THE PACE OF CHANGE

I've been building software for almost two decades, and the change in the last year alone has eclipsed the previous 20 combined.

It's not just that the tools are better. It's that the cycle time between "that's impossible" and "I shipped it this morning" keeps shrinking. Features I would have scoped at two weeks now take 30 minutes. Problems I would have hired for, I prototype myself.

This compression changes how I think about what's worth attempting. The cost of experimentation has dropped so dramatically that the old calculus of risk versus reward doesn't quite apply anymore.

But I notice something else too. The people who thrive aren't necessarily the ones with the deepest technical knowledge. They're the ones who stay curious, who keep trying new approaches, who aren't precious about their existing workflows.

The tools will keep changing. Claude, GPT, Gemini, whatever comes next. The specific models matter less than the underlying shift in what's possible.

I wonder sometimes if we're building new intuitions fast enough to match the pace. Or if we're just running faster without knowing where we're headed.