There’s a kind of bathtub curve between generalism and specialism.

On the far left you have master generalists with incredible breadth of understanding and the ability to summarize and strategize. These people are highly valued and often land in architecture or leadership roles.

Then in the middle you have the specialists. The Java developers and the Ops people. They’re less valuable because there are so many of them, and they’re somewhat interchangeable.

But then on the far right you’ve got super-specialists. They are masters of their niche - world-class experts with deep understanding who are sought after as the authority in their domain. These folk are super-valuable too.

AI will probably eat the ones in the middle first.