The Evolution of Intelligence: Why Being a Coding Box-Checker Will Get You Replaced

In the age of AI, specialists are becoming implementation details. The future belongs to the curious generalists who can synthesize across disciplines.

The Meteor Has Landed

Remember the dinosaurs? They were the biggest, brownest creatures on the planet—until they weren’t. When the meteor hit, only two types of creatures survived: those that could swim deep and those that could burrow deep.

We’re facing a similar extinction event with AI.

“In terms of what we’re building with AI, I truly believe that no one knows,” says Ousman Diallo, founding lead frontend engineer at Realm Security. “But if your idea was to just finish your computer science degree and push Python for the next 20 years… dream on.”

The technological meteor has landed. Those who adapt will thrive; those who don’t will find themselves obsolete.

Code as an Implementation Detail

The hard truth most developers don’t want to hear: code is becoming an implementation detail.

“If you are only seeing yourself as a programmer, then you’re only seeing yourself as an implementation detail,” Ousman explains. “And if you only see that, then I truly do believe you’re going to be the one that’s going to be disrupted.”

Most programming tasks—the ones that follow clear patterns and rules—are precisely what AI excels at. Cursor, Claude, GitHub Copilot, and ChatGPT are already writing code faster and often better than humans.

The Box-Checker’s Dilemma

The traditional career path—get degree, join big tech, push tickets, climb ladder—is rapidly dissolving.

“If you’re a box-checker, you need to be really careful,” warns Ousman. “By the nature of your constitution, you’re going to want to check the next box, but the next box might not be there.”

This is the box-checker’s dilemma: following a predetermined path in an increasingly unpredetermined world.

“AI is going to check boxes way faster than you’ll ever check them. They’ll check them exponentially faster than you can ever check them. So that can’t be how you make your bread anymore.”

The T-Shaped Human Being

The solution isn’t to abandon specialization entirely. Rather, it’s to build depth in one area while developing breadth across many others.

“You need to be a well-rounded human being,” Ousman explains. “We’re going to have T-shaped human beings in the workplace. You have breadth in various skills, but then you have depth in one of them.”

This isn’t the T-shaped developer of yesterday—someone with depth in JavaScript and surface knowledge of Python. This is the T-shaped human: someone with depth in programming but breadth across psychology, UX/UI, sales, art, and more.

Or as Ousman puts it: “A certain kind of multidisciplinary intelligence in which you’re not single-faceted anymore.”

Skin in the Game

For those comfortable in big tech companies where they work on tiny features and collect steady paychecks, Ousman offers a provocative question:

“Is this who you want to be?”

He continues: “Maybe you do have a FAANG job, you’re making your nice $300K, you’re comfortable. Maybe more. I’ve seen some of the comp packages—it’s real comfy. Golden handcuffs.”

“But the very fact that you got there says a lot about you. That means you’re hardworking, that means you’re smart, that means you wanted something at some point in your life. Is that what you wanted? Is that you just wanted to be comfortable? Because congratulations, now you are. Now what?”

The alternative? Join a startup. Take on responsibility. Put skin in the game.

“I always put scope and priority far over money anytime,” says Ousman. “When you get responsibility, when you get leadership, when you get skin in the game—you know, as Nassim Taleb says—I think these are the steps that you can take.”

The Deep Life

In a world of endless distractions, those who can think deeply hold an asymmetric advantage.

“I’ve trained my ability to be able to think in three, four-hour blocks consistently,” Ousman shares. “I meet people that can only rip for about eight minutes and they’re gone. I’m like, ‘Man, you’re my competition? This is not even good.’”

Inspired by Cal Newport’s “Deep Work,” Ousman has cultivated the increasingly rare ability to focus intensely for extended periods. In a world where attention spans are measured in seconds, this alone creates enormous leverage.

“Anything worth doing is going to require blocks of time that you can just dedicate.”

The Road Ahead

The future belongs to those who can constantly evolve—who see themselves not as specialists but as ever-adapting generalists.

In this new landscape, your personal brand becomes your moat. As Ousman explains, “When I joined Realm, my CEO reached out to me. When we were at dinner, he read part of my bio to me. He functionally went out, looked at my brand, assimilated and understood what I knew about the world, and that was one of the things that brought him over to me.”

The skills that got you here won’t get you there. The path that worked yesterday won’t work tomorrow.

But for those willing to evolve—to become multidisciplinary thinkers who can swim and burrow deep—the opportunities have never been greater.

Watch the full episode here.