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Paul Welty, PhD AI, WORK, AND STAYING HUMAN

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Tech companies battle over remote work

Tech companies battle over remote work

Explore the clash between tech companies over remote work policies, as employees voice concerns and companies enforce new in-office mandates.

The article discusses the ongoing battle over returning to the office at tech companies, with some companies like Salesforce offering incentives for employees to return to the office, while others like Google are factoring in-person attendance into performance reviews. However, some employees are pushing back against these policies, citing concerns about the practicality of in-person work and the lack of consideration for individual circumstances. The article also includes comments from readers discussing the pros and cons of remote work and office work.

Original article: CNN Sees ‘Escalating Battle’ Over Returning to the Office at Tech Companies

The agent-shaped org chart

Every real org has the same topology: principal, role-holder, specialists. Staff AI maps onto it, node for node, and the cost collapse shows up in the deliverables that were always just human-handoff overhead.

AI as staff, not software

Two frames for what AI is doing to work. The tool frame makes tools smarter. The staff frame makes roles unnecessary. Those aren't the same product, the same company, or the same industry.

Knowledge work was never work

Knowledge work was always coordination between humans who couldn't share state directly. The artifacts were never the work. They were the overhead — and AI just made the overhead optional.

The work of being available now

A book on AI, judgment, and staying human at work.

The practice of work in progress

Practical essays on how work actually gets done.

The file I almost made twice

A small operational footgun that runs everywhere — building a parallel system when the one you have is fine.

The actor doesn't get to be the verifier

The worker isn't lying. The worker is reporting what it thought it did, which is always one step removed from what the world actually shows. The fix isn't more self-honesty. The fix is a different pair of eyes.

Shopping is the last mile

Every meal planning app treats cooking as the hard problem and shopping as a logistics detail. They have it backwards. Cooking is mostly solved. Shopping is the last mile.

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