Eric Schmidt says AI means a 10,000-person company has 'a couple of thousand people who you don't need'

Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt says AI will let large companies run with far fewer staff, and puts a number on it: a 10,000-person company probably has "a couple of thousand people who you don't need". Speaking to Nicolai Tangen, head of Norway's sovereign wealth fund, on the fund's In Good Company podcast released on 21 October 2026, Schmidt recalled spending 12 hours a day in meetings at Google and said "much of that coordination tax can be eliminated by these AI platforms for business". He described a friend's fast-growing company that laid off 20% of its staff, the "glue people" doing planning and "moving numbers around", while keeping salespeople, engineers and the people who deal with regulators. "You better figure out a way to legally and humanely transition them, retire them out, or what have you," he said. The 20% figure is the friend's company, which he did not name; for a typical 10,000-person firm his own estimate was "a couple of thousand". Schmidt speaks as a former chief executive and investor, not as an employer announcing cuts, so this is a forecast, not a recorded job loss. Coordination and planning roles are the ones he expects to go first.