College enrollment is dropping for the first time in a hundred years.
AI is absorbing entry-level roles faster than companies can figure out what to do about it.
And the path our parents took… school, company training program, steady climb up the ladder… that’s disappearing.
This isn’t about economic cycles or market corrections. This is a fundamental shift in who’s responsible for staying relevant.
And most people haven’t realized it yet.
The Leverage Is Shifting
For decades, companies needed bodies. They hired people and invested in training because they had no choice. If you wanted capable employees, you had to build them yourself.
That gave employees leverage. Companies competed on development programs. They marketed their training as a benefit. They built entire universities inside their organizations.
But when AI can handle more of the work? That pressure goes away.
Companies don’t need as many entry-level roles anymore. They don’t need to train people from scratch. They can hire for expertise instead of potential.
Which means employees are losing the one thing that made companies invest in their growth… necessity.
The Responsibility Shift Nobody’s Talking About
This next decade, people won’t be asking their company to pay for their development.
They’ll just pay for it themselves.
Not because they want to. But because they have to.
Staying relevant becomes their responsibility, not their employer’s. And the people who figure this out early will have a massive advantage over the ones waiting for their company to offer them a training program that isn’t coming.
I’m already seeing it with the best people I know. They’re not waiting for permission or budget approval. They’re investing their own time and money into skills that will keep them employable… regardless of where they work.
What This Means for Companies
Here’s the uncomfortable part for CEOs and founders.
If your people are paying for their own development, they’re building portable skills. They’re preparing for their next opportunity, whether that’s with you or someone else. Development is employee-led.
They’re thinking like free agents because they have to. Because they can’t rely on you to keep them relevant anymore. They’re self-developing.
And when they finish learning something valuable… they’re going to look around and ask, “Where can I actually use this?”
If the answer isn’t your company, they’re gone.
The Geography Doesn’t Limit Them Anymore
It used to be that even if someone developed new skills on their own, their options were limited by geography. You could keep good people because there were only so many companies in your city.
That constraint is gone.
Remote work means your employee in Dublin is competing with opportunities in San Francisco. Your team member in New York is getting recruited by companies in London.
When people invest in their own development, they’re not just building skills. They’re building the credentials to work anywhere.
And “anywhere” is exactly where they’ll look if you’re not the best place to apply what they’ve learned.
The Companies That Will Win
The companies that survive this shift won’t be the ones with the most sophisticated development programs.
They’ll be the ones that become the best place to apply what people are already learning on their own.
They’ll ask employees what they’re working on. What they’re trying to learn. What skills they’re building. And then they’ll create opportunities to use those skills immediately.
They’ll treat development like a partnership. You’re investing in yourself, we’ll make sure you can use it here. And we’ll make sure you continue to develop.
Because retention in this new world isn’t about who pays for the training. It’s about who provides the best environment to put that training into practice.
What Happens Next
The shift is already happening. Your best people are already investing in themselves.
The question isn’t whether they’ll keep developing. They will. The question is whether your company will be where that development leads.
If you’re still treating development as a benefit you control… if you’re still requiring approval processes for learning… if you’re still assuming people will wait for you to decide what they need… you’re going to lose them.
Not because you’re a bad company. But because you’re competing with a world where people have realized they can’t wait for someone else to keep them relevant.
The future belongs to people who take ownership of their own growth.
And to companies who are smart enough to harness it.
Ronan