The startup era is back, but this time founders are using AI to avoid one of their biggest early costs—hiring employees. A report this week by the Bank of America Institute found the number of “high propensity businesses,” or businesses the Census Bureau identifies as likely to hire employees, jumped by 15.1% year over year in January. Meanwhile, the number of business applications with explicit plans to hire employees fell by 4.4%. The trend comes amid the record-high investment small companies are ma ...