Is the idea that they'll switch to doing "product owner" roles overseeing agents? I don't see that employing the same number of people or paying as well as engineering used to.
To be honest I expect that that role to suit different people to those that used to be engineers.
If this feels gloomy to some people, it's because it is.
If he's hiring new people they won't be engineers or the people that used to do engineering.
They'll be people that are better suited to writing English than code.
There is no fixed pie of work that AI is taking from us. In this circumstance, increased productivity caused the company to just make more stuff, not lay off people (or avoid planned hires).
It is a real world example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
It's that the benefits of that productivity won't go to the kinds of people that previously wanted to stay in engineering their whole career.
I'm not sure the Jevons Paradox applies because you're not just making engineering more efficient you're replacing it altogether with something much more commoditised.
People will gain from this but it won't be the same people.