You got faster, your company didn't

A new piece from TERRESTRIAL SOFTWARE is making the rounds, and it's the kind of thing that hits different when you're the one actually doing the work. The basic claim is simple: over the past few years, most of us got faster. Better tools, AI, smarter workflows — the list is long. But our companies didn't pass the gains back. No raise. No shorter week. No less grind.

The piece is worth reading because it names something a lot of us have felt but couldn't quite pin down. Your inbox is fuller, your Slack is louder, but the output is sharper and the work is quicker. You're doing more in less time, and your boss is happy about it. Meanwhile, the leverage that was supposed to go your way is staying right where it started — in the spreadsheet.

This fits a wider pattern across tech and beyond. Productivity gains have been real, but the distribution has been off. The companies that got better at extracting work got richer. The workers got used to moving faster without getting paid to. This is the quiet part of the story about AI and automation that doesn't get enough attention — it's not just about what technology does, it's about who gets to keep what it does.

Why this matters for us: when we're the ones doing the lifting, the gains don't automatically become ours — and the people who control the work decide where the rewards go.