This situation has nothing to do with water fountain small talk or any such things. Proof: My resume copies got nearly no meaningful responses at all. That is, the whole job hunting effort died long before any opportunity for small talk.

Again, once again, over again, yet again, one more time, the qualifications (1)-(5) on a resume are terrific for AL/ML and innovative applications but get no responses at all.

Lesson: The claims that there is a shortage of people with good qualifications is total BS.

So, I'm starting my own business with some crucial, core original applied math. The math is difficult to duplicate or equal, especially by people who don't value (1)-(5) above.

Each job requires someone to create it. For the special case of a company founder, he creates his own. I'm no longer hoping someone will create a job for me and, as a company founder, am creating my own.

For my Web site, it's enough for lots of people to like the site. I hope and believe that a lot of people will like the site. For the revenue, it's enough for the advertisers that my Web site delivers lots of clicks from users with good demographics, and I hope and believe that will happen. And, except for trivialities, those two are enough.

Point: Back to the "lesson" above, there's no shortage.

Why are people claiming a shortage when there isn't one? There is a standard list of reasons, and there may be reasons not on the list. I don't have information enough to select the reasons in this case.