alt Hacker NewsThis is one of the interesting aspects the 'AI job loss' community doesn't account for. As the technology unlocks things, more startups are created. And even at a lower nominal engineer-to-work ratio, overall demand for talent still goes up. Ultimately, we are not a single group trying to achieve a common outcome, we are a collection of many groups trying to compete against each other.
What percentage of people work at a startup though? Not just new/small business, which could include restaurants, local services, etc., but tech/science startups that would meaningfully benefit from AI.
I'd bet you could 10x the number and still be in low single digit percentages of the US workforce. And it seems pretty likely that AI-enabled startups will also employ less people per-startup.
If AI causes a white-collar jobs apocalypse, I don't think startups are picking up the slack, although it'll plausibly cushion the blow somewhat for top-performing tech workers.