alt Hacker News> Thanks to LLMs, each worker can do twice the work they could before. Naturally we are firing half the company because ... business is good and ... too much productivity is bad
this is an incorrect take. The company needs a certain amount of productivity at each point.
If not, how would you explain that they had only 10,000 employees and not 20,000? They could still remain profitable.
LLM's increased productivity and each person could do approximately 20% more work so it follows that they need fewer people. If not, they should have had 12,000 to begin with.
Replies
> If not, how would you explain that they had only 10,000 employees and not 20,000?
Simple, 1000+ salaries > 10000 x100$/m Claude seats.
"they should not have had 12,000 to begin with"
Nailed it
> The company needs a certain amount of productivity at each point.
Um, no?
it does not work like that except in a berkeley mba mind
I agree if they weren’t simultaneously claiming to be a successful growing company.
> they should have had 12,000 to begin with
This is how successful growing companies work. They hire as many people as they can afford. Those people bring in more money to hire more people, and repeat.
A successful growing company has more opportunity than resources.
Reducing resources while also claiming to have un-captured opportunity makes no sense