I realized this while trying to hire on our core team at IBS Software, I’ve spoken with all engineers in my network, and the fact that an open position has reached more than 1000 people, yet I couldn’t find a single person that would be a great addition to the team was mind-blowing!

I don’t think there’s a shortage of humans, although this might be true to some extent. But the first problem to solve is the shortage of human talent. In other words, capitalizing on the engineers that already exist or are getting produced each year by universities. 

Universities are great at training large foundation models of humans, but the fine-tuning is often left to the industry. Most engineers need RLHF in the real world to know how to apply their knowledge and how things work in the real world.

I myself have benefited a ton from working with smart people that show you how to put these things into action. And I’m confident that a lot of talented people don’t get a chance to grow into their maximum potential due to this kind of chance early on in their careers.

How can we solve this? I sometimes think if it’s possible to build a business model around it to solve this problem. In the short term, ChatGPT like chatbots powered by super intelligence can help fix this.

One bug in modern society is that making wrong decisions early in your career is very expensive. For example, it’s almost impossible to get a Ph.D. from MIT if you didn’t do everything right in undergrad. There are many societal structures that get this wrong, and end up being road blockers for people’s ambitions.

I think we also lose out on many talented people because of them having negative experiences, rejections, or limits drawn to them by their surroundings. ADHD is an example of this, I’ve met people who have limited their aspirations thinking they can’t make it in life, while others have led big companies with this mental disorder.