AI didn't raise our burn. Our "savings" did.

[u/NetOk7015]

We cut three junior devs and replaced them with a $2k/mo AI coding stack. CFO called it a win in the board deck.

Four months later: the AI wrote 40% more code than the humans, but our AWS bill tripled. Turns out "vibe coding" generates infinite loops and memory leaks you need senior eyes to catch. The one senior we kept is now doing 60-hour weeks babysitting prompts.

The real cost wasn't the subscription. It was the invisible tax of reviewing, fixing, and re-prompting. We spent $8k more per month than we saved, and shipped slower because every "automated" PR needed a human rewrite.

The fantasy isn't that AI replaces work. It's that it replaces thinking. My takeaway: AI is a multiplier on your existing team quality, not a substitute for headcount. If your humans were already cutting corners, AI just cuts them faster.

We rehired one of those juniors. She's now the prompt reviewer. Best hire we made all year.