The window is closing

Talent used to beat inheritance. AI is reversing that.

For roughly 200 years, being clever was a route out. Intelligence became credentials. Credentials became income. Income became wealth. Talent from ordinary backgrounds could cross that bridge.

AI is dismantling it.

When machines do the cognitive work that used to be well paid, the return on intelligence falls. Capital keeps compounding regardless. Wealth creates wealth. Talent, on its own, plateaus.

The mechanism is straightforward. Capital doesn't need to sleep, retrain, or negotiate its day rate. Intelligence, without capital behind it, now competes with systems that scale at near-zero marginal cost. The premium on being clever shrinks as the supply of clever becomes infinite.

Right now, deep expertise combined with AI still produces real returns. A specialist who uses these tools well punches well above their weight. That window is open. It's also closing. Five to ten years, maybe less.

After that, where you start will matter more than what you can do.

Do you think the window is already narrower than five years?