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mrln | 1 month ago

Well, if the AI really is that good, what's stopping the AI Company from charging just slightly less then the 90 saved engineers cost?

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SuboptimalEng|1 month ago

That's a fair point. Model prices can increase. This raises the next question.

Doesn't this mean that any company that depends on headcount growth (every SaaS), loses?

100 SWE -> 10 SWE, 100 slack/gmail/notion/zoom/etc. subscriptions become 10.

And now let's recurse.

These SaaS companies that use AI and dropped 90% of engineering headcount lose revenue because their customers also drop headcount.

Let's say AI costs 89% more than it did before, so the SaaS companies still get 10x productivity from the 10 engineers, but now all their customers headcount is 90% smaller too. So what now? Does every company make a pact to grow headcount ;)

ares623|1 month ago

Everyone will adjust pricing to cover losses ad infinitum