Big Tech’s AI-powered message to staff: Do more with less

Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. Happy Mother’s Day to anyone celebrating today. I’m Alistair Barr. I’m subbing in this week to get some practice ahead of Tech Memo, a BI newsletter launching very soon. It’s a weekly inside look at Big Tech — what you need to know, what it’s like to work in Silicon Valley, and how to get ahead. I’m paying for two kids in college right now, so do me a solid and sign up here!

On the agenda today:

• The ugly truth about America’s homebuying outlook.
• Tesla’s robotaxi will compete with Waymo in Austin. Here’s how the two companies compare.
• Rich Americans are keeping the country from sliding into a recession.
• Berkshire Hathaway shareholders told BI what they thought of a future without Warren Buffett.

But first: Working in Big Tech is changing radically.

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This week’s dispatch

Wanted: Fewer, better employees doing more with less

For decades, Silicon Valley has suffered from a shortage of technical talent. This place is a software-production engine, and smart, young, hungry engineers have been its main fuel source. They work night and day, churning out code for websites, apps, search engines, social networks, and more.

The companies that won recruited and retained the best talent. The result was a race to lavish employees with juicy salaries and huge stock awards. Perks were plenty: free massages, laundry service, and delicious food served on cushy campuses.

Like all powerful trends, though, this is ending. Don’t get me wrong. Tech companies are still hiring a lot of software engineers, and compensation is holding up so far. But the intensity, borne out of this talent supply-demand mismatch, is waning.

The COVID-era tech hiring boom is partially to blame. Companies want fewer, better employees now.

Generative AI is another big factor. Turns out, AI models are really good at writing and checking software code, changing the power dynamic between Big Tech and employees. It’s the topic of a story by BI reporters Eugene Kim and Hugh Langley.

David Sacks, a venture capitalist who advises the White House on AI, puts it well. “The ramifications of moving from a world of code scarcity to code abundance are profound,” he wrote on X recently.

There’ll be A LOT more code, and way more software products that are updated and improved quicker, changing how developers work. Eugene’s exclusive on Amazon’s secret AI coding project, called Kiro, is a good example. “With Kiro, developers read less but comprehend more, code less but build more, and review less but release more,” the company wrote in an internal document.

Here’s another, more disruptive, potential outcome: Everyone can become a developer. In the past, if you wanted something technical done, you had to ask your well-paid, overworked engineering colleagues for help. Now, with AI tools, maybe you can do some of this yourself. Cursor, Vercel, Replit, and Bolt.new are just a few of the new low- or zero-code AI-powered services that help users solve problems with plain English instructions.

All of that means the pool of available developers is likely to grow massively, and Big Tech companies will have to do a lot less talent-chasing.

Is now a good time to buy a house?

It’s not a simple “yes” or “no.” Recent economic uncertainty and steep prices have tainted the housing market for buyers. But they also have more options — and bargaining power.

In BI’s second installment of its six-part series on making major life decisions, senior real estate reporter James Rodriguez broke it all down.

How house hunters can come out strong.

Also read:

• You’re in for a reality check if you want to job-hop right now
• It’s a chaotic world right now. Here’s why that makes it the ideal time to start a business.

The battle of the robotaxis

Tesla plans to launch its robotaxi service in Austin this June, stepping on Waymo’s turf. But the two companies’ approaches to driverless vehicles are pretty different.

BI compared their tech and business strategies to understand how each will gain ground. One company stands out as more autonomous.

Taking it to the streets.

Also read:

• Texas is on the verge of handing Tesla and other big businesses a major win
• Uber CEO says the Waymo robotaxis on its app in Austin are busier than 99% of human drivers

Rich to the rescue

Lower- and middle-income people have scaled back spending, but the wealthy haven’t. Love ’em or hate ’em, rich people are propping up the US economy right now.

However, there are risks to having the economy depend on a small group of people. If things go south for the wealthy, they’ll take everyone else with them.

It’s time to start rooting for the rich.

A Buffett-less future

Warren Buffett shocked investors at Berkshire Hathaway’s “Woodstock for Capitalists” last weekend by announcing his retirement from the company.

A BI reporter asked Buffett fans what they thought of the news. There were some tears, and plenty of anxiety about Berkshire’s future.

“Still processing.”

Also read:

• I spent 8 hours in the cold to see Warren Buffett speak. I witnessed his retirement bombshell — and met Tim Cook and Hillary Clinton.
• Warren Buffett delivered a masterclass in succession planning — and a lesson in high drama

This week’s quote:

“People are increasingly grumpy because they can’t change jobs.”

— Guy Berger, the director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute, on Americans feeling stuck at the jobs they want to leave.

More of this week’s top reads:

• We went to Milken, where the rich were worrying in public — and partying in private.
• Apple’s comments on Search gave investors one reason to worry about Google’s future. Here’s another.
• For Instagram creators, getting likes is no longer enough.
• A once-niche market for secondhand stakes in private funds is booming. What it’s like to work in secondaries.
• The freeloader era of streaming is over.
• Epic Games’ CEO says fighting Apple cost his company more than $1 billion. He says it was worth it.
• A Tesla worker knew his anti-Elon Musk website was a risk. He did it anyway.

• Hollywood’s biggest winners and losers from Trump’s potential movie tariffs.

  The BI Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.

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