Trust the résumé. Hope it transfers.
Hiring and training built on proxies — tenure, titles, a badge from 2024. Familiar, comfortable, and quietly expensive.
- Tenure as a proxy. "Ten years senior engineer" says nothing about this quarter's output — half the field hasn't moved with the frontier.
- Credentials that never expire. A static certification certifies the past. The bar has risen; the badge has not.
- Self-reported skill. Everyone says they use AI. Without a benchmark, you're pricing a claim — not a capability.
Standing still feels safe — that's the trap. The cost of the status quo never arrives as one invoice, so it compounds where no one is accountable for it.