Leading figures in the business world, including Salesforce, Microsoft, and Intel, have been reducing their workforces, causing employees to worry about their own job security. Donald King, a 26-year-old who developed AI agents for PwC, didn't anticipate being laid off, but he quickly understood the reasoning behind the moniker given to consultants, which is “hatchet-men.”
TL;DR
- A 26-year-old AI developer at PwC was laid off, expressing concern his work may have contributed to job cuts.
- Donald King, who developed AI agents for PwC, was blindsided by his termination, suspecting his work aided client layoffs.
- King's AI agents, designed to automate tasks, may have contributed to workforce reductions at PwC's clients.
- Despite his layoff, King founded his own marketing firm, AMDK, focusing on AI agent development with caution.
After graduating with a degree in finance from the University of Texas at Austin in 2021, King landed a job at one of the “Big Four” consulting giants: PwC. He packed his bags and moved to New York to start his role as an associate in technology consulting, working with major clients, including Oracle, during his first year. But everything changed when PwC announced a $1 billion investment in AI; King was already intrigued by the tech, so he pitched himself to join the company’s AI factory team. Working 60 to 80 hours a week, he immersed himself in the tech, even throwing knowledge-sharing AI agent block parties within the firm that drew up to 250 participants. King logged a ton of hours—sometimes at the expense of his weekends—but was confident he was excelling in his role as a product manager and data scientist.
“I was coding and managing a team onshore and offshore. It was crazy, it’s like, ‘Give this 24-year-old millions of dollars of salary spent per month to build AI agents for Coins2Day 500 [companies],’” King tells Coins2Day. “[It was] my dream job…I won first place in this OpenAI hackathon across the entire firm.”
While King was establishing himself as a vital AI asset for PwC, he started to ponder the consequences of his contributions. The AI agents King developed for large enterprises could certainly automate substantial portions of human responsibilities, potentially even entire work units. One Microsoft Teams agent his team designed acted like a real individual, which unnerved King somewhat.
“We had a late night call with all the boys that are building this thing, like, ‘What the hell are we building right now?’” King says. “Just saying ‘Treat them like humans’ is probably not the best way to think about it.”
While unseen, a layoff was being prepared, this time impacting King. In October 2024, a mere eight months into his last position at PwC, the Gen Zer showcased his successful project from The OpenAI hackathon: a group of AI agents designed to automate repetitive tasks. King felt a sense of pride and security in his standing with the company, but just two hours later, PwC contacted King to notify him of his termination. The 26-year-old documented the meeting and posted it on TikTok, garnering over 75,000 likes and 2.1 million views. Viewers on his videos expressed shock that King would be dismissed following his hackathon victory.
“I thought I was safe, especially after I won first place,” King says. “I just got a little blindsided.”
King explains that he doesn't believe his dismissal was due to any “nefarious” motives, suggesting he was probably just one of many employees let go because the company had hired too many people in prior years. Nevertheless, he does see a link between the AI tools he developed for PwC clients and the subsequent staff reductions at those same businesses.
Coins2Day reached out to PwC for comment.
King suspects his AI agents might have been involved in job cuts.
King doesn't think his previous position at PwC was automated, but he acknowledges that the AI agents he developed probably affected others. The year following his dismissal, King noticed that some of the Coins2Day 500 clients he worked with were reducing their staff. The AI agents he assisted in building might have contributed to these workforce reductions.
“It’s 100% connected,” King says. “I knew that consulting was a hatchet-man type job, I knew you’re going in to potentially lay people off, but I didn’t think it was going to be like this.”
King views AI agents as comparable to a five-year-old's reasoning abilities, yet they possess knowledge of “all the corpus of information in the world” and can handle routine duties. Consequently, entry-level positions frequently face the greatest threat of disruption.
“It’s automating tasks, 100%, those are gone,” King says. “If your job is doing those menial types of things, if you’re just emailing a spreadsheet back and forth, you can kiss your job goodbye.”
Shifting focus to his new life's mission: establishing a marketing firm
While being on PwC’s AI team may have once been his dream job, the layoff didn’t crush his spirit.
“I’m grateful for it happening…It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but then it turned into the best thing,” King says. “Overall, [I’m] very grateful that I got laid off.”
Following his dismissal, King reported being flooded with employment proposals from prominent tech firms interested in his AI expertise. Nevertheless, the determined young entrepreneur opted against rejoining a conventional work schedule; instead, King established his own marketing firm, AMDK. The company's formal debut occurred in December of the previous year, a mere two months subsequent to his termination from PwC.
King states that AMDK has secured clients from small businesses to massive corporations, with many seeking their own AI agents. His ultimate aim is to develop a network of agents assisting companies with their operational infrastructure, but following his time on PwC’s AI team, he’s proceeding with caution regarding the consequences of his work. While still navigating the challenges of starting a business, he wouldn't exchange the ups and downs for a traditional corporate position.
“This is my purpose in life, versus this is someone else’s purpose,” King says. “[I’m] way happier.”