The Last Show with David Cooper
Tim Paradis: If You Did The Work, Prove It - January 20, 2026
21 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
We're here because your heightened awareness deserves heightened entertainment. The Last Show with David Cooper. Could you use AI to cheat and have it do your job for you? Well, big tech doesn't like that idea and is suddenly demanding receipts from employees. Things like dashboards, badge swipes in the office, proof of effort.
In a workplace where productivity is no longer assumed, it is audited by these companies. It's looking like 2026 will be the if you did the work, then prove it year for workers at tech companies. I'm here with someone who's recently written on this. His name is Tim Parity, and he's a future of work correspondent at Business Insider. Tim, I couldn't imagine a more appropriate title for you.
Future of work correspondent. Is this the future of work?
Chapter 2: What is the main concern regarding productivity and AI in tech companies?
Proving that you actually did the work.
Well, thanks for having me, David. You know, it's funny, at least in certain firms, it seems to be the thing, right? We said in the piece, like if 2025 was about calling workers to really go above and beyond, 2026 is about making sure they do it. So, yeah, it'll be really interesting to see how this plays out.
So show your work sounds something like a third grade math teacher might say to me. let's look at what it looks like in Silicon Valley, where you've got smart kids who are good at cheating and now AI gives them the tools to do it. What does that look like?
Chapter 3: How are big tech companies demanding proof of employee productivity?
What is monitoring or showing or proving that you did the work look like at a tech company?
I mean, in some ways, the sense we got was that it was almost like sort of maybe bringing practices that had been existing in other industries to silicon valley a little bit more making a little bit more widespread so thinking like you mentioned at the top you know tracking badge swipes so making sure people are actually in the office complying with you know return to office mandates or
Just looking at Amazon, for example, a colleague of mine reported that they're looking more at individual accomplishments. Not that they hadn't done it before, but they're looking closer at, okay, what are the things you actually did? What's your sort of ROI? And they're trying to, I think, be more, from what I can tell, clearer and maybe more specific about certain things that people got done.
So I think it's a way that maybe, if you would, mature the performance evaluation process.
So for years, like I'd say up until the pandemic, maybe even a little during the pandemic, tech kind of ran on vibes. And I worked in big tech at this time.
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Chapter 4: Why is 2026 considered a pivotal year for proving work in tech?
So this hits home for me. Things like trust, employee autonomy. People at tech companies would say, we hire adults and we trust them. We don't monitor them. This seems like a big psychological change, having to make employees prove that they're doing the work.
Is it just because AI entered the room and people could use large language models to code for them, to write their reports, to do things like this? Or is it an underlying financial thing, like a more tumultuous tech market, new CFOs coming in and saying, why are we paying these engineers so much money when they don't do their work? What is the cause of this?
So it's a good question. I think it's a few things. The sense that I got from talking to folks is it is partly financial, is in that they're spending an enormous amount of money on AI and AI investments. And so it's just a huge outlay. And as you well know, a lot of those returns have yet to bear out.
And so there's that fear that we're getting out over our skis, right, that we've seen on Wall Street even. And then the other part of it is just the idea that It's an employer's market. And you can if you want to work in tech, it's pretty hard to do these days in many cases. So they can demand more of workers without getting much pushback because they have the power.
Chapter 5: What does 'show your work' mean in the context of the tech industry?
So it's kind of a from what we could tell, a confluence of things.
Is this really about productivity or is it more like managers being afraid they can't tell the difference between the brilliance of their employees and machine assistants? I think there are managers out there who can't tell the difference between work created by ChatGPT or diligently done at the keyboard by an actual employee.
I think also part of it is, if you think about it, none of this is quite settled yet, right? We're all having this debate where some companies are saying, you know, yeah, go ahead, use AI in your interview because we just want to know that you can use this tool the same way that you'd let somebody use a calculator to show that they understand the mathematics, potentially.
Whereas others would say, absolutely not, none of this. And so there's no real agreement yet on what's acceptable from what we can tell, at least. And so because we're kind of in this... figuring it out phase, it seems like there are a lot of forces at play.
So some bosses may not care at all that you're using ChatGP to do this thing, or they want you to be using coding assistants and they'll ding you if you don't do it because they know that you could be so much more productive.
It actually is not so revolutionary to track badge swipes, though. I know tech workers will be offended by it. How can they monitor me like this? But any other job, you know, like any kind of like manufacturing job, factory job, any other normal job, people punch in and they punch out, and that's the time they get paid for. Why are tech employees so shocked that this is coming for them?
And I wouldn't say probably, you know, I talk to some tech employees pretty regularly. I wouldn't say all of them are shocks, but I think to your point, it's really about where they've come from, which was there used to be more autonomy. There used to be more of this notion of let's get a bunch of geniuses in the room and let them create.
Whereas now, if you're going to say, we need to make sure you're here on the premises from this time to this time. You can't just coffee badge, as they call it, or you can't just hop in and out. It feels that extra sobriety maybe just feels new for tech, but it's certainly not new, to your point, about many, many other industries, nor is it that have always been that way, right?
Yeah.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of monitoring employee performance in tech?
It seems impossible.
I mean, I think that that's probably a question that's even beyond tech. We saw an announcement last week from the Citigroup CEO talking about this is the year of really stepping it up. And so it's not just in Silicon Valley, but it's this idea that, again, because employers have the upper hand, particularly for these desk jobs, these white-collar jobs, they can simply demand more.
And they're just not going to meet much resistance because what can people do? They know it's a tough job market.
Is there a parallel in history with another industry where employees had it great and then started to be monitored more and be told they need to show their work more? Or is this really a new thing that's occurring because of AI? It's a good question.
I mean, nothing jumps to mind At the second, but I would say, I guess you see this in industries as they get larger and mature. I think in the early days, if you talk to anybody who was in the early days of any kind of field, they'll often talk about, you know, as we would say here in the U.S., like wild west of this.
And there was a lot of, you know, it's kind of freewheeling and we didn't have all these parameters and it was a lot less buttoned down than it is now. I think that's just the nature of how industries evolve sometimes and certainly as they become more.
more corporate and then you have investors that you're answering to uh you've got cfos to your point earlier paying you know why are we paying these brilliant guys and your poor friend the barista who no longer has a job like you know why are we doing this kind of stuff if we could be a little bit more like company x over in you know manufacturing that this has a uh you know again a more restrained approach to how they spend money did you talk to a tech executive who said that productivity can't be assumed anymore
I've talked to a, yeah, I talked to some, I'm trying to think who we spoke to for this story. I've talked to people, not necessarily for this story, but other folks, you know, to inform prior reporting.
And I've also talked to some professors who spend a lot of time looking at this industry and they sort of get that sense that, you know, because partly, again, this fear of, gosh, we're spending all this money on AI, what are we going to do? One of the experts I talked to about this actually made the interesting point, too, because AI itself is so quantifiable.
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