OpenAlly
Humans 3.0
Moving people from the bottom of the K to the top.
The next great companies won’t build software.
They’ll build people.
01 — The Landscape
AI is splitting
the workforce into two lines.
A K-shaped divergence. The top accelerates. The bottom falls further behind. The gap is widening faster than any policy can close it.
56%
Pay premium for AI-skilled workers
Same role, same company. The only difference is AI fluency.
20%
White-collar jobs at risk in 1-5 years
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, on the displacement timeline.
02 — The Gap
Everyone builds better tools.
Nobody builds better humans.
They all agree the human is the bottleneck. Then they go build more AI.
The tool side — billions invested
LLMs
GPT, Claude, Gemini
IDEs
Cursor, Replit, Windsurf
Copilots
GitHub, Codeium
Agents
Devin, Crew AI
Infra
AWS, Azure, GCP
Robotics
Atoms, Figure, Tesla
The human side
?
All tool-side. Who’s on the human side?
03 — The Voices
The bottleneck flipped.
It’s not the AI anymore. It’s the humans.
Travis Kalanick
Uber founder · Atoms
“Until we get super AGI, humans are valuable and they are going to become more and more valuable.”
Andrej Karpathy
OpenAI co-founder · Eureka Labs
“The hottest new programming language is English.”
Sam Altman
CEO · OpenAI
“Agency, willfulness, and determination will likely be extremely valuable.”
04 — From the Field
The market is screaming for this.
Real posts. Real demand. The gap between AI tools and human readiness is the opportunity.
Codie Sanchez
@Codie_Sanchez
Best money I've ever spent as a CEO... an internal AI transformation hire. He just wants to ship. Goes across your entire org and kills stupid manual processes. I have since hired 2 more.
StockMarket.News
@_Investinq
MIT released a devastating number. 95% of all corporate AI projects are failing. Because nobody knows how to install it. @mcuban says this is the biggest job opportunity since the personal computer.
Xiaoyin Qu
@quxiaoyin
The scariest thing about AI in 2026 isn't sci-fi. It's watching people you know split into two completely different groups. 99% still use AI at the level of "What's the weather?"
CG
@cgtwts
INSANE. Anthropic ran its paid search marketing with basically one person. Ad creation 2hrs to 15min, output 10x, conversions 41% above avg. One person = entire team.
Alex Lieberman
@businessbarista
Anthropic just published a 17-page report on AI's impact to jobs. The gap between what AI can do and what people are doing with it is massive. This isn't a technology problem. It's a knowledge and process problem.
Peter Mallouk
@PeterMallouk
Nearly 50% of all consumer spending now comes from the top 10%. Bottom 80% share keeps falling. Economy looks strong while millions feel like they're falling behind.
Codie Sanchez
@Codie_Sanchez
Best money I've ever spent as a CEO... an internal AI transformation hire. He just wants to ship. Goes across your entire org and kills stupid manual processes. I have since hired 2 more.
StockMarket.News
@_Investinq
MIT released a devastating number. 95% of all corporate AI projects are failing. Because nobody knows how to install it. @mcuban says this is the biggest job opportunity since the personal computer.
Xiaoyin Qu
@quxiaoyin
The scariest thing about AI in 2026 isn't sci-fi. It's watching people you know split into two completely different groups. 99% still use AI at the level of "What's the weather?"
CG
@cgtwts
INSANE. Anthropic ran its paid search marketing with basically one person. Ad creation 2hrs to 15min, output 10x, conversions 41% above avg. One person = entire team.
Alex Lieberman
@businessbarista
Anthropic just published a 17-page report on AI's impact to jobs. The gap between what AI can do and what people are doing with it is massive. This isn't a technology problem. It's a knowledge and process problem.
Peter Mallouk
@PeterMallouk
Nearly 50% of all consumer spending now comes from the top 10%. Bottom 80% share keeps falling. Economy looks strong while millions feel like they're falling behind.
JC
@shiftj
Massive trend I've seen in YC companies as well. The demand for internal AI transformations seems to be endless. Anyone working on an agency play here to fill the gap?
Kacie Ahmed
@Haezurath
Ran a free AI workshop yesterday. 1,000 people came. Most weren't developers. People who kept hearing "AI will change everything" and had no idea what to do. The hunger is real.
Alex Albert
@alexalbert__
Claude for knowledge work feels like it is on a very similar trajectory to what agentic coding experienced last year. Entire industries that rely on spreadsheets and powerpoints to begin to be transformed.
Bitcoin Teddy
@Bitcoin_Teddy
Mike Rowe: "We've been telling kids for 15 years to learn to code. AI is coming for the coders. It's not coming for the welders, the plumbers." There is a clear and present freakout.
Iqbol Temirkhojaev
@iqbol_t
Accepted into YC W26 as a 19yo solo-founder. Building a Full-Stack AI MedLegal Firm. Pre-Seed from Sequoia scout. Never let your zip code define your trajectory.
François Chollet
@fchollet
We can't yet remove the humans in the loop. Current AI is still purely a reflection of human cognition. The bottleneck is simple: the techniques we use are still predicated on pattern memorization.
JC
@shiftj
Massive trend I've seen in YC companies as well. The demand for internal AI transformations seems to be endless. Anyone working on an agency play here to fill the gap?
Kacie Ahmed
@Haezurath
Ran a free AI workshop yesterday. 1,000 people came. Most weren't developers. People who kept hearing "AI will change everything" and had no idea what to do. The hunger is real.
Alex Albert
@alexalbert__
Claude for knowledge work feels like it is on a very similar trajectory to what agentic coding experienced last year. Entire industries that rely on spreadsheets and powerpoints to begin to be transformed.
Bitcoin Teddy
@Bitcoin_Teddy
Mike Rowe: "We've been telling kids for 15 years to learn to code. AI is coming for the coders. It's not coming for the welders, the plumbers." There is a clear and present freakout.
Iqbol Temirkhojaev
@iqbol_t
Accepted into YC W26 as a 19yo solo-founder. Building a Full-Stack AI MedLegal Firm. Pre-Seed from Sequoia scout. Never let your zip code define your trajectory.
François Chollet
@fchollet
We can't yet remove the humans in the loop. Current AI is still purely a reflection of human cognition. The bottleneck is simple: the techniques we use are still predicated on pattern memorization.
05 — The Framework
Four keys to infinite potential.
Not a productivity framework. A human acceleration system.
Dreams & Belief
Shift what people think is possible. Easiest to move in 7 days through direct AI exposure.
Fastest unlockJudgment
Developed through empathy and experience. Requires reps and willingness to engage with discomfort.
Hardest to buildClarity
Know your personal drivers and energy sources. Alignment between work and identity.
The compassInfinite Energy
Identify what gives you energy vs. what drains it. Build your life around the former.
The fuelDreams & belief are the wedge. Everything else follows.
06 — The Question of the Century
What moves someone from bottom-K to top-K?
Nobody knows yet. We know the tools work. We know humans are the bottleneck. The missing piece: what’s the right setting and mechanism to make the transfer?
Setting
Who are you working with?
Students? Creatives? Operators? Corporate? Teenagers?
Mechanism
What intervention works?
Workshops? Fellowships? AI scaffolding? Bounties? Sprints?
The right setting × the right mechanism
= the transfer. That’s what we’re here to find.
07 — OpenAlly
A Human Performance Lab
for the AI era.
We don’t build AI tools. We build AI-augmented humans.
The question
What specific intervention moves a human from the bottom of the K to the top?
The method
Run controlled experiments across different populations and mechanisms. Measure everything.
The outcome
A map of what works, for whom, at what cost. Then scale what works.
08 — The Signal
An emerging hypothesis.
Four signals from recent studies. Each one is a business thesis waiting to be underwritten.
43%
Lift for bottom performers
Top performers only gained 17%. The biggest ROI is in the people nobody is betting on.
Harvard Business School / BCG, 2023 ↗1 > many
One person ran an entire department
A single non-technical marketer ran all of Anthropic’s growth marketing for 10 months. 10× creative output. Ad creation time down 88%.
Anthropic internal case study, 2025 ↗35%
Faster for novice workers
Agents with 2 months experience + AI matched veterans with 6+ months. The experience gap collapsed overnight.
Stanford / MIT, 5,179 agents, 2023 ↗−19%
For experienced developers
Experts got slower with AI. The moat isn’t skill — it’s adaptability.
METR, 16 open-source devs, 2025 ↗09 — Core Proof
5 experiments.
Does it work?
Each tests a distinct thesis. Each produces signal regardless of outcome.
Unleash Teams
Transform how organisations build with AI.
The Corporate Sprint
200 employees · 3 companies · Bounty board + sprint
Can you revitalize a workforce that’s been doing the same thing for 10 years?
The 72-Hour Revenue Sprint
10 people · Zero technical background · $200 budget · One coaching session
Can a non-technical person go from zero to paying customer in a weekend?
Unlock Individuals
Venture studio in an AI world.
The University Sprint
50 students · 3 universities · Semester-long EIR experience
Can raw intelligence + AI skip 5 years of experience?
The High School Spark
100 students · 5 schools · Summer intensive
If a 16-year-old can build it in 5 days, the bottleneck was never skill.
The Emerging Market Lab
30 operators · Philippines · Strategy agents + real client work
Can sharp operators deliver first-world output at emerging-market cost?
10 — The Pipeline
10 more experiments in the pipeline.
New talent stacks, unit economics, and untapped markets.
New Talent Stack
Where’s the competitive edge?
06Taste vs. Code
Give an artist and an engineer the same brief. Who ships better?
07Domain Expert Inversion
Will a nurse build better health tech than an engineering team?
08The Customer Builder
Can end users build better products than the teams hired to build for them?
Unit Economics
What drives the ROI?
09The Minimum Dose
What’s the shortest intervention that still converts?
10The Silo Breaker
Remove "only IT can build" from one company. What value emerges?
11The Persistence Test
Do they still build 6 months later with zero support?
Untapped Markets
Where’s the blue ocean?
12The Second Act
Can someone over 55 reinvent their career in 90 days? Governments will pay for this.
13The Resistance Lab
Can the intervention convert active AI skeptics?
14The Team of One
Can 1 person + AI match a 10-person team? Solo founders surged from 17% to 36%.
15The Geography Test
Hong Kong, Lagos, São Paulo — same workshop, same week. If it’s universal, TAM is global.
11 — Why Now
The market is massive
and no one owns it.
AI education. Corporate L&D. Workforce transformation. Governments are starting to mandate it by law.
$7B → $137B
AI education market by 2035
CAGR 34.5% — Precedence Research
$350B+
Global L&D market
91% of companies plan to increase AI L&D spend in 2026
McKinsey: GenAI annual economic value of $2.6T–$4.4T.
Only 1% of companies are at AI maturity. The rest need help.