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Practical guides on AI and automation for small businesses. Everything here is something I built, broke, or fixed first.
Research Entry-Level Software Developer Pay: Squeezed at the Bottom?
Between two BLS wage snapshots, the lowest-paid tenth of software pay outside California rose faster than the 75th percentile, so this measure shows no sign of a squeeze at the bottom, but it cannot tell higher pay from fewer low-paid jobs and says nothing about hiring.
Research AI Businesses in San Francisco: How Many Have AI in the Name?
In San Francisco's business register, the share of new registrations with an AI marker in the registered name was 0.2% each year through 2022, then 0.6% (2023), 0.9% (2024) and 1.3% (2025).
Research Software Job Postings vs Sales Job Postings: Indeed Data
On Indeed, Sales and Customer Service postings fell less than software postings on both start dates and Marketing sits closer to software than Sales or Customer Service do on both start dates, so the overall reading is mixed and says nothing about who does the work.
Research Business Applications vs Formations: What the Data Can Say
Public Census data cannot yet tell whether employer-business formations kept pace with applications after late 2022, because 44 of the 45 months since are Census projections; the one observed finding is that formations per application were already lower in 2021-22 than in 2015-2020.
Research Sales and Marketing Occupations vs Software Occupations
Federal occupation data neither confirm nor refute that selling jobs held up better than software jobs in California: the answer flips with how software work is defined and with whether you count jobs or occupation-and-metro pairs.
Research What Do Businesses Use AI for? Census Data Outside Tech
Outside the two tech sectors, AI use in sales and marketing and self-reported AI substitution for employee tasks are both present across sectors, which counts against 'not really used'; the survey does not test whether AI paid off.
Research AI Adoption by City: Do Businesses Outside San Francisco Use AI?
In Census data, businesses in the 24 large metros other than San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley report AI use at 22.5% on average, close to that metro's 26.3%, and that metro is not first among the 25.
Research Entry-Level Jobs and AI: Is It Only Programmers?
In a published ADP payroll index, the gap between workers aged 22 to 25 and older workers that opened after Nov 2022 is not unique to software developers, but the data say nothing about why.