Zaid

And look, Block is not the only one.

Amazon cut 16,000 jobs in January.

Atlassian cut 10% of its workforce.

And then there was a report in Reuters in mid-March that Meta is considering laying off 20% of its workforce, which would be about 15,000 jobs.

So you have all these tech companies laying off tons of people.

And then these kind of layoff announcements can create like a domino effect, causing other companies to lay off their staffs to stay lean and competitive.

Now, look, the reality is a lot of these tech companies are probably just course correcting from overhiring following the post COVID boom.

And they're just using AI to kind of cover their mistake and paint a better story for investors.

But we can't just ignore the impact that AI could have on jobs.

One of my favorite tech analysts is Ben Thompson.

He writes a great newsletter called Stratechery.

And in a recent post, he had a very interesting framing of the situation.

He wrote that the positive impact of AI in large organizations won't necessarily be eliminating jobs, but instead it might be about replacing what he called the hard to manage and motivate

human cogs in the organizational machine with AI agents because these AI agents do what they're told and work 24 seven until the job is done.

You know, AI doesn't burn out.

AI doesn't ask for raises and they can potentially get the work done at a faster rate than humans.

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

The rising unemployment for younger workers is a bit worrisome though, I gotta say.

So what's my take here?

Well, I think I'm starting to drink the AI agent hype juice, all right?