TechFlow news — On February 10, Avichal, founder of Electric Capital, posted that the second tech gold rush in San Francisco has ended. The era of "easy wins," where one could earn a $200,000 annual salary at age 22 and save a million dollars before turning 30, is over. In 2024, major tech companies laid off more than 100,000 employees, and remote work globalization along with AI automation are reshaping the employment landscape.
Avichal stated that the emergence of ChatGPT is to software engineers what the 2008 financial crisis was to investment banking. He predicts a future defined by elite, small teams—teams of just 10 people capable of building billion-dollar-valued companies. AI will dramatically boost productivity, empowering designers, product managers, and domain experts with unprecedented influence. Software development costs could drop by a factor of 1,000, enabling a new generation of entrepreneurs who don’t need traditional programming backgrounds but must be adept at leveraging AI to build valuable products.
Notably, businesses involving human decision-making for sectors like government will become increasingly valuable, while other software products will resemble consumer goods. Avichal believes that although the era of high-paying jobs for average software engineers has ended, the third San Francisco gold rush—the AI era—has already begun.
