TL;DR Corporate leaders are restructuring their organisations around AI using a compression thesis: same work, fewer people, flatter hierarchy. The evidence increasingly points to expansion: more work, different work, new capabilities. Restructuring for compression when the actual phenomenon is expansion is a classification error with cascading consequences. Before redesigning your org chart, classify the change.

Your CEO just sent an all-hands email. The subject line contains the words "AI-first" and "restructuring." The deck references Block, Shopify, and Anthropic. There is a slide about flattening hierarchy, a slide about smaller teams, and a slide about everyone becoming a builder. The stock price ticked up 3% on the announcement.

Truth is, most startups die.
— 9 out of 10 fail (according to Genome Project)
— 199 out of 200 (according to THNK & Deloitte Fast Ventures)
It’s the elephant in the room.