That Silicon Valley is now mostly ancient history. Today, the tech has become harder, the perks are fewer and the mood has turned more serious. The nation’s tech capital has shifted into its artificial intelligence age — some call it the “hard tech” era — and the signs are everywhere.

Gritty startups will still provide generous equity packages, but they won’t hire the same volume of people. They’ll be smaller, faster, weirder, different. Employees will use AI to do 10 times more work than what previous generations of employees did.

I was lucky to begin my startup career in 2009 on the heels of two cataclysmic events: AWS launched in 2006 (cloud computing) and Apple’s App Store followed in 2008 (mobile era). Both of these moments dramatically lowered barriers to entry, and created a level playing field for young, less experienced founders. I wasn’t a builder (I created my firs... See more