Taste is the last moat
When anyone can generate anything, judgment is the scarce resource.
A short note after a long week of reviewing work that was, technically, fine.
Generative tools have collapsed the cost of producing a competent first draft to roughly zero. That’s wonderful. It also means competent is no longer a differentiator. The floor rose, and everyone is standing on it.
What’s left is taste: the ability to look at ten good options and know, quickly and for reasons you can explain, which one is right and why the other nine aren’t.
Taste isn’t mystical. It’s built the old-fashioned way: by making a lot of things, studying great work, and getting honest feedback from people whose judgment you trust. The tools make the reps faster. They don’t do the reps for you.