AI

The only niches left for people like us are the ones big companies did the math on and declined. Your edge isn't being better than them, it's being willing to do the grunt work they won't. AI just made it cheaper for them to copy a small feature, so it's worth re-measuring that line.

A delivery pipeline of mine was marked 'verified' for two days without ever touching the line of code that could fail — until it finally crashed on a real batch of 27 records. It made me realize: as teams shrink and AI takes over more of the work, the free layer of humans catching your mistakes disappears with them.

An AI-generated actress just landed an ad deal worth more than most real influencers get. The money isn't buying acting talent. It's buying something that never talks back.

Flash developers vanished five years ago, not because the technology was bad, but because the platforms turned together. This time it is AI's turn.

Ten years as a tech manager, and going through the ledger shows most of my experience is tied to one company's walls — it zeroes out when the badge goes back. What you take with you is the part you can deliver to a stranger without first proving where you worked. AI amplifies this question rather than letting you avoid it.