The $200 plan versus the senior salary
With all of these tools available right now, even when it comes to the job market, I think it's an interesting opportunity for junior people to output more and have a space.
A lot of the narrative around AI is that it's removing opportunity from juniors. Why would I hire a junior associate when I could just get AI to do it? And there is a rationale about that.
But for me, I think the seniors might need to be a little bit more worried. Why would I pay a senior person five grand when I could pay a $200 Claude plan and get a super sharp intern? That cost difference can do other things than just sinking it into one senior. Obviously it breaks at some point.
But if you think about the general world: how many really big businesses where it requires super big senior people with context for them to work? How many of them exist in the world? And how much of the vast majority is mid to small businesses, that the context is not large enough for it to matter that you place somebody a little bit more junior in there? Again, with the right sort of tools and context to execute.
Said out loud on Sensemaking with Wolé & Tobi, Episode 112, “Rethinking Work, Starting With the Job Market”, released 23 February 2026. Trimmed for filler; not rewritten.