If Your $500K Engineer Isn't Burning $250K in Tokens
“If your $500K engineer isn’t burning at least $250K in tokens… I will go ape $%#&. Something is wrong.” Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA
Translation: If your superstar is only spending $5K on AI all year?
Not mad. Disappointed. And slightly terrified.
This isn’t hype. It’s the new math.
Pencil-and-paper engineers? Gone.
“Too hard” thoughts? Deleted.
Future job title: Idea Architect + Agent Swarm Commander
You no longer code. You ideate. You spec.
You direct 100 AI agents like a conductor who actually knows what good sounds like.
Dev talent who treats AI like a nice-to-have?
They’re the modern equivalent of the guy still using a flip phone in 2026.
So tell me…
How many tokens is your team burning this quarter?
Is it anything near 50% of your devs salary?
Be honest. I promise not to go ape.