The Gap
The tools leapt forward. Everything else is still in 2024.
Pay structures, management thinking, quality standards, how we define “productive.” All of it stuck. Lagging behind what’s actually possible now. That’s the gap. And we need to talk about it.
The Gap: The distance between what the tools can do and what the systems around them have caught up to. It’s getting wider every week.
Faster and Cheaper Is Rarely Better
Just because you can do something faster and cheaper doesn’t mean you should.
I can prototype a site in hours that used to take days. I can build an entire system in a week that used to take months. The tools make that possible. But speed without intention fills the gap with garbage.
Rapid iteration is good. Cutting corners is not. And right now, the pressure is to ship faster, deliver cheaper, do more with less. But the output doesn’t care about the timeline. The quality doesn’t improve just because you moved faster. If anything, it gets worse.
The gap creates this weird tension. The tools say “you can build this in a day.” The client says “great, why would I pay you for a week?” And you’re stuck in the middle trying to explain that just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
Shortcuts lead nowhere. I’ve seen it. I’ve done it. You take a shortcut to hit a deadline and six months later you’re back in that code fixing the mess you created because you were in a hurry. Taking shortcuts and cutting corners will always lead you back to the same place: nowhere, and in a hurry.
Speed without intention fills the gap with garbage. The tools say “you can.” The question is should you. And that’s the part that doesn’t get automated.
AI Is Just a Tool
Let me be honest about this. AI is not magic. It’s not going to solve all your problems. It’s not going to replace your job next week. It’s a tool. A really powerful tool. But still a tool.
The way I look at AI is: it helps me do the shit I don’t want to do. Or frankly, the shit I’m not really great at. It collaborates and helps teach me to be better at the things I suck at and helps me accelerate at the things I’m already good at.
But even that’s messy, let’s be honest.
The hype says AI is going to 10x you overnight. The reality is messier. You have to learn how to work with it. You have to figure out what to delegate and what to keep. You have to build systems around it. You have to organize your thinking so the AI has something useful to work with.
And all of that takes time. Time the gap doesn’t account for. Because the tools are here, but the playbook for how to use them effectively, that’s still being written. In real time. By people like us who are figuring it out as we go.
The honest take on AI: It’s a tool that helps you do the work you don’t want to do or aren’t great at. It accelerates what you’re already good at. But it’s messy. And you still have to do the thinking.
10x Output, Same Paycheck
Here’s the uncomfortable question: if you’re in the same role as a year ago but you’re able to 5x or 10x your production, what does that really mean?
In terms of getting paid, does it mean business owners need to think about how they pay the engineers they keep and restructure? I don’t know what the answer is today but there needs to be a conversation about it.
Because I don’t want to 10x my production and be exhausted at the end of every day and only making the same money I was making a year ago. Or six months ago at this point.
The tools made me more capable. The compensation model hasn’t caught up. That’s the gap.
And it’s not just about money. It’s about value. It’s about recognition. It’s about the fact that “productive” used to mean one thing and now it means something completely different and nobody’s updated the definition.
If I can do in a week what used to take a quarter, am I three times more valuable? Or am I just expected to do three times as much work in the same week? The gap doesn’t have an answer for that yet.
The capability leapt forward. The compensation model didn’t. If you can 10x your output, should you be paid 10x? Should you do 10x the work? Nobody knows yet. That’s the gap.
The Greatest Time Ever and the Messiest Time Ever
It’s both. Simultaneously. That’s the thing nobody’s saying out loud enough.
This is the greatest time ever to be a builder. The tools are incredible. The possibilities are endless. You can build things you couldn’t have built five years ago. You can move faster, ship better, iterate smarter. If you’re curious and you’re willing to learn, this is the most exciting time in your career.
But it’s also the messiest time ever. Everything feels chaotic. Having operations planned, or at least plans to get to the destination, including myself, everything feels messy.
I’m thinking and typing faster than I have in the last 20 years. I’m able to do more. But that still requires the same old thing: you’ve got to stay focused. It’s very easy to get shiny object syndrome. The tools make MORE possible, which makes focus harder, not easier.
The gap between what you CAN do and what you SHOULD do is wider than it’s ever been. And navigating that gap, that’s the work now.
Be deliberate about how you spend your time. Because the tools will let you chase every idea, build every prototype, explore every rabbit hole. And some of that is good. But not all of it. You have to choose. And choosing is harder when everything feels possible.
Greatest time ever and messiest time ever. Both true. The tools make everything possible, which makes focus harder, not easier. The gap between what you CAN do and what you SHOULD do is the real work.
Document Everything: The New Time Tracking
Document everything you do all day long every day. It’s the new time tracking but not in an annoying way that time tracking is annoying.
This isn’t about logging hours. This is about proving your value in the gap. When you can do in a day what used to take a week, how do you show what you did? Not by the time it took. By what you built. By what you learned. By what you documented along the way.
I document what I do. How I think. What I build. Not because someone’s asking me to. Because that’s the proof. That’s the artifact. That’s how you show the value when the old metrics don’t apply anymore.
The gap makes this necessary. The tools move so fast that if you don’t document what you did, how you did it, why you did it that way, it’s gone. Six months from now you won’t remember. Nobody else will know. The value disappears into the gap.
So document. Not for compliance. Not for your manager. For yourself. For the next person who has to understand what you built. For the proof that you’re not just moving fast, you’re building something that matters.
Document everything. Not for time tracking. For proof of value. When you can do in a day what used to take a week, the old metrics don’t work. The documentation is the new metric.
Maximum Generalists and Smaller Teams
Developers that are talented, skilled, diverse, have a broad range of knowledge, and are maximum generalists can really feel like they can build stuff. And it’s easier now to be less reliant on others.
The tools changed the math. You don’t need a 20-person team to build what used to require a 20-person team. You need 5 really good people who can work across the stack. Who can think strategically. Who can communicate. Who can own outcomes, not just complete tasks.
Find teams that are a good fit. Don’t work with teams where people aren’t excelling and aren’t pushing and aren’t communicating because it’s going to be the death of companies that could operate smaller and more efficiently.
The gap is killing bloated teams. Not because AI is replacing people. Because smaller teams with better people and better tools can outpace them. The old model of hiring more people to do more work, that’s done. The new model is hire better people, give them better tools, get out of their way.
Companies that figure this out will thrive. Companies that don’t will die slowly, wondering why they can’t compete with teams one-fifth their size.
Maximum generalists with better tools beat bloated teams with specialists. Smaller, focused teams who can work across the stack will outpace everyone else. The gap is killing the old model.
Excellence Is the Minimum Standard
Sloppiness is something we all struggle with. More so than others but you’ve got to get it together. Excellence is no longer an option. It’s a requirement. It’s the buyer minimum. It’s the minimum standard.
The tools raised the floor. What used to be “pretty good” is now baseline. What used to be excellent is now expected. The gap moved the goalposts and nobody sent out a memo.
You can’t ship mediocre work anymore and expect to get away with it. The buyer has options. The client has options. The market has options. And all of those options are being built by people who figured out how to use the tools to deliver excellence at speed.
This isn’t about perfectionism. This is about standards. About giving a damn. About treating the work like it matters because it does.
The gap doesn’t reward sloppiness anymore. It used to. You could cut corners and nobody noticed because everyone else was cutting corners too. Not anymore. The tools made excellence accessible. Which means excellence is now the minimum.
Excellence is the buyer minimum: The tools raised the floor. What used to be “pretty good” is now baseline. What used to be excellent is now expected. The gap moved the goalposts.
Navigating the Gap
So what do you do?
You acknowledge the gap exists. You stop pretending the old models still work. You stop waiting for someone else to figure it out and tell you what to do.
You get really clear on what you’re good at and what you’re not. You use the tools to accelerate the things you’re good at and collaborate on the things you’re not. You document everything. You stay focused. You avoid shortcuts. You demand excellence from yourself first.
And you have the hard conversations. With your boss. With your clients. With yourself. About what the new reality actually is. About what value means now. About what compensation should look like when the old metrics don’t apply.
The gap isn’t going to close itself. The systems aren’t going to catch up overnight. Management isn’t going to wake up tomorrow and restructure everything to match the new reality.
But you can navigate it. You can use it. You can be the person who sees the gap and figures out how to thrive in it instead of getting crushed by it.
Because the tools leapt forward. And everything else will catch up eventually. But eventually is too late if you’re still waiting for permission.
The gap isn’t going to close itself. The systems won’t catch up overnight. But you can navigate it. Be the person who sees the gap and figures out how to thrive in it instead of waiting for permission.
This Is Just the Start
This post doesn’t resolve anything. It can’t. The gap is too new. The answers are still being figured out. By all of us. In real time.
But naming it matters. Talking about it matters. Acknowledging that the tools leapt forward and everything else is lagging behind, that matters.
Because once you see the gap, you can’t unsee it. And once you see it, you can start figuring out how to navigate it.
This is the conversation. This is the start. The rest of it, we’ll figure out together.
