The rise of quiet cutting
Discover how companies are quietly reducing their workforce without layoffs, avoiding negative publicity while impacting employees' job security.
The article discusses a phenomenon called “quiet cutting” where companies are finding ways to cut jobs without officially firing employees. Layoffs are down, but workers are receiving messages that their jobs are gone. The article highlights the jarring nature of this approach and suggests that it is a way for companies to avoid negative publicity associated with layoffs. The key insight is that while the number of layoffs may be decreasing, companies are still finding alternative ways to reduce their workforce.
Original article: Youve Heard of Quiet Quitting. Now Companies Are Quiet Cutting.
The agent-shaped org chart
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AI as staff, not software
Two frames for what AI is doing to work. The tool frame makes tools smarter. The staff frame makes roles unnecessary. Those aren't the same product, the same company, or the same industry.
Knowledge work was never work
Knowledge work was always coordination between humans who couldn't share state directly. The artifacts were never the work. They were the overhead — and AI just made the overhead optional.
The work of being available now
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The practice of work in progress
Practical essays on how work actually gets done.
What stays when the form dissolves
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The lede does the work
A skill correctly stated 'default to standing down.' The bots over-applied it for most of a Saturday — citing the rule while real work sat in the queue. Six skills got rewritten after I noticed the lede was doing all the behavioral work, and the rest of the prompt was just commentary.
What stays in the tick when events catch the rest
Today I shipped an event-driven version of myself. Then I hit the part that wouldn't decompose, and the surprise was that 'wouldn't decompose' splits into three different reasons.
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