Refactoring Orgs

When a rare combination of skills gets scarce, companies do one of two things. Build the bench that produces the skill internally, patiently, over years. Or bid for the one person in the market who already has it. The bidding is faster. The bench is cheaper, but it takes time to build momentum. The market is pricing the bidding right now, which means everyone considering hiring AI-native product managers or SaaS enterprise sales guys for 200k/year right now is quietly deciding to skip the bench.

The math looks fine on a spreadsheet: One elite hire is cheaper than ten mid-tier hires who might, in three years, produce one elite. The failure mode is not the cost. It is in one of three things:

• the concentration: The org hires one superstar who can do the one thing. They need other highly specialized people ("a team") to function, so you hire them. That superstar leaves. The org spent the training budget on their signing bonus, and the team. There is no second seat. You're left with a headless team you don't know what to do with.
• the skill has become commoditized: That person was just early, now everyone can do it. Now you are paying one person way too much money. Everyone else thinks they are underpaid. People quit.
• it's become obsolete: We no longer need this skill. Think flash developers in the 2000s. iOS developers in 2015.

Every wave of talent scarcity in tech has been broken this way for decades, and every wave has produced the same aftermath: a company overpaid for a superstar & the superstar left. The specialized skill has become a commodity. Or obsolete. The current AI-native product manager or SaaS enterprise sales guy premium is going to run the same play.

The bench prevents this kind of failure. The bench is an insurance policy. The market thinks insurance is boring. The market has been wrong about that before.

It's time to build a bench.