I was sitting across from a very qualified candidate in our final executive interview round a few weeks ago. Three people left. We’d been at this for a while. I gave them the full picture of who they were competing against and asked for their shameless plug: why you, given the caliber of people we’re choosing you over?
As they made their pitch, something clicked for me. Not about them specifically. About all of us.
What’s getting commoditized
Everyone in that room could do the job. That’s what a final round looks like. But it’s not just final rounds anymore. AI is compressing what used to separate people at the output level. The ability to produce a report, write a proposal, synthesize research, ship a feature — these are still important. They’re just not rare in the way they used to be. The tools are too good. The gap between a great producer and an average one is closing, and it’s going to keep closing.
You’re still going to need to get big things done. That’s not going away. But you’ll accomplish them through tooling. The production itself is becoming a commodity.
What isn’t getting commoditized
Your character. Your intelligence. Your curiosity. How honest you are. How reliable. How direct. Whether you’re genuinely interested in hard problems or just good at performing like you are. Whether people trust you when things get difficult.
These things have always mattered. But they used to share the stage with raw output in a way that let some people opt out of developing them. If you could produce, you had leverage. That trade-off is collapsing.
What this actually means for how I invest in myself
I think about my own development differently now. Reading more. Thinking harder about who I’m becoming, not just what I’m building. The work of developing character and intelligence isn’t soft or secondary. It’s the highest-leverage thing I can do, because it’s the part that doesn’t get automated.
The people who will have a real edge in ten years aren’t just the ones who can use tools well. They’re the ones who are genuinely curious, genuinely trustworthy, and genuinely able to think. Tools amplify what’s already there. If what’s there is good, that’s a real advantage.
I don’t know exactly when this fully shows up in how companies hire and how careers play out. But I think it’s already shifting. The candidate I interviewed was impressive on every dimension. That’s who you’re competing with now. And when everyone can produce, the question becomes who you actually are.