Software development now costs less than minimum wage
Geoffrey Huntley is a software engineer who has been writing prolifically and delivering keynotes internationally about AI's impact on software development and society. He discovered the Ralph/Claude loop approach nearly a year before it went viral and has focused on education, teaching juniors to pay attention, and pleading with people to invest in themselves. His work explores what it means to be a software developer when the cost of development has fallen below minimum wage, and how model-first companies are reshaping the unit economics of business.
The cost of software development has fallen to $10.42 an hour—less than minimum wage. A burger flipper at Macca's earns more. What does it mean to be a software developer when everyone in the world can develop software? Tools like Cursor have commoditised the knowledge and skill of software development, enabling non-developers to build and ship. In this keynote, Geoffrey Huntley shares a cold, stark view of how AI is reshaping the unit economics of business. Drawing on a year of game theory around Ralph, Claude loops, and conversations with venture capitalists in Australia and San Francisco, he explores the K-shaped divergence: model-first companies operating as lean apex predators versus incumbents struggling through people transformation. We'll cover what moats still matter (distribution, utility-based pricing, operating model-first), what's been erased (per-seat pricing, human-designed product features, migration lock-in), and the brutal reality that employers and employees trade time and skill for money—and that equation has forever changed. For data engineers specifically: AI erases traditional developer identities. The smart folks will upskill, automate, and become champions. The question isn't whether things will change, but whether you're ready.
