The Marginal Hire

The Marginal Hire | Tomasz Tunguz AI eliminates the marginal hire. Tech job openings are down 45% from the 2022 peak, but up 16% since the start of 2026 - from 227k to 264k. Why the narrative violation? Companies are hiring again, just fewer people than before. A reset to a lower baseline. A team that would have added two engineers to hit next year’s roadmap now ships with the headcount they have. Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot close the gap. The job postings never go live. The offers never extend. Inside most organizations, headcount stays flat. No layoffs. No restructuring announcements. Just fewer new hires than planned. Block slashing 40% of its workforce showed what happens when a company acts on this logic all at once. Jack Dorsey explained : “Intelligence tools we’re creating & using, paired with smaller & flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build & run a company.” Most companies won’t restructure so dramatically. Until an economic shock, a missed quarter, or pressure from the board forces the question. What AI made possible, AI makes necessary. The restructuring that might have happened gradually over five years happens in one quarter. The seismic shock isn’t coming out of nowhere. It’s building invisibly, one unposted job at a time. The 1-minute read that turns tech data into strategic advantage. Read by 150k+ founders & operators. Subscribe GP at Theory Ventures. Former Google PM. Sharing data-driven insights on AI, web3, & venture capital. Bloomberg • WSJ • Economist