Corporate America is entering a new phase—one where efficiency is no longer a choice, but a requirement.

In this episode of The B., Ben looks at why companies are cutting headcount by design rather than necessity, and how AI is reshaping hiring decisions from the ground up. Entry-level roles are disappearing first, not because work is gone, but because it has become automatable, measurable, and cheaper to run through machines.

The episode explores how the same technologies driving workforce reductions are creating new constraints elsewhere—most notably in compute, energy, and infrastructure. As demand for AI scales, bottlenecks are shifting away from talent and toward power grids, chip supply, and physical capacity that cannot move at software speed.

From hiring policies at major companies to capital reallocation at firms like Meta, this conversation traces a broader structural shift: headcount is becoming a liability, infrastructure is becoming strategy, and decision speed is turning into a competitive moat.

The question is no longer whether organisations should become leaner—but how far they can go before efficiency starts to undermine resilience.

Some things read better than they sound—charts and data included in the written edition.