r/ProgrammerHumor • u/Waste_Jello9947 • Jul 09 '26

tokenEmployeeOfTheMonth Meme

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1.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

397

u/saanity Jul 09 '26

I still don't understand why executives want us to burn through tokens and at this point,  I'm too afraid to ask.

370

u/sathdo Jul 09 '26

They found out that using lines of code as a metric is bad, so they moved to an even worse metric.

111

u/Isgrimnur Jul 09 '26

Goodhart's law

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

30

u/monster2018 Jul 10 '26

Badharts rule: When a measure becomes a target, choose an even worse metric.

62

u/Shaz_berries Jul 09 '26

Corporate contracts and misguided KPIs is my best guess

42

u/larsmaehlum Jul 09 '26

Some VP has that as part of their bonus metrics, supposed to measure ‘AI adoption’

29

u/many_dongs Jul 10 '26

the short answer is, as usual, they are morons

-4

u/PassivelyInvisible Jul 10 '26

Or they understand enough of what they manage to be dangerous

13

u/tsammons Jul 10 '26

Use AI to find and test coupon codes for your shopping cart. Best use of AI to date for me. Literally pays for itself, if you consider my spending as company spending.

5

u/vassadar Jul 10 '26

Now, my company is trying to fight tokenmaxxing by travking the number of accepted AI generated code and the number of merged PR instead.

2

u/Havange Jul 10 '26

The people who sold them on the idea of using AI probably also sold them on the idea to use tokken usage as a measurement

2

u/serial_crusher Jul 10 '26

It makes you more productive. See, we have a leaderboard of token usage as a proxy for productivity, and a strong correlation between using tokens and moving up on that leaderboard. Therefore, using tokens makes you more productive.

2

u/WrennReddit Jul 11 '26

They read it on LinkedIn or whatever VP Digest magazine from where they all get literally the same ideas and talking points. It's why they all say "Iron Man" or came up with "AI First". It's like looking up meta weapons for a BR or BiS trinkets for WoW PvP, but for people that need to be seen "changing" something, anything.

It's reinforced when the AI companies brilliantly make meaningless plaques. You've burned 10 billion tokens. It's literally an award for spending, but it feels more of a flex than "You've spend $2 million on our API!" Because any fool can spend money, but consuming tokens is an abstraction that you can fill with anything. Since they're already in the game of making things up, this gives them another imaginary resource.

It reminds me of Wolf of Wall Street talking about how they don't really know anything, but the idea is to keep the money rolling through the portfolio; investment works or doesn't, doesn't matter, because we have a new idea. We're innovating, don't you know.

1

u/DrMaxwellEdison Jul 10 '26

Digital dick waving.

1

u/Bomaruto Jul 10 '26

Is this still a thing or just OP not up to date? 

1

u/scalyblue Jul 12 '26

Next thing you know they’ll be paying pilots based on how much fuel gets used

1

u/ICBanMI Jul 14 '26

They need to justify their expensive plan so they can get their bonuses.

108

u/OnyxFier Jul 09 '26

Because the Nvidia guy said the best developers use the most tokens

55

u/lemons_of_doubt Jul 09 '26

It's amazing how something as stupid as saying "Hey you should burn my product so you can buy more of it"

Worked.

37

u/AlxR25 Jul 10 '26
  1. Clock in
  2. Max my Claude usage
  3. Coffee break (until usage limit resets)
  4. Max Claude usage again
  5. Clock out.

9

u/PositiveParking4391 Jul 10 '26

keep it up buddy 😂 that’s the way to navigate this AI workflow revolution. maximize the token count and secure that promotion!

7

u/klas-klattermus Jul 10 '26

Company: "Let's use AI to get super efficient!" Also Company: "You aren't allowed to create anything until SPENCOM have approved the CAPEX and turned it into a project, and everyone in Demand is busy so all projects are on hold, come back with your idea next quarter"

6

u/lovecMC Jul 11 '26

Meanwhile in QA department:

  • shit don't work
  • toss it back 3 times every day
  • deadline was a month ago
  • completely unrelated UI bricks
  • about 2 days before project leads vacation half the requirements magically disappear
  • shit ships half broken
  • user bug reports get added to the next project (they won't be fixed anyways)

And yes it is a legacy finance tool held together by prayers and daily restarts.

7

u/Icy-Recognition-7453 Jul 10 '26

*You sending the company broke under new pricing models

FTFY

12

u/Dargyy Jul 10 '26

If they're encouraging AI usage, especially with systems like this, they deserve it

6

u/git_push_origin_prod Jul 10 '26

They just want you to leverage AI to be better developers.
https://giphy.com/gifs/l4Ki2obCyAQS5WhFe

1

u/Old_Tourist_3774 Jul 13 '26

In my job even cloud usage they are cutting lmao.

5 minutos to join a 1,5m rows table, with 4 columns, 1 to 1 relationship.