AI creates a demographic time bomb: it increases demand for senior talent while destroying the pipeline that produces it. What replaces corporate apprenticeship is something closer to Hollywood.
Keynes predicted 15-hour weeks by 2030. Gates says 2-day weeks within a decade. Meanwhile, Germany, Argentina, and Silicon Valley are legislating or normalizing 12-hour days. The paradox has a name, and it’s 161 years old.
Everyone says AI makes developers faster. My experience is the opposite: I arrive exhausted not because I wrote more code, but because I evaluated more decisions. The effort didn’t shrink. It transformed.
Three fractures in how we learn, hire, and distribute capability.