In this episode, Koby Ofek explores how AI is quietly erasing the “first rung” of the career ladder, moving from abstract debates to concrete headcount decisions in banking, hiring, and seasonal work, and asks what happens when the entry-level path into good jobs starts to wobble. He connects candid remarks from major banks about “doing more with less people” to a broader shift where AI targets junior, repetitive tasks and reshapes traditional apprenticeship-style pipelines. Koby then examines a new federal push to standardize AI-in-hiring rules, showing how automated screening can narrow access and turn hiring into a black-box gatekeeping system just as companies experiment with “agent boss” org designs built around humans managing AI tools. He weaves in warnings from leading AI researchers and labor economists about mass unemployment, surplus workers, and the choice between an anti-worker automation route and a pro-worker augmentation route that uses AI to upgrade jobs instead of eliminating them. Finally, he offers workers, leaders, and policymakers a mental model for surviving this transition—rethinking skills, ladders, and “AI productivity” through the lens of where saved labor goes, and how to widen personal options before the doors into good work narrow further.​