He said “Winter Is Coming.” Now He’s Joining Anthropic. Philip Su on What’s Next for Engineers

Philip's three-word warning drove this channel's most commented video. People are still arguing about it. Now he is back.  On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, host Boris Epstein sits down with Philip Su and asks him about his prediction about winter coming for developers that got 900k views (and counting!) over the past year. And ONE day before Philip starts as Engineering Manager at Anthropic Labs, we ask him to score his own call.  This time around, Philip revisits it with more nuance: junior hiring is under real pressure, but AI is also making ambitious engineers more capable than ever. He explains why the youngest engineers are already feeling the cold while everyone else is not, why AI is splitting developer pay into two very different tiers, and why cheap code demands more discipline, not less.  Tune in to hear Boris and Philip talk about: - The score Philip gives his own prediction and the one group he says is already in the AI Winter. - The skills that entry-level engineers now need. (HINT: They used to belong to two other jobs!) - The change in a manager's job when every contributor has a small 'team' working beside them. - The safeguard that teams lose when code costs almost nothing to write and the discipline that has to replace it. - A new plane-boarding habit that explains why AI won't give engineers their evenings back. - A small law in New Jersey is Philip's model for how AI politics \*might* go wrong. Philip does not offer a safe prediction this time around. Instead, he offers a clearer question: when the environment churns, will you protect the old map or learn to move before everyone else does? **Chapters:** 00:00 Preview of the Episode 01:42 So, Did Winter Come? Who for? 06:54 Philip Scores His Own Prediction  08:28 When CS Paid Less Than Median Wage 12:11 Code Is No Longer The Bottleneck? 16:50 A different way to think about AI risk 20:06 Why Philip Is Still Optimistic 23:01 Philip'S Next Chapter: Anthropic Labs 27:48 Managing People or Agents? (Or Both?) 33:05 The New Job Description Of A Great Developer 38:21 Non-AI Career Advice From Philip 45:22 Ai As A Political Question 48:58 Shovels, Spoons, and New Jersey?! 53:05 Philip Su for... Political Office?! 53:39 How to Contact Philip Su **Quotes:** - "People in software industries who are entering industry now have a fifth fewer jobs than they used to." - Philip Su (03:09) - "I do think we will once again enter an era where you should only go into computer science because you really love the work." - Philip Su (08:28) - "With AI, what you realize is that there is never downtime for you." - Philip Su (14:23) - "A team without discipline simply produces more things that they toss more out of because they don't feel bad tossing it out." - Philip Su (31:52) - "The type of person who can't have their cheese moved is going to suffer a lot." - Philip Su (42:21) **Connect:** Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/1st10podcast  Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7e8ec9af-f38c-4cd9-8c68-1c1dd4516b 27/1st10-podcast Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1st10-podcast/id1760411207  Podcast: https://www.1st10.com/podcast  RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f951319c/podcast/rss  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1st10podcast  Website: www.1st10.com Twitter www.x.com/1st10engineers LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/1st10/ **Links:** Philip Su on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/suphilip/ Philip's Substack: https://molochinations.substack.com Producer: ⁠Shrikant Joshi⁠ (https://42quirks.com) Fact-checks: - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, AI and employment projections - https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2026/artificial-intelligence-information-technology-and-employment-2024-34.htm - No Widespread Displacement, but the AI Employment Gap for Young Workers Has Widened to 19% - Stanford Digital Economy Lab - https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/news/canariesaug26/ - Employment Situation News Release - 2026 M09 Results - https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htm#ces\_table1.f.p