It's hard for me to <i>not</i> notice that the new C-level marching orders this year are that "measurement" jobs is actually what AI is killing (managers, HR, data, etc), and that seems to be an about face from IC-work being dead after the data is pretty clearly showing the opposite.<p>Do we not need HR and managers, or are those just more popular roles to cut and the impact takes longer to show up?
As we enter this era of far more qualified candidates than jobs, HR will die eventually the equivalent of index funds is for hiring. Just as most money managers didn't beat the market and lost out to Bogle's low-cost index funds, people will figure out that HR doesn't do any better than any other random criteria for hiring and firing employees, since most of the applicants for most jobs will be able to do the job sufficiently well. Probably the answer is some sort of AI, but I bet you could do just as well rolling dice.<p>If most of us are honestly with ourselves, we'd realize the marginal return on difficult hiring decisions is extremely small.<p>As for the CYA aspect of HR, an AI can definitely do that cheaper and more callously.
> The report also said that Human Resources employees at Uber, who had previously been cleared to work from home, are being asked to return to the office to comply with a three-day-a-week rule that took effect last June.<p>I feel this is direction much tech companies will take.
That is just soft firing, those choosing to not return to office will be among the 23%. That has been a normal tactic for years now.
I love that we all know it’s just pointless suffering, to the point that they’re using it as a strategy to make people quit. If it had any positives they wouldn’t be doing this.
Wonder how many of them got hired as a response to all the Travis Kalanick-era notoriety
What's the only thing worse than 1 HR Rep?
<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/24/uber-engineers-built-ai-version-of-boss-dara-khosrowshahi/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/24/uber-engineers-built-ai-ve...</a><p>This is expected. Expect more layoffs
Hard to imagine a better HR department than non-humans...
Looks like it's a good time for Uber employees to start discussing unionization.
The "good time" to discussion unionization would have been about 10 years ago when <i>employees</i> had much more leverage.<p>But I quite vividly remember any mention of that here on HN back then was responded to with "I'm paid great and can easily change jobs why would I want a union?" (with many engineers only thinking of factory worker unions as a model and forgetting that <i>very</i> highly paid and in demand actors <i>also</i> belong to a union).<p>You negotiate when you're in a position of strength, not while your value is rapidly falling through your fingers.<p>With AI and a growing population of ex-corporate workers desperate for work breaking up attempts to unionize would be easier than ever.
If every employee is part of a union, what happens then when companies over-hire?
Ironically an HR department is detrimental to unionization efforts
Why?
> About 90% of Uber’s software engineers are using AI in their work, Khosrowshahi said, while about 30% are “power users” of AI tools, completely rethinking the architecture of the company. [1]<p>Either you lose job or you make a union.<p>[1]
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