Electric Capital Partner: The future will be an era of small, efficient teams, with AI first companies dominating the market

Avichal, a partner at Electric Capital, stated on social media that the "golden age" of software engineers in San Francisco has come to an end. From 2000 to 2020, software engineers were a representative of high paying professions, but with over 100000 layoffs in the technology industry by 2024, globalization of remote work, and rapid development of AI technology, the wealth path of this profession has undergone fundamental changes. He compared the rise of ChatGPT to the "2008 moment" in the field of software engineering, which changed the market landscape. However, Avichal pointed out that this is not all bad news. The future will be an era of small, efficient teams, and AI driven efficiency improvements will give rise to more billion dollar companies built by 10 person teams. AI first companies will dominate the market, with designers, product managers, and domain experts having unprecedented influence, driving the rise of a new generation of entrepreneurs. He predicted that as software production costs continue to decrease, the enterprise software industry will undergo profound changes, and the era of "easy money making" for ordinary software engineers has ended, and a new San Francisco "gold rush" has quietly begun.