I had similar question as you and conclusion as OC.
My answer maybe abstract in some ways, but:
- something that requires network effects, e.g social media, even twitter with megahitler stuff is going strong. Even though twitter's base app model could be done in 30min by LLM;
- something that maps to infrastructure in someway. Good luck copying Cloudflare, residential proxy provider, established email provider or VPS with LLM in a weekend. Though parts of it are definitely easier;
- something that is a platform (adjacent to first point). Google's search platform, ads, docs, youtube, music, email, business tools, etc. Similar to Meta (seemingly half of the world's small businesses control their business with whatsapp) and others. Though parts of those platforms can be disrupted with LLMs;
I don't know! But maybe that's how it feels like to be far from excellence again; maybe that's how it feels like to be out of our depth again, just like we were at the beginning of our career?
I don't want to risk stretching the analogy too far, and it might be that agents make all cognitive work obsolete. But surely there'll be something that defines a capability frontier? The alternative position is to believe that there just won't be a frontier anymore (I guess that's the RSI/AGI/ASI position :shrug)
What constituted excellence a year ago is trivial and common today, so maybe excellence just shifted somewhere else, and the realization many of us are having is that our valuable skills are now just average, and the top has shifted upward?