Avoid Being a High-Valuation Company That Fails To Deliver

Before I started my company, I remember being constantly bombarded by messaging like “This startup just raised $100 million,” “That company hit a $1 billion valuation,” and “Look how many employees they’ve added.”

Honestly, none of those things impressed me. Why? Because raising money is not success. Hiring too many people too quickly is not success. Inflating a valuation to look big on paper is not success. Yet these are the numbers we’ve been trained to celebrate.

To me, that’s backwards.

The best businesses don’t need outside capital. They don’t need bloated teams. They prove their worth by serving customers, generating real revenue, paying their employees well, and scaling smartly. A great company doesn’t survive on hype; it survives because it builds something customers actually want to pay for.

And when companies forget that, you get cautionary tales like Builder.ai.

The hype machine versus real business

Builder.ai marketed itself as an AI-powered platform that could build custom apps in record time. Its “Natasha” AI assistant was praised as a breakthrough. Investors poured in over $450 million.

But here’s the truth: There was no AI magic behind the curtain. Most of the work was being done by hundreds of human engineers in India. Builder.ai wasn’t really an AI company; it was a software outsourcing shop wrapped in a shiny story.

What Builder.ai did is what’s known as “AI washing,” faking or exaggerating AI capabilities to catch the hype wave. And it worked for a while. The headlines were flashy. Microsoft and the Qatar Investment Authority backed them. But behind the curtain, customers faced missed deadlines, unfinished codebases, and broken promises.

Eventually, the bottom fell out. Lenders seized millions, lawsuits piled up, and Builder.ai filed for bankruptcy protection in multiple countries. Thousands of customers were left with incomplete projects, and investors were left holding the bag.

The company didn’t fail because its core service was useless. Customers want fast and affordable app development. Builder.ai failed because it lied about how it delivered that service. Hype got prioritized over honesty. Optics got prioritized over value. And that’s the fatal mistake you need to avoid.

Why chasing vanity metrics is a trap

So many founders measure success by the wrong scoreboard:

Rounds raised: Raising money doesn’t mean you’re winning. It means you convinced someone to fund your experiment.

Valuation: Valuations are just numbers on paper. They don’t pay salaries, they don’t retain customers, and they don’t foster loyalty.

Headcount: Hiring 1,000 people might look impressive, but if revenue per employee is $100, that’s a disaster. Compare that to a company where revenue per employee is $150,000; now that’s real strength.

However, because the ecosystem celebrates these vanity milestones, founders feel pressured to play along. They think if they’re not bragging about their round size or their AI story, no one will take them seriously.

I’ll admit it, I felt that pressure too.

When I took what became Howdy.com through Y Combinator, data science and machine learning (ML) were all the rage. We had an ML algorithm that helped match developers with companies. It was solid, but it wasn’t the center of our business. Still, I thought, “If I don’t pitch this as machine learning, no one will invest.”

Our YC partner stopped me in my tracks. He asked, “Are you an ML company? Is that what you’re offering?” I said it was a part of what we did, but not what we were. He said, “Then don’t say that. Just tell people what you do.”

It was so simple, it felt almost wrong. I began pitching what we did, not how we did it—in plain terms—and it worked. Ninety-three investors wanted to talk. We raised quickly, not because of hype, but because people understood the real value.

That experience grounded me. It reminded me that clarity beats complexity, and honesty beats optics.

What founders should celebrate instead

If fundraising rounds and inflated valuations aren’t worth celebrating, then what is?

Founders should examine the aspects that reflect the health of a business. Paid users are one of the clearest signs of success—not free signups, not downloads, not pilot programs, but actual customers paying real money. Revenue is another. Not “gross bookings” or other fuzzy numbers, but real cash in the door. Profitability matters too; the ability to support yourself without raising more capital is the truest form of resilience.

I also study revenue per employee. Efficiency matters, and the more value each team member generates, the healthier the business will be. Finally, I value steady growth. The overnight 1,000% jumps might look sexy, but slow, steady growth is usually far more sustainable—and much less likely to implode.

These are my markers of long-term health. Hype is fleeting, but real value endures.

The object lesson of Builder.ai

What bothers me most about the Builder.ai collapse is that they didn’t need to lie. If they had just said, “We can build your app quickly, using an efficient team of developers,” customers would still have been impressed. There was demand for that.

But they couldn’t resist the hype. They thought they had to be an “AI company” to win. And in chasing that illusion, they crossed the line from exaggeration into fraud. It’s a lesson every founder should take to heart: Don’t let the pressure to look successful push you into misrepresenting what you do.

Be successful, don’t just look successful

Looking successful is about appearances: funding announcements, follower counts, flashy offices, and headcount growth. Being successful is about substance: solving real problems, generating revenue, building trust, and growing steadily.

Builder.ai looked successful, until it wasn’t. Don’t make that mistake. As founders, our job is not to trick investors, dazzle the press, or chase the illusion of scale. Our job is to build businesses that work.

So the next time you see a startup touting its massive round or sky-high valuation, don’t be too impressed. There’s a good chance that the business won’t last.

This article originally appeared on FastCompany.com

A Bad Idea Won’t Kill Your Startup

In a world obsessed with frameworks and five-year forecasts, I’ve watched as smart founders rework their strategy decks while their teams quietly lose steam. Vision isn’t the problem. Urgency is.

Strategy alone doesn’t move the needle. Execution does. And not just any execution, but fast, focused, relentless execution.

What’s kept my hiring platform, Howdy.com, afloat wasn’t the brilliance of our plans. It was the speed, consistency, and laser focus with which we executed them.

Why speed beats smarts

I like to joke that an MBA can create a really good spreadsheet that shows your company is making a bunch of money, but that spreadsheet can’t do the work for you.

Want to find product-market fit? Talk to 100 customers. Then talk to 100 more. Want to scale revenue? Make 20 discovery calls a day, not 20 a month. Do that, and you’re suddenly playing a very different game.

And yet, so many founders stop too soon and blame their strategy. The truth is, they simply didn’t do enough. They didn’t ask if they’ve had enough at-bats to test their plan.

The beheaded chicken strategy

In 2022, my company was severely impacted when the economy tanked, with layoffs everywhere. Progress stalled. Energy cratered. Strategy didn’t matter. We were trying to keep our heads above water as we’d lost $8 million in several weeks—half our business at the time.

We were forced to get scrappy. We leaned into something we jokingly called our “beheaded chicken strategy:” a frenzy of action. Email everyone. Call everyone. Post on LinkedIn. Send DM after DM.

And the wild part? Within weeks, opportunities came out of the blue. Old opportunities resurfaced. New deals landed. Momentum returned. All because of the law of motion—output begets input.

The beheaded chicken strategy continues to work for us. Every. Single. Time. Whenever there’s a downturn, it’s my go-to response.

Drive urgency in a remote world

How do you drive intensity when your team’s on Zoom across five time zones? For us, the answer is data, clear communication, and energy.

For sales, we track everything: the number of contacts made, opportunities opened, placements created, time-to-response, time-to-deployment. We know what “good” looks like. If the opportunity numbers dips below that, alarms go off. If it surges beyond, we celebrate.

It’s not just about dashboards—it’s about turning those numbers into meaning.

When I tell the product team we haven’t deployed anything in 7 weeks, I don’t say, “That’s a long time. I’m not happy.” I say, “That’s $100,000 in salary spent with no output.” It’s not emotional or judgmental. It’s just real.

And people get it. Because they’re not working in a vacuum. They see the impact. They see what matters.

Leadership means feeling the pulse

As a leader, I stay close to the action. If I’m feeling burnt out, chances are my team is too. If I’m feeling hopeful because I’m seeing early signs of progress, I make sure they feel that hope too.

When we were in survival mode, everyone was exhausted. I started noticing early positive signs. So I said, “Let me show you what I’m seeing. The numbers say we’re turning a corner even if the results aren’t here yet.”

That energy shift matters. Sometimes, people just need to believe again. And to know they can trust and believe me, because when things are bad, I don’t sugarcoat. I tell them things are bad and will be rough for a while.

People don’t always need to be inspired. They want to feel confident in their leadership team that they will always give them the real, raw reality.

Execution doesn’t have to lead to burnout

Intensity doesn’t have to mean grinding your team into dust. It means knowing when to hit the gas and when to hand out bonuses. It means understanding that if your sales team just hit a stretch goal for the first time, now is notthe time to raise the bar again. Celebrate. Cement the win. Build trust.

I’ve seen leaders sabotage momentum by continually shifting the goalposts whenever the team succeeds. That’s demoralizing. My approach is simple: Targets only rise when resources increase. If we hire more, spend more, or grow capacity, we’ll raise expectations. Otherwise, we stay the course.

The power of radical ownership

The founders who win aren’t just sharp; they take radical ownership. Not in a performative, hustle-culture kind of way. They take responsibility for everything: the good hires and the bad ones, the successes and the screw-ups.

If a sales hire flopped, what in your process failed to spot the red flags? If a product feature flopped, why didn’t you get more user feedback earlier?

Owning the outcomes forces you to learn, and learning fast is the only sustainable edge.

Bootstrapping: The ultimate intensity teacher

In my early founder days, I had $400 in the bank and was 8 months pregnant. When you’re where I was, you will care deeply about whether your team is executing.

Every dollar flowing into the company was mine or came from revenue. So if I was paying someone to do a job, it needed to get done. I didn’t have the luxury of wasted time or the fuzzy lack of accountability that comes with seed funding. My bootstrapping experience shaped how I lead.

Even today, I ask myself: Was I clear? Did I set this person up to succeed? What would make me not angry about this result? That clarity lets me course correct with compassion, and with speed.

Crank things up to 11

There’s no magic framework. No silver bullet. The founders who win are the ones who out-execute their competition.

So if you’re sitting on a plan that looks good on paper but hasn’t delivered results, ask yourself: Have I done enough? Have I gone fast enough? Chances are, the answer isn’t “change the strategy,” it’s “turn up the intensity.”

This article originally appeared on Inc.com

How To Find a Cofounder Who’s Perfect for You

Choosing your cofounder is everything. It’s more important than your product. More important than timing. More important than the market.

Because at the end of the day, you can pivot your product. You can find a new customer. But the person you choose to build with? That’s the foundation of everything. If that dynamic is off—even a little—you’ll feel it in every decision, every delay, every doubt. I learned that the hard way.

Don’t waste too much time forcing a fit

My initial cofounder at Howdy.com wasn’t my current cofounder, Frank. It was someone else—a seasoned, respected, smart CTO with a big-name resume. But nothing clicked.

Everything felt hard. There was friction around decisions. My partner moonlighted while I was all-in, funding it personally while living and breathing the mission. He wanted the upside of being a cofounder without taking the downside risks. Six months in, we had no real momentum on the thing that mattered most and a hundred excuses why things “couldn’t be done.”

Eventually, I realized he wasn’t the wrong person because of his skill set. He was the wrong person for me.

Seek a cofounder match from someone who knows you

My now-husband, Lloyd, my fiancé at the time, introduced me to my second cofounder because he thought we’d be great together. Perhaps a mentor or a peer in your local startup community can do the same favor for you. 

Lloyd didn’t just pair Frank and me because of our complementary skills—he matched us based on work ethics, values, and lived experience. Lloyd knew I couldn’t co-lead with someone who needed to be pushed. 

Frank was disciplined, consistent, and had the internal drive you can’t teach. I didn’t need to motivate him. He was already self-motivated. I could trust that he’d show up the way I showed up. That’s what I’d been missing.

The signs you’ve found the right partner

Frank didn’t wait to be asked to do something once he joined me. He took the reins. Within two weeks, he had solved a big problem we’d been trying to address for months. He jumped in and began leading the engineering team. It was the first time I felt like I had a true partner on the technical side.

But what made me most confident about him? He didn’t treat roles as rigid. He wanted to learn. He sat in on sales calls, joined marketing meetings, and asked for coaching on the business side. Today, he’s one of the strongest salespeople on our team—because he was never afraid to try, fail, and learn.

That’s another trait I now obsessively screen for: people who are not afraid to fail but learn from every misstep. Failure isn’t a red flag. Failure without reflection is.

Spotting the wrong fit before it’s too late

Looking back, I now see red flags I ignored in my first cofounder: reluctance to go all-in, excuses instead of solutions, and the quiet drift of someone who starts showing up less before they say they’re leaving.

So here’s what I recommend to anyone evaluating a potential cofounder:

• Start with alignment. What stresses them out? How do they handle pressure? What’s their lens on failure and resilience? How do their answers mesh with yours?

• Watch how they show up. Do they honor commitments even when it’s inconvenient? I once saw Frank leave a family event early to fulfill a team obligation. That’s not just discipline—it’s integrity.

• Look for a growth mindset, not credentials. I’m skeptical of people who went to Ivy League schools. Why? Because they sometimes come in assuming they already know more than everyone. The best cofounders are the ones who say, “I don’t know—teach me.” They learn quickly, execute efficiently, and continue to improve. Their aim improves over time.

You can’t fake chemistry (but you can test for it)

I got lucky. I didn’t vet Frank with a structured interview or a startup therapist. We became friends first. We had similar childhoods — both raised by immigrant parents and shaped by early struggle. We are also both endlessly optimistic. That worldview alignment matters more than you think.

You want someone who doesn’t collapse under pressure. Someone accountable, even when it’s not convenient. Someone who doesn’t explain things to you like you’re clueless, or patronizes your leadership because you don’t fit their mold.

You won’t learn all of that in a job interview. But you can simulate it by building something small together or creating real adversity moments to test for resilience.

Don’t wait for the ideal person

The biggest trap founders fall into? Waiting for the perfect cofounder before they begin. Don’t do that.

If you’ve got an idea and passion, move. Build something. Show progress. Use freelancers if you have to. Validate the problem. If you do that, you’ll gain momentum and become more attractive to a future cofounder.

And if that person joins later, your partnership doesn’t have to be 50/50. Equity is negotiable. But commitment isn’t.

The real test of a cofounder is simple: Do they show up, even when it’s hard? Even when no one’s watching? Even when they have every excuse not to? If the answer is yes, hold onto them. If it’s not, keep the momentum going with your business.

You’ll find the right person by becoming the kind of founder someone extraordinary wants to work with. And when that happens, you’ll know: you’re no longer carrying the company alone. You’re building it together.

This article originally appeared on FastCompany.com

Nail It Before You Scale It: 7 Steps To Focus on What Really Matters

“Nail it before you scale it” isn’t a vibe. It’s how you execute. It means solving a real problem, proving value with paying customers, and building systems that work when no one’s watching. Here’s how I did it—and how you can, too, in seven steps. 

1. Get in the habit of listening 

I didn’t start Howdy.com by launching a polished platform to scale high-performing dev teams. I started by solving a painful problem for one customer. Then another. Then another. I listened to what they needed and built my business around those needs. Early product-market fit emerged through real-world iteration, conversation, and feedback. 

2. Think of product-market fit as a feeling, then a pattern 

One customer had just raised a big round for his AI company. He told me point-blank, “The AI tech talent I need has been impossible to find and hire in the Bay; there’s no way you can help.” We introduced him to three candidates, and he hired all three. 

That was a turning point. His team kept growing with us. And it wasn’t just him. It was everyone. We started seeing clients come back over and over. They were building their teams through us. And when our clients left for new jobs? They brought us with them. 

That’s how I define true product-market fit: retention, referral, and expansion. Not press. Not pitch competitions. Not headcount. 

3. Avoid false signals; watch core metrics instead 

Success isn’t how much you sell. It’s how much you keep. That’s why I obsess over retention as much as growth. If your product is a revolving door, it doesn’t matter how fast you’re growing. If your bucket is as leaky as your pipeline is full, you’re not winning. Growth without retention is just churn in disguise. 

4. Don’t scale based on ego 

You don’t scale when you close a big deal. You scale when the business works without you. Before attempting to scale, ask yourself: 

• Can someone else on your team do what you do? 

• Can they train others to do it? 

• Can you repeat the outcome without heroic effort? 

When I realized we could open new offices in Latin America on behalf of our clients—not just place talent, but spin up entire teams and handle the logistics end-to-end—I knew we were onto something scalable. We’d built not just a service, but infrastructure. 

5. Know when to pull the trigger

I didn’t raise money because I needed a win. I raised money when I had leverage. We were profitable. We had momentum. We just wanted a cushion to invest in growth without risking our operating capital. 

That’s the only time to raise: when the money will multiply your success, not manufacture it. Fundraising should be a multiplier, not a savior. When we raised our Series A, I didn’t want to become reckless. So we tested every strategy, killed what didn’t work, and doubled down on what did. Discipline wins every time. 

6. Scaling doesn’t mean delegating everything 

The biggest mistake I see founders make is trying to outsource product-market fit. You can’t hire someone to find it for you. Not a head of product. Not a sales lead. Not a COO. You have to do it yourself. Then you teach it. Then you scale it.  

7. Patience (and diligence) pays off 

Within eight years, my company reached $30 million in annual recurring revenue. The real signs we nailed it were that customers stayed with us and then grew with us. They rehired us at their next company. Our internal team stuck around and leveled up, too. That kind of loyalty doesn’t happen by accident. It occurs when what you’re doing is valuable, and people feel it. 

Growth is the reward, not the goal 

In my mind, scaling starts after you’ve earned the right to grow. That means proving value, building trust, and creating scalable systems without shortcuts or heroics. Nail the fundamentals—product, process, and people—and growth becomes a byproduct, not a gamble. 

Why Proving Value Should Come Long Before Hypergrowth

My company recently hit $30 million in annual recurring revenue. And if there’s one piece of advice I could give to early-stage founders chasing success, it’s this: Nail it before you scale it. 

It sounds simple, but it’s not. In a world obsessed with fast growth, big rounds, and buzzy headlines, it takes a lot of discipline to do things slowly and deliberately. Scale too soon and you don’t just waste money, you build a company on shaky ground. I’ve seen it happen again and again. 

What “nail it” really means 

“Nailing it” is more than just product-market fit. It means you’ve solved a problem so well that your solution holds up in the messy, real world. Your internal systems actually work. Your processes are scalable. You’ve anticipated the second and third-order consequences of every operational decision. 

Let’s take invoicing as an example. Sending one invoice is easy. But what if you have to send hundreds every Friday, like my company does? At Howdy.com, we build and manage elite software engineering teams across Latin America, and have to adjust for different currencies, taxes, time zones, and time-off policies. Suddenly, you need systems, working capital buffers, decision trees, and fallback plans.  

Working out these details is what I mean by “nailing it.” However, many startups ignore the boring stuff. As entrepreneurs rush to scale, they say they’ll figure out the underpinnings of everything later. But those operational cracks don’t magically go away. They multiply. 

Why founders scale too soon 

In my experience, most founders scale prematurely out of ignorance, ego, or external pressure. A lot of early-stage advice encourages this: “Ship fast,” “move fast and break things,” “if it’s perfect, you waited too long.” That’s great advice for testing products or finding product-market fit, but people apply it to entire companies. And that’s where things fall apart. 

Some of it comes down to inexperience. Young founders who haven’t worked in real businesses often don’t see the cost of poor operational infrastructure until it’s too late. They don’t realize that net-60 payment terms from enterprise clients can wreck your cash flow, or that poorly defined roles create internal chaos. 

I didn’t want that kind of swirl. I’d seen too many chaotic startups as an employee. When I started my business, I wasn’t chasing a flashy launch or a massive team. I wanted stability, clarity, and something I could feel proud of. 

The value of building in silence 

When I first launched, I didn’t promote the company. I wasn’t on LinkedIn. I wasn’t taking interviews. I just quietly helped a few people solve their problems. Because until I knew it worked, I couldn’t scale it in good conscience. 

That period was hard. I drained my savings. I second-guessed myself. I had moments of depression. Going back to “broke life” after years of stability was much harder in my 30s than in my 20s. But that slow, deliberate approach gave me a foundation I could trust.

Eventually, word spread before I was ready. Customers started coming to me. I didn’t have a website, a sales deck, or marketing materials. That’s when I knew I was onto something. When demand finds you, not the other way around, you’re probably solving something real. 

Stay grounded amid the noise 

The hardest part was tuning out the noise. Friends would constantly send me articles about competitors raising millions. Or companies doing something “similar.” I had to ask them to stop.  

Not because I didn’t care, but because it demoralized me. I’d lose hours to self-doubt. Was I too late? Was I missing out? So I stayed offline. I focused inward. I permitted myself to build with blinders on. And honestly, I think that’s what saved me. 

Avoiding a too-soon money raise 

Had I raised capital early on, I would have made terrible decisions. I would have overhired. I would have given people inflated titles before the org needed them. I might have hired leaders who never did the job themselves, which erodes respect and clarity. 

Bootstrapping forced me to hire intentionally. Everyone who joined did the work. They grew with the company. And today, they lead with the credibility that comes from experience. 

Hire a team that thrives in “nail it” mode 

People who succeed in “nail it” environments are scrappy. They’re curious. They’re comfortable with ambiguity and don’t expect polished tools or endless resources. They find creative ways to solve real problems. 

When I hired early team members, it wasn’t about whether they had a nice pedigree. It was about whether they could get into the trenches and make progress with limited resources. That kind of DNA set the tone for our culture—and still does. 

Don’t get derailed by headlines 

Growth is only impressive if it’s real. Solve one painful thing better than anyone else. Build processes that work. Delight a few customers so deeply that they tell others. Once you’ve done that, then you can pour gasoline on the fire. 

This article originally appeared on Inc.com

Stop Vetting Engineers Like It’s 2021 — the AI-Native Workforce Has Arrived

You're already behind if you’re still vetting engineers like it’s 2021. We’re living through what I believe will be the most transformative technological shift of our lifetime, even bigger than the Internet. 

The AI revolution is accelerating at a pace most of us can't even fathom. It’s not hype. It’s a recalibration of what it means to build, create and work. Founders who prepare now will lead in what comes next. Those who don’t will find themselves outpaced by five-person AI-native startups that operate with 10X the speed and precision.

So, how do you hire developers in this era of acceleration?

You don’t screen them for how well they write code. You screen them to see how well they orchestrate it. Let me explain.

AI fluency is actually the new literacy

Every founder wants an “AI developer.” But that term can mean many things. Are you looking for someone to build large language models (LLMs) in Python? Or someone skilled at leveraging AI tools to boost velocity and reduce bugs?

Most companies need the second. But they don’t always know how to ask for it. That’s why AI fluency, or how well a developer can navigate and leverage a wide range of AI tools, is becoming as critical as knowing a specific language or framework.

The tooling will keep changing. But the meta-skill of learning how to use new AI assistants, evaluate their output, and incorporate that into your workflow? That’s the durable advantage.

What’s an AI-orchestrator, and why do you need one?

An AI orchestrator is today’s essential developer archetype. They don’t manually write every line of code — they prompt, critique, debug and refactor AI-generated output. They understand when to delegate to machines and when to apply their judgment. And they know how to communicate with AI agents like coworkers. At the same time, while AI is fast, it’s not always right. And it certainly doesn’t know your company’s specific needs. So the traits you’ll want to prioritize in hiring are:

• Architecture — The ability to zoom out and design systems at a high level.

• Critical thinking — Evaluating trade-offs, making good decisions and choosing the right tools for the job.

• Communication — This is the big one. How well can you explain your thinking to a robot? AI doesn’t do heuristics. You won't get what you need if you can’t articulate what you want.

Just like we didn’t stop teaching math because calculators exist, we can’t abandon foundational programming skills just because AI writes code. We need developers who understand the architecture, know when to trust AI and know when to step in and fix what’s broken.

4 ways to assess an engineer’s AI competency

In response to the proliferation of AI tools, my company has overhauled how we screen technical talent. The traditional process of technical interviews, algorithm challenges and language-specific coding tests just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Here’s what to do instead:

• Simulate real-world problem-solving. Ask candidates to build a feature or debug an issue, but don’t allow them to write any code themselves. Instead, require them to use tools like ChatGPT or Claude, sharing their screen the whole time so you can observe how they interact with the AI.

• Assess prompting. You’re not just looking for the right answer. You want to see how candidates frame the problem, prompt the AI and refine and iterate on its output. This exercise is more about determining a candidate's clarity of thought and communication over syntax mastery.

• Verify authenticity. Yes, people will try to cheat by sharing screens with someone else, having someone impersonate them or resorting to deepfakes. That’s why you’ll want to insist upon full-screen sharing and having their camera turned on. Let developers know you’re not trying to pull a “gotcha” on them; you want to understand how they work with AI day-to-day.

• Test judgment. It’s easy to get working code from AI. The harder skill is knowing whether it’s good code, fits the system architecture, and is the right solution for the problem. Throughout all these steps, you’ll want to see if they can clear the bar of critical thinking over simple copy-pasting.

What to be mindful of amid AI adoption

My team used to assume that senior developers would get more out of AI. But what we found surprised us. In a series of surveys, junior developers reported high productivity gains from AI, but often lacked the judgment to catch flawed output. Senior developers, by contrast, were skeptical or cautious, which led to lower short-term gains.

So, we built training for each experience level. For juniors, it’s about slowing them down, helping them see where AI is steering them wrong. For seniors, it’s about educating them on integrating AI without losing control. In both cases, the goal is to unlock real productivity without compromising quality.

Accept that change creates opportunity

Yes, this transition to AI is scary. And yes, there will be turbulence. There will be jobs that fade and new ones that rise. But those who learn to screen, train and build teams around AI-enabled talent will write the future.

If you’re still hiring engineers for what they can do alone, you’re missing the point. Start hiring them based on how well they work with machines.

The future isn’t AI versus humans. It’s AI with humans, and those who adapt the fastest will win.

This article originally appeared on VentureBeat.com