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Employee Cost Comparison Framework
Mental model for evaluating AI tool costs by comparing to employee wages rather than entertainment subscriptions
Decision Rule
Compare AI tool costs to hiring equivalent human employees, not to consumer entertainment services
How It Works
Reframes expensive-seeming AI tools as incredibly cheap employees, shifting perception of value
Failure Modes
Overestimating AI capabilities compared to human employees
Ignoring setup and maintenance costs
Not accounting for learning curve time investment
Example Decision
“$600 Mac Mini seems expensive until you realize it's equivalent to hiring a developer for less than 2 hours of work”