00:36:33 · Maya, Anika, Priya
[00:36:33] S0: Yeah. But I think it's no different than cheating on your test like... [00:36:36] S2: Yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing worth mentioning is this year alone, there's been over a 100,000 layoffs that have already happened in the tech sector alone. And people are like, is this because of AI? Is it not? And I feel like it's a combination of [00:36:49] S1: It's somewhere in middle, think. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. [00:36:52] S2: I also feel like it makes sense. Like, the reason why CEOs blame it on AI is because admitting that you have a bloated organization is like admitting your own mismanagement versus saying it's because of AI makes investors think you're on like the cutting edge. Yeah. Right? It's all Yeah. It's all [00:37:08] S1: It's all a little game. [00:37:10] S0: The other thing I wanted to talk about is Torsten Sløk, which is the chief economist at Apollo Global Management also published a note saying like pointing to the weekly ADP employment data. So ADP is basically like a payroll processor and they've now published like weekly employment data to understand like, are people getting hired? [00:37:26] S2: It was [00:37:26] S0: like, is job stable? And he said that there's zero evidence of AI related job losses. This And was pretty big because ADP process like processes one out of six, like people's paychecks essentially. I used to process my paycheck. Yeah. And so this is a... Essentially, was just making a point that like, the Jevons paradox is real here Mhmm. Which we can go into what that is. I don't know if you want to do that.
00:37:26 · Maya, Priya
[00:37:26] S0: like, is job stable? And he said that there's zero evidence of AI related job losses. This And was pretty big because ADP process like processes one out of six, like people's paychecks essentially. I used to process my paycheck. Yeah. And so this is a... Essentially, was just making a point that like, the Jevons paradox is real here Mhmm. Which we can go into what that is. I don't know if you want to do that. [00:37:50] S1: Yeah. It's basically just an economic principle. And when something becomes more efficient and easy to use, so in this case, like the example that's being used is AI, People end up using more of [00:37:58] S0: it overall instead of less. Yeah. I mean, I was looking into, like, historical research about this. [00:38:04] S1: Oh, god. We haven't done a historical deep dive in a long time. No.
00:38:04 · Priya, Maya
[00:38:04] S1: Oh, god. We haven't done a historical deep dive in a long time. No. [00:38:08] S0: I just like that it'd be fun to bring up. To talk about the coal? Well, okay. Coal is like obviously one, but I was I was trying to think of something else of like what to tell like the junior software engineers. And something that I found was telephone operations. So like, know, like the wire switching and stuff was a very common job for young American women in the early nineteen hundreds. And then they moved to like secretary and desk work or like other computer work after that. A lot of the people that got affected were the people who are already in those jobs. But any like new young college grads just knew to enter a different like job entirely or career entirely. And then the people that were able to get out of it were the people that were like really smart about switching. And so like my advice to any current software engineer is just, you know, be on top of like your career, make sure you're really thinking about what you want ten years out of now. Don't be afraid to actually switch domains entirely. Like, you're probably a smart person. If you were smart enough to be a software engineer, you can be smart enough to do other things too. But also for young, like, you know, career professionals in college, like, software engineering is [00:39:07] S1: not dead. You you just have
00:39:07 · Priya, Maya, Anika
[00:39:07] S1: not dead. You you just have [00:39:09] S0: to be a little bit smarter than you used to. Like that's like kind of what I would say is you you... Now you... Instead of doing the like simple like endpoint related tasks, there's like more deeper level, system level understanding that you have to go and accomplish. [00:39:22] S1: Which like, honestly, if you wanna move up in the in the field anyway, you're... You have to get there. Yeah. It's just like getting to there earlier. Yeah. I guess. And it's like it's like there will still [00:39:31] S0: be jobs for you. It's not like there's no jobs that exist. You just have to be a little bit more creative. Yeah. Yeah. Aw. [00:39:36] S1: That was so inspirational, Maya. Yeah. Maybe we [00:39:39] S0: can clip it. [00:39:40] S1: The example that David Solomon gave was ATMs. Like, bank tellers were really worried about their jobs when ATMs were created. Yeah. And then he was like, actually, like, there's more bank tellers than ever in The United States after that. So just because the ATM came doesn't mean that. [00:39:55] S2: Yeah. I do think drivers and certain jobs Are a little. Are gonna go Yeah. Are gonna be cooked. [00:40:01] S1: Yeah. But I think it's like... Yeah. [00:40:04] S0: There's just other things to do.
00:40:04 · Maya, Anika, Priya
[00:40:04] S0: There's just other things to do. [00:40:05] S2: So Well, actually, I like that David Solomon mentioned this, but he was like, if... As we monitor, literally monitor the situation Yeah. If there is this huge displacement in specific industries or even overall, we start seeing negative job losses, You just have to have public policy that addresses that. Like, maybe at some point, every Uber driver, Lyft driver, truck driver will need to get a payout by the US government. Like, in my view, that's fine. Like, that's just how a healthy government and economy functions where, like, you can then have a society that's not scared of technological progress. And I feel like the issue right now is, like, we just don't have a system where people trust that they'll get taken care of. And, like, obviously, beyond, like, a payment, the biggest thing is rescaling those people. And so you want a government that, like, understands how... Because it's like that's a bunch of people you can use that were good at skill and find something like you're saying that's adjacent. [00:40:55] S1: Yeah. [00:40:55] S2: Should we move on? Yeah. And then our last story for today is Cognition just raised a billion dollars at a $26,000,000,000 valuation. The round was led by Lux Capital, General Catalyst, eight VC. And you might remember them from all the Windsurf drama earlier in in like 2025. [00:41:13] S0: Was it Or like Devin, the first software engineer. That's also a viral moment that they had.
00:41:13 · Maya, Anika
[00:41:13] S0: Was it Or like Devin, the first software engineer. That's also a viral moment that they had. [00:41:18] S2: Yeah. So, like, they they created Devin, which was the first software engineer. And then the whole drama with Windsurf was that at the time, OpenAI was gonna acquire Windsurf. Everyone thought it was a done deal because they were, like, dropping these, like, little nuggets that it was gonna happen. And then Google, for $2,400,000,000, got basically the CEO, Varun Mohan, the co founder, Douglas Chen, and key engineers from Cognition. But then left to, like, kind of this, like, headless dead dead company people thought behind. But then Cognition, like, basically bought the rest of the company and it was like a big acquisition And they've continued to grow. [00:41:57] S0: Yeah. I mean, actually a great turnaround story for the Windsurf engineers too. If they Yeah. You stayed through it. I know a couple people didn't because like it was just tough probably mentally to go through that too. [00:42:05] S2: Well, also Cognition's work culture, I think is insane. [00:42:09] S0: Yeah. I mean, Windsurf's was too. I... But like... [00:42:12] S2: But I heard a lot of people say like Cognition's like the worst. Well, apparently, they were just like, you have to be... I think the difference is like, Cognition was like, you have to be in for... During the weekend. [00:42:21] S0: Oh, I see. [00:42:22] S2: I feel like that's really tough. [00:42:23] S0: That is. Yeah. That is I mean, that's