No One Fired, Headcount Still Fell From 175 to 3: The Automation Rule That Did It
cen6wkf · reddit · 2026-09-11
Ken Cox never fired anyone, yet his headcount fell from 175 to 3 by following one operating rule: if it can be automated, it will be automated — never backfilling a role once someone left. The post argues the surviving roles are those holding judgment no rule has captured yet, and cites Bloomberg data that Chinese robot-makers dominate this year's global humanoid-robot shipments, plus a robot-served dim sum anecdote from Malaysia as evidence physical automation has scaled past pilot stage.
More from AGI Musings
- Burkov: AI will make most people dumber; writing to think becomes the top skill — burkov · 2026-09-11
- repligate: post-training motives now drive agents — you can't hide anything from them — repligate · 2026-09-11
- Jan Leike: time to change the rules of the scaling race may be running out — janleike · 2026-09-11
- OpenAI's Jan Leike calls on AI companies to embrace regulation before backlash hits — janleike · 2026-09-11
- 1,386 frontier AI employees, including 6 chief scientists, call to pace AI development — janleike · 2026-09-11
- Jan Leike calls for institutional mechanisms to pace the frontier AI scaling race — janleike · 2026-09-11