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Start free trial →The Aboard Podcast · AI Builders · November 2026
The hosts had been talking about companies that cut engineers because of AI and then rehired many of them. Ha says layoffs were framed as a win when they more likely signal a mistake, a pointed take in a week of large AI-era staff cuts.
It didn't happen and it didn't work. Like, I'm not saying, I'm not doing this from a high-minded point of view. It's just like whatever people thought they would get out of laying off thousands of engineers, it doesn't seem like they got it. And so nobody's talking about it anymore. Well,
…it was a bit of a magic pill mindset, I think. And the truth is, companies are going to have to transform and adapt to this new, just the new way things are going to work. And I think a lot of people are going to have to reskill and change what they do. But the idea of like, everybody go home.
I think that also ties into what I said at the beginning about being normal, is that there was this period where it was this almost triumphant thing of, hey, we, you know, we cut 30% or 25% of our workforce. Isn't that great? As opposed to saying, well, that actually reflects some sort of failure on your part that you did that. And, you know, maybe that's going to be necessary because certainly it's going to be a very interesting couple years in the global economy. But, you know, that's not something that's like a win. That's something that means you probably messed up in some ways. And there's certainly ways this technology can be used where maybe also it'll make some jobs redundant. But again, that's not a triumphant story. Like no one likes the story
of machines win.
I'm going to be one of the AI CEOs, ready? I'm in Wyoming right now with an Italian accent. Should I do it?
Yeah, you got permission.