Matthew McConaughey's Salesforce gig

Alright, alright, alright. Hallam Bullock here, reporting from London — and yes, Matthew McConaughey is on my mind. Salesforce has reportedly been paying McConaughey $10 million a year to act as a "creative adviser."

If, like McConaughey, you fancy landing yourself a high-paying gig, then I hope you've got one of these college majors under your belt (we broke down the best subjects to study if you want to make a lot of money). If not, don't worry … as long as you don't have one of the worst-paying college majors.

But hey, even if you do, many of tech's power-players dropped out of college anyway.

Now, let's take a look at the week's top stories.

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1. Programmers are thrilled about AI tools like ChatGPT. People worry about their jobs, as ChatGPT and AI slowly become powerful enough to replace workers. But one group of workers sees ChatGPT as good for their industry: Programmers.

• Programmers are excited because advancements in automation make them far more efficient. They can write more code — and better code.
• Industry insiders say tools like ChatGPT stand to remove much of the pain of learning how to code in the first place.
• If more people learn how to code, we might see more people become programmers, which would also address the tech industry's perpetual talent crunch.

Read why programmers are pumped about the rise of AI tools.

Top tech stories of the week:

2. One of Elon Musk's most loyal employees was fired at Twitter. Esther Crawford went viral after a picture of her sleeping on the floor at Twitter HQ was posted online. But after going "all-in on Twitter 2.0" and embodying Musk's "hardcore" work culture, Crawford has been laid off. Here's how she reacted.
3. The widespread layoffs in tech aren't about cost-cutting — it's copycat behavior. That's according to a Stanford professor who's studied organizational behavior for decades. "A lot of this is just imitation," Jeffrey Pfeffer writes. Read more.
4. "I'm a pastor living in rural Arkansas, and I make up to $3,000 a week with my side hustle." Larry Lundstrom spends about 40 to 60 hours a week as a pastor, but on the side, he uses AI tools like ChatGPT to make pitch decks for businesses. Read his story.
5. Meet the man rumored to be Twitter's next CEO. Like Esther Crawford, Steve Davis embraced Elon Musk's "hardcore" edict. He even once slept at Twitter's HQ with his newborn baby. Unlike Crawford, there is speculation that Davis' dedication may have paid off. Read more.
6. An Amazon driver shared a viral TikTok of the company's AI system that tracks her movements. She said the cameras even flag drivers for sipping coffee or not buckling their seat belt enough times. The full story.
7. Mark Zuckerberg is launching a "top-level" team at Meta to develop AI products. After losing billions of dollars on the metaverse, Meta is now buying into the AI hype. The products are being developed for WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. More here.
8. The robots are coming. Elon Musk believes Tesla's humanoid "Optimus" robots will eventually outnumber humans. A video shared Wednesday showed Tesla's AI robot walking and completing tasks. Take a look here.

Odds and ends:

9. "My job went remote — so I got 2 more and started traveling the world in secret." Insider spoke with a government worker who says they have taken 40 trips over the last two years, doing things like responding to work emails beneath the Eiffel Tower. Here's what the experience is like.
10. Six different ways companies are "quiet firing" white-collar workers. If you've been excluded from meetings or asked to draft up documents detailing your duties, you could be getting quietly fired. Other telltale signs to look out for.

Today's team: Hallam Bullock in London, Lisa Ryan in New York, and Dave Smith in Toronto.