We've been through this before. The GFC in 2008 wiped out entry-level jobs for millenials who did everything "right" (or, at least, what they were told to do) by going to college and accumulating student debt [1].
Those graduates ended up doing lower-paid and often non-career jobs like service works. The cliche in the early 2010s was college grads being baristas for a reason.
Those jobs never came back. And it's essentially destroyed that generation who are under crippling debt with no security and no prospects. People in tech did well in the 2010s. Nobody else did. So, on HN a lot of people didn't see this because HN skews towards tech but this was really destructive for society as a whole. We're still feeling the affects of it. It was a key factor in the 2016 election.
It's going to get worse. What people should really understand that there's, so far, only one product for AI and that is labor displacement and wage suppression when we already have historically low savings rate (ie a buffer) [2] and an affordability crisis that is also only going to get worse. How do we have a functioning economy if nobody has any money?
>It's going to get worse. What people should really understand that there's, so far, only one product for AI and that is labor displacement and wage suppression when we already have historically low savings rate (ie a buffer) [2] and an affordability crisis that is also only going to get worse. How do we have a functioning economy if nobody has any money?
Not only that, wages have stagnated for a few decades, interest rates have been through the floor so nobody can make any money in savings, inflation through the roof, people with billions aren't paying taxes....
We don't have a functioning economy. Our stock market is being kept afloat by AI CAPEX. We have useless politicans afraid of asking trillionaire corporations and centibillionaires to pay their fair share. This country is dying.
"At its core, the goal of education is to prepare individuals for employment and advancement"
No. It should help a person develop into a free, thoughtful, well-rounded human being. Training narrowly for current market demands can become obsolete quickly. The question should not be: Should education have economic value? But rather: Should economic value be the highest or only value of education?
Of course, engineering etc might have more immediately applicable skills but there is so much value in the Humboldtian ideal of education that merely focusing on economic output is intellectually short-sighted and ultimately impoverishes both individuals and society.
The level of pushback you're receiving to this honestly makes me weep for the society we find ourselves in.
I grew up expecting the future would be much like what Captain Jean-Luc Picard described in First Contact: "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."
Somehow, that vision of the future seems farther away than ever. We're actively becoming LESS Federation, more Ferengi. That's not a world which holds any appeal for me.
1. AI wipes out entery level jobs. Cost of tokens used will make you spend more especially overtime. Keep in mind, right now we're probably in the era of cheap tokens
2. We rehire base employees at lower wages. Move AI to hire level tasks. AI is now doing the work we said humans will do. Talent drains to other compaines. AI can do certain things every well but can't put it together. Start rehiring talent at lower wages
3. In the end, AI turns out to really be artificial wage competition designed to drive worke salaries down. All of this is subsidized by the government, fund managers and the environment. Billionaires leave earth in spaceship.
One week ago, the same publication covered the opposite argument from a16z, stating that "The AI job apocalypse is ‘unhelpful marketing, bad economics and worse history" - it's too early to declare which way this is going. https://fortune.com/2026/05/07/ai-job-apocalypse-unhelpful-m...
No. Management are wiping out entry-level jobs and blaming it on AI. There is a massive market contraction and the people who add least value to a business and have training or learning overheads are on the chopping block to cut costs.
AI is wiping out current entry level jobs but at some point jobs evolve to meet new market demands. There will be new entry level jobs in areas where AI and automation hasn't reached yet and then the cycle will start again. This is normal but it does suck whenever it gets to a trough.
- OK, corporate, where do you think seniors come from? Do the spring forth fully formed from Zeus' head like Athena?
- This might actually present an opportunity for the university CS departments to become the "entry level" training ground that companies never liked being, where students actually write code and learn the basics so they can work effectively with AI in the workforce.
As an instructor at a university, this is basically all we talk about now. We're (currently) agreed that fundamentals are still important, fundamentals being good problem solving skills delivered within the framework of classic computer science instruction. But we also agree that students need to take a bigger picture, view of projects, and learn AI skills.
(A lot of this is informed by feedback from students who have entered the workforce recently and work heavily with AI.)
Basically we have to replicate as much of the junior developer workplace pipeline as we can sensibly do. There will certainly be loss of certain skills since we only have 4 years, but all we can ever do is try to maximize overall gain.
It's no longer 4 years of school plus 2 years of experience to reach modest proficiency; it's 4 years of school, period.
But I think as the workforce dwindles, hiring managers will get more enthusiastic about hiring juniors. The smart ones already are. The strong students pick up agentic coding in no time, after all. It's not rocket science... if you know how to code.
It puts in stark, unabashed terms the perspectives of the “Robber Baron” class of US “thought leaders” and offers a detailed outline of the roadmap desired by such power players.
It is, without question, the most useful citation for the coming societal unrest which is fomenting. Remember the attacks on Sam Altman? The biggest media driven message from that was “tone down the rhetoric” and this absolutely amps it up past 11, as Spinal Tap would describe it.
It’s incredible and for those with a worthwhile education - myself being one - I’m glad it exists. During incarceration on a bogus Felony charge, I lucked into a copy of “The Red and the Black” by Stendhal. It prompted me to do a bit more study of the French Revolution after release. This article makes me laugh out loud. There is no better explanation for why the pitchforks and torches are a tool of the oppressed with little to no functional voice in their utility or worth or dignity in society.
Great job Mikey!
>Michael Hansen is CEO of Cengage, the global edtech company. He was previously CEO of Elsevier Health Services and held senior positions at Bertelsmann, Proxicom and BCG.
5 years from now, we are going to see management lamenting that there are no seniors to scale new products, because they never hired juniors to grow the seniors from.
I don't complain, I think current seniors are going to be showered with money just to come work for company XY.
24 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 42.7 ms ] threadI think this is called "work study" and it is already available.
https://studentaid.gov/articles/8-things-federal-work-study/
But I could see entry level also becoming "internships" more (aka unpaid jobs)
Those graduates ended up doing lower-paid and often non-career jobs like service works. The cliche in the early 2010s was college grads being baristas for a reason.
Those jobs never came back. And it's essentially destroyed that generation who are under crippling debt with no security and no prospects. People in tech did well in the 2010s. Nobody else did. So, on HN a lot of people didn't see this because HN skews towards tech but this was really destructive for society as a whole. We're still feeling the affects of it. It was a key factor in the 2016 election.
It's going to get worse. What people should really understand that there's, so far, only one product for AI and that is labor displacement and wage suppression when we already have historically low savings rate (ie a buffer) [2] and an affordability crisis that is also only going to get worse. How do we have a functioning economy if nobody has any money?
[1]: https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:...
[2]: https://usafacts.org/articles/why-arent-americans-saving-as-...
Not only that, wages have stagnated for a few decades, interest rates have been through the floor so nobody can make any money in savings, inflation through the roof, people with billions aren't paying taxes....
We don't have a functioning economy. Our stock market is being kept afloat by AI CAPEX. We have useless politicans afraid of asking trillionaire corporations and centibillionaires to pay their fair share. This country is dying.
No. It should help a person develop into a free, thoughtful, well-rounded human being. Training narrowly for current market demands can become obsolete quickly. The question should not be: Should education have economic value? But rather: Should economic value be the highest or only value of education?
Of course, engineering etc might have more immediately applicable skills but there is so much value in the Humboldtian ideal of education that merely focusing on economic output is intellectually short-sighted and ultimately impoverishes both individuals and society.
I grew up expecting the future would be much like what Captain Jean-Luc Picard described in First Contact: "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."
Somehow, that vision of the future seems farther away than ever. We're actively becoming LESS Federation, more Ferengi. That's not a world which holds any appeal for me.
2. We rehire base employees at lower wages. Move AI to hire level tasks. AI is now doing the work we said humans will do. Talent drains to other compaines. AI can do certain things every well but can't put it together. Start rehiring talent at lower wages
3. In the end, AI turns out to really be artificial wage competition designed to drive worke salaries down. All of this is subsidized by the government, fund managers and the environment. Billionaires leave earth in spaceship.
> Watch industry stop hiring entry-level jobs
> Wait 20 years for AI slop to reach tipping point, civilization collapsing
> Be only one left that knows how to debug.
-> Profit.
I'd say colleges are even more screwed than entry level jobs. Wouldn't count on them saving the day here
- OK, corporate, where do you think seniors come from? Do the spring forth fully formed from Zeus' head like Athena?
- This might actually present an opportunity for the university CS departments to become the "entry level" training ground that companies never liked being, where students actually write code and learn the basics so they can work effectively with AI in the workforce.
(A lot of this is informed by feedback from students who have entered the workforce recently and work heavily with AI.)
Basically we have to replicate as much of the junior developer workplace pipeline as we can sensibly do. There will certainly be loss of certain skills since we only have 4 years, but all we can ever do is try to maximize overall gain.
It's no longer 4 years of school plus 2 years of experience to reach modest proficiency; it's 4 years of school, period.
But I think as the workforce dwindles, hiring managers will get more enthusiastic about hiring juniors. The smart ones already are. The strong students pick up agentic coding in no time, after all. It's not rocket science... if you know how to code.
It puts in stark, unabashed terms the perspectives of the “Robber Baron” class of US “thought leaders” and offers a detailed outline of the roadmap desired by such power players.
It is, without question, the most useful citation for the coming societal unrest which is fomenting. Remember the attacks on Sam Altman? The biggest media driven message from that was “tone down the rhetoric” and this absolutely amps it up past 11, as Spinal Tap would describe it.
It’s incredible and for those with a worthwhile education - myself being one - I’m glad it exists. During incarceration on a bogus Felony charge, I lucked into a copy of “The Red and the Black” by Stendhal. It prompted me to do a bit more study of the French Revolution after release. This article makes me laugh out loud. There is no better explanation for why the pitchforks and torches are a tool of the oppressed with little to no functional voice in their utility or worth or dignity in society.
Great job Mikey!
>Michael Hansen is CEO of Cengage, the global edtech company. He was previously CEO of Elsevier Health Services and held senior positions at Bertelsmann, Proxicom and BCG.
I don't complain, I think current seniors are going to be showered with money just to come work for company XY.