I’ve invested in over 200 startups, including giants like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I’ve seen two of my own companies get acquired. And I can tell you the single biggest mistake founders make isn’t their tech, their market, or their pitch deck. It’s who they hire.
Everyone in Silicon Valley is fighting over the same tiny pool of Stanford PhDs and ex-Google engineers. They’re paying them insane salaries, and frankly, they’re getting played. The best AI talent isn’t always where you think it is. I’ve found my most brilliant, effective, and loyal hires in some very unexpected places. These are the people who actually build things, who solve impossible problems, and who don’t just follow the herd.
Here are my three go-to sources for finding killer AI talent.
1. Gamers
I’m not talking about people who play Candy Crush on their phone. I’m talking about the hardcore gamers. The ones who spend hours optimizing their character’s build in an RPG, who lead raids in World of Warcraft, or who build intricate contraptions in Minecraft. These people are natural systems thinkers.
Think about it. What is training a large language model if not the most complex, resource-intensive real-time strategy game ever created? You’re balancing compute, data, and time, all while trying to outsmart a system that is constantly surprising you. Gamers get this intuitively. They have a high tolerance for failure—they’ve wiped on a raid boss hundreds of times—and they are obsessed with finding exploits and efficiencies. That’s exactly the mindset you need to be successful in AI.
One of the best engineers I ever hired at RemoteTeam was a former top-ranked StarCraft player. He had no formal CS degree, but he had a deeper understanding of resource management and complex systems than anyone I’d ever met. He single-handedly optimized our infrastructure and cut our server costs by 40%. He saw it as a game, and he was determined to win.
2. Philosophy Majors
This one always gets a laugh from other investors. They want to see computer science degrees, not dissertations on Kant. But I’m serious. As AI gets more powerful, the most important questions are no longer about what we can do, but what we should do.
I need people on my team who can think critically about ethics, who can reason from first principles, and who can articulate the long-term implications of the technology we’re building. Philosophy majors are trained to do exactly that. They are my secret weapon for navigating the complex ethical landscape of AI.
I remember a meeting where we were discussing a new feature for a product. The engineers were excited about the technical possibilities, but a young woman with a philosophy degree raised her hand and asked a simple question: “What are the second-order consequences of this?” The room went silent. She then walked us through a chain of logical consequences that we had completely overlooked. We ended up scrapping the feature, and it was one of the best decisions we ever made. Her ability to think beyond the immediate technical challenge saved us from a potential PR nightmare.
3. High School Dropouts
This is the one that really gets people riled up. But the truth is, our education system is broken. It’s too slow, too rigid, and too focused on credentials instead of skills. By the time a university creates a course on the latest AI architecture, it’s already obsolete.
The most driven, most passionate, and most brilliant people I know are the ones who couldn’t stand the slow pace of traditional education. They dropped out to start building, to start learning on their own. They are obsessed. They spend every waking hour on GitHub, reading papers, and tinkering with new models. They don’t need a professor to tell them what to learn.
At MovieLaLa, my second company, our lead architect was a 19-year-old who had dropped out of high school to code. He was a force of nature. He had a deeper understanding of our tech stack than anyone else, and he worked with an intensity that was contagious. He didn’t have a diploma, but he had something much more valuable: a burning desire to build the future.
Stop Chasing Credentials
So, if you’re a founder struggling to hire AI talent, my advice is this: stop looking in the same old places. Stop chasing the same credentials as everyone else. Look for the gamers, the philosophers, and the dropouts. Look for the people who are obsessed, who are self-taught, and who have a different way of looking at the world.
These are the people who will build the next generation of AI. And they’re probably not the ones with the fancy degrees. They’re the ones who are too busy building to care about them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do all experts agree with this view?
No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.
How has this view evolved over time?
My thinking on most topics has changed significantly over the years. Early in my career, I held many conventional views that experience proved wrong. I try to update my beliefs when the evidence changes.
How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.
What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 200+ startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.