Entry-level hiring collapsed at AI firms — and grew at the giants

A fifteen-person AI startup has zero junior listings on its careers page. That looks like proof the first job is gone — until you check who's actually hiring.

I traced the "AI killed the entry-level job" story back to its sources: the studies, the fake 80% stat everyone repeats, and the employers who are quietly hiring more grads, not fewer. The rung didn't disappear. It moved — and where it moved depends on where you're standing.

In this memo

1. 0:00 The empty careers page
2. 1:07 The 1,000x engineer
3. 2:33 Tracing the fake 80 percent
4. 5:03 Where the job actually went
5. 8:11 Back at the empty page

Sources

• Stanford Digital Economy Lab — "Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts About the Recent Employment Effects of AI":
• Stanford Digital Economy Lab — "Canaries, Interest Rates, and Timing":
• Hosseini Maasoum & Lichtinger — "Generative AI as Seniority-Biased Technological Change" (SSRN):
• Federal Reserve Bank of New York — "The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates":
• Indeed Hiring Lab — "The Labor Market Is Tilting Toward Seniority":
• National Association of Colleges and Employers — 2026 Job Outlook, Spring Update:
• Platformer (Casey Newton) — interview with Eugenia Kuyda:
• Fortune — AWS CEO Matt Garman on replacing junior staff with AI:
• Entrepreneur — Klarna CEO reverses course on AI-only customer service:
• James Bessen, IMF Finance & Development — "Toil and Technology":
• American Bazaar — Baker McKenzie's AI-driven restructuring:
• Law.com — "After Baker McKenzie's Cuts, Don't Only Blame AI":

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