Meta and Google's huge compensation offers signal a talent bubble in AI. While the talent mania may subside as industry leaders emerge, it marks a new normal. A few companies will dominate revenue similarly to how the top talent impacts performance. Foundational contributors to major tech achievements, like Jony Ive and Jeff Dean, exemplify the value of significant individual impact. Trust and existing social contracts in the tech industry need re-evaluation due to changing capital deployment and workforce dynamics.
The talent mania could fizzle out as the winners and losers of the AI war emerge, but it represents a new normal for the foreseeable future.
If the top 1% of companies drive the majority of VC returns, why shouldn't the same apply to talent?
Key people have driven billions of dollars in value - look at Jony Ive's contribution to the iPhone, or Jeff Dean's implementation of distributed systems at Google.
Trust can no longer be assumed as an industry baseline. The social contracts between employees, startups, and investors must be rewritten.
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