AI Isn't Taking Your Job. It's Taking Your Salary.

Companies have blamed AI for more than 120,000 US job cuts this year. Then many of them started hiring people back, and the work may come back cheaper. So where did the money for those jobs go? We followed it, from the pink slip to the data center. The one number that decides whether your job is next is at the end, along with the verdict on the Bubble Meter. Previous episode: You're Already Paying for the AI Boom:    • You're Already Paying for the AI Boom   SOURCES Challenger, Gray & Christmas job-cut reports, 2025–26 · IBM's Arvind Krishna to Bloomberg, May 2023 · Marc Benioff on The Logan Bartlett Show, Sep 2025 · Accenture earnings call, Sep 2025 · Amazon Q3 2025 earnings call; AP and Bloomberg, Jan 2026 · Meta layoffs: CNN, ABC, TNW, Apr 2026 · Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta 10-K filings · Big Tech capex guidance, 2026 · Uber: The Information and TechCrunch, 2026 · Nvidia's Bryan Catanzaro to Axios, via Fortune, Apr 2026; Nvidia 10-K/10-Q · METR developer study, Jul 2025 · Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond, NBER, 2023 · a16z, "LLMflation"; Epoch AI · Moffatt v. Air Canada, 2024 BCCRT 149; CBC · McDonald's and IBM: CNBC, CBS · Taco Bell: The Wall Street Journal, Aug 2025 · Commonwealth Bank: ABC, The Guardian Australia · MIT NANDA, Aug 2025 · Klarna press release, Feb 2024; Bloomberg, May and Oct 2025 · Careerminds survey, Feb 2026 · Orgvue, 2025 · Forrester, Predictions 2026 (via The Register) · Gartner, 2025 · IKEA: Reuters, Jun 2023 · National Commission on Technology, Automation, and Economic Progress, 1966 · Brynjolfsson, Chandar and Chen, Stanford Digital Economy Lab, Aug 2025 · Federal Reserve Bank of New York, The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates · Dario Amodei to Axios and CNN, May 2025 · Yale Budget Lab, Oct 2025 · Meta's AI hiring: The Wall Street Journal, 2025, and Meta's statement · Hyperion: Louisiana First News · Thompson et al., "Beyond AI Exposure", MIT CSAIL, 2024 · Microsoft buyouts: Bloomberg, CNBC FOOTAGE Short excerpts used for commentary, criticism and news reporting (fair use). The rights belong to their owners: Arirang News:    • Meta cuts 8,000 jobs to fund AI spending s...   Bloomberg Tech:    • Klarna CEO on How AI Is Changing Banks and...   Bloomberg Television (with C-SPAN footage):    • Meta’s $200 Billion Bet on a Remote Data C...   Business Insider:    • Life Lessons From Big Tech Workers Who Got...   CBC British Columbia:    • Air Canada found liable for chatbot’s bad ...   CBS News:    • McDonald's ends AI drive-thru experiment   CNBC Television:    • What CEOs from Nvidia, AMD, Perplexity and...   CNN:    • AI company's CEO issues warning about mass...   CNN-News18:    • IBM To Freeze Hiring And Replace 7,800 Job...   Dwarkesh Clips:    • Inside the world's most powerful datacente...   Global News:    • Meta reportedly planning mass layoffs to o...   Louisiana Public Broadcasting:    • An Exclusive Tour Inside Meta’s Massive Lo...   Mint:    • AI Vs Jobs: Meta Axes 8,000 Employees, Mic...   NVIDIA:    • Jensen Huang’s Keynote Highlights at NVIDI...   Page Not Found:    • guy asks for 18,000 water cups at taco bel...   Salesforce:    • The Rise of the Agentic Enterprise | Sales...   The Logan Bartlett Show:    • Marc Benioff Predicts Half of Conversation...   Archive: Prelinger Archives (public domain); NASA; Popular Science Monthly, 1899, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Stock footage and photos (Pexels): Mikhail Nilov, RDNE Stock project, Raddy, Saif Abdulraheem, Tima Miroshnichenko, Videogrammer, cottonbro studio, Dima Krivoy, CityXcape, Boris Hamer, Artur Vander PiloT. Photos: "Andy Jassy in 2016" by Steve Jurvetson, CC BY 2.0; "Sebastian Siemiatkowski" by TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0 (both via Wikimedia Commons). Music, sound design, graphics and the host: original, made for Neural Net Worth. Narration: synthetic voice; script and research by Neural Net Worth. Nothing in this video is financial or career advice.