Tell me the year you were born, and I can predict how you feel about the AI revolution.

Born between 1988 and 2008? AI feels exciting, revolutionary, and chances are you're trying to build a career in it.

Born after 2008? AI is just how the world works. Normal, like electricity. Not a revolution, just there.

Born before 1988? Something about all this probably feels off. Too fast, overhyped, against the natural order of things.

I can't take credit for the trick. Guess who wrote it, before I tell you.

Not a VC. Not an AI skeptic. Douglas Adams, in 1999, about people panicking over the internet: anything in the world when you're born is normal. Anything invented while you're fifteen to thirty-five is new and exciting, and you can probably build a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

All I did was plug ChatGPT's launch year into his formula.

Which means the resistance was never really about the technology. And it's not even about age.

Past that window, you're long something. Career capital built on the old way of working. Seniority that assumes the old skills stay scarce. An identity built on being good at something a model is now also good at. New technology doesn't threaten you. It reprices what you're holding.

And this time the revolution is real, which means the bias has a price. The older you are, the more deliberate the work, and the work is emotional, not intellectual. Skepticism feels like good judgment from the inside. Don't let it be the reason you watch this one from the platform.

So the honest question isn't whether AI is overhyped. It's: what am I long, that makes me want it to fail?

Grove Ventures