My pet theory is that AI enables programmers to be relatively more productive than other roles. So, if I want to grow my company, shouldn't I hire MORE programmers? Anyone know a good counterargument?

Along another vein, I guess I wonder with my limited knowledge of economics if the demand for programmers is elastic or inelastic.

Most businesses don’t grow just by churning out more units of software. At some point, it doesn’t matter how quickly you can churn out features if you’re not solving customer problems and convincing customers that they should pay for those solutions.

Once software becomes cheap, the bottleneck to growth shift to product design, infrastructure/manufacturing, sales and support.

if constructing houses or buildings are quick, the bottleneck will be moved to other things. Like city planner, regulations / legals, material procurements, furnishing / equiments, etc.

for software it will be requirement gathering, product planning, looking for buyer / customer, even brainstorming on finding what to make.

> So, if I want to grow my company, shouldn't I hire MORE programmers?

You take the same pot of money and allocate it differently:

2010s: Hire 10 programmers

2020s: Hire 9 programmers and pay for the best AI money can buy

The 9 programmers with AI will be more productive than the 10 without.

Kinda playing devil’s advocate here but: if AI is a multiplier it makes (now more) sense to get rid of net negatives