Today, CEOs are conducting sweeping layoffs , dressing them up as productivity gains. They're ratcheting up the pressure on their remaining teams, cracking down on dissent, tracking their workers' every keystroke , and pouring billions into the all-consuming infrastructure of AI projects while scaling back their investment in employees. This is the new reality , they say. If you don't like it, get out. "If you are an asshole leader," Brown told me, "you have never had more cover than you have