AI talent competition and the rising skill baseline

AI has raised the bar on the basics, and is creating insane competition for talent. I get asked all the time who is a great CTO/CPO/vp prod/PM/staff eng all the time. And usually my response is: “there is no one good you can get.” Because it’s not “can someone take this seat” anymore. It’s literally: is this a top 5% person I’ve seen do a job like this, are they AI pilled, are they not a founder or snatched by a research lab and can you compete with their comp. It isn’t: here’s a solid VPP w 15 yoe who has been in your vertical for while, they seem pretty good. It’s: this person is worth their weight in Claude Code. This person adds to the system. This person *cooks*. Even when I share names, GUARANTEED within weeks they announce YC or a rad oai job or they secretly went to a superintelligence lab. (Maybe this is a me problem, and I’ve just worked exclusively with super talented people.) But there just aren’t enough, truly, out there to fill the demand. Tech twitter is not LinkedIn. There are still more jobs than people w the skills to fill them. Which means there is TONS of arbitrage right now in a) learning and building a AI portfolio and b) sharing in public/networking. Good isn’t good enough. Your track record means nothing now if you haven’t met the moment. Go learn, go build, and the hmu - i probably know someone who wants to hire you!