AI coding speed reveals coordination as bottleneck, threatens bloated teams

A viral Reddit post argues that the common developer refrain 'coding was never the bottleneck' — often used to downplay AI's immediate impact on productivity — is actually bearish for employment. The reasoning: if AI speeds up coding but overall output is still capped by meetings, handoffs, bureaucracy, and organizational friction, then the next frontier for optimization is the organizational structure itself. Developers have long complained about these inefficiencies as 'bullshit' that gets in the way; now AI gives companies a reason to eliminate them.

Taking this logic to its conclusion, new startups can be built from scratch with far fewer people, fewer layers, fewer meetings, and heavy reliance on AI. These leaner organizations can outcompete older, bloated companies, forcing incumbents to respond by flattening management, automating internal processes, and cutting jobs that existed only because of inefficiency. Thus, rather than protecting jobs, the 'coding was never the bottleneck' argument actually reveals a path to widespread restructuring and reduced headcount.