Burn Tokens, Not Headcount: How Small Teams Should Hear That AI Phrase
A phrase from a recent AI talk is making the rounds. Armando reframes 'burn tokens, not headcount' into a useful question for small business owners.
Topics Covered
Show Notes
A phrase from a recent AI talk has been making the rounds: “burn tokens, not headcount.” It sounds cold at first. Armando Perez-Carreno argues it is one of the more useful framings a small-business owner can carry into the AI era, once you hear it the right way.
He walks through how small teams are getting more leverage from AI than ever, and where the trap hides. Hiring another coordinator to handle volume can feel right, but sometimes the workflow itself is the problem. People matter too much to spend their days acting as glue between systems, and that glue work is exactly what AI is good at. This one stays away from layoff talk. It is about asking a better question before you add headcount: which parts of the work belong to a person, and which belong to a system?
Topics Covered
- What “burn tokens, not headcount” really means
- Where small teams get the most AI leverage
- The trap of hiring to fix a broken workflow
- Which work belongs to people and which to systems
- Why captured knowledge decides how much AI can help