A Plain Memo
If you're burning out from AI — you got the smaller half
If you're a high performer burning out from AI, the math you've been judged against is broken. The productivity windfall your boss priced in — the one that raised the bar on your year — went to the juniors. You got the gap.
Three peer-reviewed studies converge on a finding most executives haven't internalized yet: AI's measurable productivity lift concentrates at the BOTTOM of the skill curve, not the top. BCG's 758-consultant trial put the below-median performers up 43% and the high performers up 17%. Stanford's year-long study of 5,179 customer-support agents found novices got a 34% bump and the most experienced agents got essentially zero. Your day didn't get shorter — it grew an oversight tax. Peer workslop to fix. Prompts to rewrite. Tool outputs to verify. All on top of the hard work that never went anywhere.
ℹ️ AI voice disclosure: This episode uses an AI-generated voice (ElevenLabs). The host is a pseudonymous byline persona (Reid Conlin).
In this memo
Sources
- Dell'Acqua et al., "Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier," Organization Science (2026)
- Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, "Generative AI at Work," Quarterly Journal of Economics (2025)
- Upwork Research Institute, "From Burnout to Balance: AI-Enhanced Work Models" (2024)
- Ranganathan & Ye, "AI Doesn't Reduce Work — It Intensifies It," HBR (2026)
- Niederhoffer et al. (Stanford / BetterUp), "AI-Generated 'Workslop' Is Destroying Productivity," HBR (2025)
- Bedard et al. (BCG), "When Using AI Leads to 'Brain Fry,'" HBR (2026)
- Humlum & Vestergaard, "Still Waters, Rapid Currents," NBER WP #33777 (2025)