We've forgotten that companies have never wanted to hire anyone in the first place
December 8, 2025
I can't remember when I realized this, but I want to say it was less than five or ten years ago. Scared the crap out of me then, and still does whenever I think about it.
Companies only hire people because they can't do all the work themselves.
If every founder had 10,000 hands and brains they could assign to different tasks, there would be a minuscule fraction of the jobs we have today.
If you think about this for more than a few minutes, it starts to really mess with you, and you'll likely head down the same path I did.
- (Nodding) Oh, I guess that's true...I guess somebody who can do all the work themselves wouldn't need to hire anybody...
- (Logical) And I guess they shouldn't be required to hire people that they don't need. That would be weird...
- (Quizzical) But aren't we telling millions of kids in high school and college that there are—and always will be—jobs waiting for them if they work hard?
- (Nervous) So...who's actually guaranteeing that those jobs are there? Whose job is it to create jobs?
- (Panic) Oh shit. Nobody. It's nobody's job to create jobs.
In other words, the only reason the current labor market (and our economy that's based on it) exist at all is because there's a group of founders/owners who need lots of help producing their goods and services.
They are not required by anyone to hire me or you to help them if they don't need that help. And the exact moment they can do the work themselves, they will, and not a second after.
Where AI sits
Many are obsessed with how much money is being spent/wasted on AI, as if it's the dumbest use of money ever.
But looking at the numbers, it's not stupid at all.
I sent an army of researchers to go figure out how much money is spent on knowledge work compensation. The numbers are ridiculous. It's around $9 trillion in the US and $40 trillion worldwide.
That's annually.
Given those numbers, investing a few tens of trillions to be able to be able to "just do it themselves" looks pretty smart.
Basically, the Owners want to be able to do all their own work, which is worth $70 trillion a year to them. So spending what they're spending now is totally worth it.
...
So wait...that means this entire pitch to young people that:
There will always be jobs after you graduate if you work hard...
...which I somehow lived my entire life thinking was a fucking Human Law of Physics...is actually just a temporary side effect of early civilizations with bad technology?
- Big-L Labor?...a side effect.
- Our entire economy that's based on Laborers spending money?...a side effect.
What the actual hell.
I've known this for years now, but it stuns me every time I think about it.
Switching lenses
So that's my emotional reaction to this, which I choose to cherish as part of my humanity. But I think framing is extremely powerful. Framing changes how we perceive reality, which can drastically change how we feel about it.
The dominant frame right now says companies have generally been happy with employees, and that the state we've enjoyed for all these centuries would have continued...if wasn't for this pesky AI stuff and the people pushing it.
Shakes fist
In that world, I'm pretty pissed off. Things were fine! But now all these dumb people and their AI want to ruin it.
This new frame rejects that. Capital has always seen labor as foul necessity, and the moment they could find any way to reduce or eliminate it, they would. See: factories, industrial robots, computers, etc.
On this view, AI is just another stone on the path to Capital reducing its need for Labor, which is a drive that's both eternal and inevitable. AI is just infinitely more potent because—unlike previous automation—it replaces intelligence instead of specific tasks.
What I like about this is that it removes the concepts of villian and victim from the narrative. I feel less angry, and less hopeless. It's not something being done to me. It's not something being done to us.
It's technology enabling the rich to do their own work, which they've always wished they could do and would get to eventually. The whole thing is just reduced to a new, shitty type of physics.
Still jarring as hell, but I can force myself to learn new physics.
Anyway.
Hopefully you can use this frame to better understand both the function that AI is playing in all of this, as well as the forces that are pushing it. And as a prod to start thinking about what comes after.