Big Tech headcounts grow, as they hire more people both to flatter the egos of managers—they are drowning in cash anyway—and in particular many product managers to oversee the AI codegen agents that are unleashing a massive series of new products now that they’re mostly no longer constrained by development taking lots of time. Internal company office politics becomes even more of a rate-limiter: if teams are functional, the AI codegen boost means more products shipped, whereas if teams are not, the gains are eaten up by employees working less or by factional fights within companies.
You reminded me of this part of Rudolf’s story: