.
Like outsourcing/offshoring development of software. (The problem with this isn't that people in cheaper places are dumber - they aren't - but that good software requires an enormous amount of coordination and communication, which is hampered by outsourcing).
currently it hasnt acheived any of that, except make people LAZY, even to the point its hurting education(k-12, and college students)
Well yeah, they blame AI. They laid of employees so they could fund their AI data centers.
Wow who could have guessed?
