Labor
topic on 8 shows · 13 statements across 13 episodes
the Y Combinator Startup Podcast 
the Knowledge Project 
My First Million 
Invest Like the Best 
Catalyst 
the a16z Podcast 
TBPN 
20VC
13 statements about Labor, every show
Ries: Companies will need to ally with labor to successfully adopt AI
“So I think you're going to see a lot of companies who actually sincerely believe in this possibility, realize that we have to enlist our employees in it. It's essential for our business. We're going out of business. If we don't do it, we need to be allies with…”
Nolan: Physical infrastructure and permitting lag behind labor responsiveness
“I think labor responds. It probably takes a few years, but it's faster than building infrastructure. And so infrastructure is probably the bottleneck and then Is it just energy? Probably not just energy, probably permitting can take a while.”
Masad: Functional AGI will automate a large portion of human labor
“We can get to, like, functional AGI, and what functional AGI is, is just, yeah, collect data on every useful economic activity in in the world today, and train an LLM on top of that, or train the same foundation model on top of that, and we'll, we'll go, we'll…”
Fisher: Post-AGI capital won't need labor buy-in, worsening wealth concentration
“But once AGI arrives, you don't need labor buy-in anymore. Right. Like you don't need folks like me to approve of the thing that you're building or of your morals or whatever. Right. Like capital begets capital in that world. And that can easily spiral out of …”
Ross: AI compute expands labor supply, an unprecedented economic shift
“The most valuable thing in the economy is labor. And now we're going to be able to add more labor to the economy by producing more compute and better AI. That has never happened in the history of the economy before.”
Song: Labor is the largest controllable operating expense in property management
“The biggest controllable expense is labor.”
Dwarkesh Patel: Asset Ownership Will Protect Wealth If AI Devalues Labor
“One is even if your labor is not worth that much the property you own is potentially worth a lot, right? Like if you own an S&P 500, And there's been explosive growth. You're like a multi multi-millionaire or the land you have is like worth a lot.”
Leah Ellis: Labor represents 80% of concrete's total installed cost
“The total installed cost of concrete is, is 80% labor, and so even if there's a premium on the cement part, once you roll that into concrete, and then concrete's a very small part of the building, and then, you know, but it is a big part of the carbon footprin…”
Cahn: Labor is the Single Largest Cost in Data Centers
“I mean, labor is the single biggest cost in data centers.”
Housel: Economic spoils cyclically alternate between labor and capital
“There's always a pendulum between labor and capital. Workers and investors, and it kind of swings back and forth of who's taking the lion's share of the spoils in this economy. In the 19 twenties, it was capital. From the 19, probably fifties to seventies, it …”
Ellis: Contractor labor makes up 90% of installed concrete costs
“What's interesting is that 90% of the cost, the total installed cost of concrete, is actually labor from the contractor.”
Balaji: Robotic automation transforms human labor into electrical capital
“Because once a robot can do something, you've turned labor into capital because it's all electricity.”
Howard Marks: Tech automation threatens long-term employment for manual laborers
“Longer term, I worry about employment, mainly because of the stuff Bill does. You know, his companies are replacing labor with computing power, to over-exaggerate. I worry about where people whose main asset is a strong back are going to get jobs in the longer…”