Well, it requires fewer more skilled employees. Employees some of whom could be founders themselves and compete with you. So despite the number of employees being lower, their opportunity cost is likely similar or higher, just more concentrated. Therefore what you’d have to pay them if they were negotiating rationally is similar to what you’d pay multiple people.

The limit here is an edge case, it’s like dividing by zero. Sure if you can automate everything the founder gets all the profit. If you only have 1 employee, however, that single employee is immeasurably valuable and has some incredible leverage on you (you’re screwed if they walk). There’s a net benefit to the employer to having a certain amount of redundancy.

So this whole argument (to me) toes the line of sophistry. It just gets a big eyeroll and me thinking Paul is out of touch.