Kim Taylor

Building. 2x Founder. Tweets = future of work, startups. Workforce + edtech expert with previous exit to Wiley.

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

@Hadley So the Open AI employees walk past it on their way to their office 3 blocks away

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

@Techweek_ NYC chatting AI in Workforce

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

@paulg @JonHaidt mass adoption of smart phones + social media by teens that undermined learning, shortened attention spans and caused mental health issues at massive scale

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

The future doesn’t just arrive it gets built

[Alex Kantrowitz @Kantrowitz]

This is incredible. Artificial intelligence getting booed out of the stadium in any commencement speech it’s mentioned. Maybe telling college students AI was taking their jobs wasn’t the best strategy. Must watch —>

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

2020 college predictions and the birth rate🔮

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

@gaganbiyani I think ~7% will die or merge in the near term or shudder a significant amount of programs. Also in 2026 there will be 15% less high school students in America due to a previous contraction in the birth rate and most colleges are completely unprepared for it.

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

Feels like time to revisit our convo from 2020 @gaganbiyani 👀

[Gagan Biyani 🏛 @gaganbiyani]

Contrarian opinion: colleges are not going to die in this cycle. There are not enough viable alternatives.

However, 5-10% of students will defer / take gap year + will be more successful than those who didn't.

In 5 yrs, meaningful alternatives will exist and colleges will crash

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

In SF this week to view the psychological torment IRL

[Deedy @deedydas]

The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen.

Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders - have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope AI estimation).

Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job for their whole life and never get there.

Worse yet, layoffs are in full swing. Many software engineers feel like their life's skill is no longer useful. The day to day role of most jobs has changed overnight with AI.

As a result,
1. The corporate ladder looks like the wrong building to climb.
Everyone's trying to align with a new set of career "paths": should I be a founder? Is it too late to join Anthropic / OpenAI? should I get into AI? what company stock will 10x next? People are demanding higher salaries and switching jobs more and more.

2. There’s a deep malaise about work (and its future).
Why even work at all for “peanuts”? Will my job even exist in a few years? Many feel helpless. You hear the “permanent underclass” conversation a lot, esp from young people. It's hard to focus on doing good work when you think "man, if I joined Anthropic 2yrs ago, I could retire"

3. The mid to late middle managers feel paralyzed.
Many have families and don't feel like they have the energy or network to just "start a company". They don't particularly have any AI skills. They see the writing on the wall: middle management is being hollowed out in many companies.

4. The rich aren’t particularly happy either.
No one is shedding tears for them (and rightfully so). But those who have "made it" experience a profound lack of purpose too. Some have gone from <$150k to >$50M in a few years with no ramp. It flips your life plans upside down. For some, comparison is the thief of joy. For some, they escape to NYC to "live life". For others still, they start companies "just cuz", often to win status points. They never imagined that by age 30, they'd be set. I once asked a post-economic founder friend why they didn't just sell the co and they said "and do what? right now, everyone wants to talk to me. if i sell, I will only have money."

I understand that many reading this scoff at the champagne problems of the valley. Society is warped in this tech bubble. What is often well-off anywhere else in the world is bang average here.

Unlike many other places, tenure, intelligence and hard work can be loosely correlated with outcomes in the Bay. Living through a societally transformative gold rush in that environment can be paralyzing. "Am I in the right place? Should I move? Is there time still left? Am I gonna make it?" It psychologically torments many who have moved here in search of "success".

Ironically, a frequent side effect of this torment is to spin up the very products making everyone rich in hopes that you too can vibecode your path to economic enlightenment.

[Peter Yang @petergyang]

Interesting to see how many fast growing companies like @linear and @tryramp want to hire ex-founders as PMs.

I think this is a good litmus test for how good your company is at attracting talent:

1. Do founders want to work here?

2. Do they have the agency to make real impact or will they get lost in your org?

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

@zachtratar nuance not allowed here

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

@ikirigin @ChrisJBakke IVAN

[Tanay Jaipuria @tanayj]

Some notes on Capital One's acquisition of Brex:
• $5.15B in consideration, split 50/50 between cash and stock
• Represents 3.5% of Capital One market cap
• Brex built the entire tech stack from scratch, which was very appealing to Capital One
• Brex has 10K+ customers with lots of marquee tech logos and 60% of originations in last few yrs being non-tech companies

Full rationale by Capital One CEO:

[Amjad Masad @amasad]

Can @SHAQ vibe code an app with no coding experience?

Vibe coding is easy to start with, but like any other skill, you can learn to master it.

That’s why we partnered with @tadeoyerinde and the @campusgrad team to build Vibe Coding 101 for folks who want to master Replit.

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

@racheleizner We need a term for this. V specific to SF. Happened a lot when I lived there.

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

@sdamico ���

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

Campus is in DC today talking college affordability @Campusgrad @tadeoyerinde 🇺🇸

🔗 https://t.co/mIRYtWlbhq

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

@ChrisJBakke This happened to a friend of mine but it was the investors that misled him and he had become their CEO 😳

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

@ian__villa You did it!! 🙋🏻‍♀️

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

WFH = knowing what day it is by sound 🤔🍂🚛

Tues = lawnmower
Wed = beeping garbage truck
Thur = leaf blower
Fri = hedge trimmer

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

@Campusgrad was born during the rise of AI. This strengthens our ability to build AI tools that drive student outcomes.

🔗 https://t.co/OTI1V6VX4x

[Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor]

Today Campus announced our acquisition of Sizzle AI w @andrewrsorkin
@SquawkCNBC

Led by former Meta Head of AI who is now our CTO with his team of world-class engineers to drive our mission and accelerate AI’s impact for our students and faculty.

Watch here: https://t.co/dpyfaOHFHl