00:00 How December 2025 became the month everything changed in tech00:34 The AI jobs apocalypse finally arrives01:08 Why new grads are getting boxed out while seniors thrive02:07 The impossible Catch-22 for anyone trying to break in02:32 Amazon’s culture meltdown and 14,000 layoffs03:16 Microsoft’s AI-driven cuts and the $500M researcher bonus pool03:54 Google quietly trims teams and shifts resources to AI04:46 Banks plan to cut junior analysts by two thirds05:32 The real reason companies want “return to office”06:28 How forced RTO quietly replaces formal layoffs07:12 When CEOs weaponize the narrative and shift blame08:13 One in four bosses admit they do this on purpose08:41 Elon’s government role and the political push for RTO09:33 Amazon’s surreal layoff justification quote10:22 Why cities and commercial real estate love RTO11:10 The talent drain these companies are pretending not to see11:30 Cloudflare, GitHub, and Microsoft outages11:55 Corporate obsession with micromanagement and time policing12:30 The rise of AI-powered employee surveillance13:01 A 6.9 billion dollar industry built on watching workers13:35 Employees are already fighting back with defeat measures14:48 Why productivity paranoia is accelerating15:44 The part of surveillance that should actually worry you16:23 Meta and Amazon tracking AI usage as a performance metric17:16 Why “AI usage” is a terrible thing to optimize18:20 When your ChatGPT history becomes a psychological profile19:49 The data trail no one thinks about20:12 Story time: learning the concept of the panopticon21:39 Tech giants are building the modern workplace panopticon22:46 The sunk-cost AI bubble and why employees get pushed to use it23:55 What happens when the merry-go-round stops24:39 The coming power shift away from legacy giants25:01 Why AI will be useful but not the worker-killer they’re betting on25:20 Workers are starting to organize25:48 Google and NYT Tech Guild wins26:16 Even legacy groups like the Teamsters are entering tech26:37 Project 2025 and anti-union policies27:21 Why hyper-capitalism broke the incentives28:07 Action items: how to protect yourself in this environment28:31 The AI bubble will correct—here’s why29:16 Build savings and ride out the turbulence29:38 Bridge the silos: engineering, product, finance, HR30:19 Push back on surveillance however you can31:03 Get curious about workplace organization32:00 Why ICs still hold the real power32:51 How executives became insulated from consequences33:41 The $37 million CEO example34:30 Your leverage as a builder34:47 Closing thoughts

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