Silicon Valley has forgotten what normal people want

The essay's real provocation isn't that Silicon Valley is out of touch (that's a perennial complaint) but that the gap may now be structurally self-reinforcing: the people building AI products are also the most enthusiastic users of them, which means the feedback loops that once corrected for insularity are no longer functioning.

This fits directly alongside TechCrunch's 'tokenmaxxing' coverage from April 17, which documented OpenAI acquiring consumer apps and media properties while Anthropic released a model it deemed too risky to ship publicly. That story named the same divide: AI insiders scaling infrastructure and ambition while the broader market remains skeptical or indifferent. The OpenAI executive departures covered the same week reinforce the picture, with the company shedding consumer-facing experiments like Sora to refocus on enterprise. The Allbirds rebrand story from The Verge ('The AI is inevitable trap') adds a useful counterpoint: some outsiders are performing insider enthusiasm without any of the substance, which complicates the clean insider-outsider framing this essay relies on.

Watch whether OpenAI's consumer acquisition strategy, particularly any app it bought in the April shopping spree, posts meaningful retention numbers within two quarters. Sustained engagement from non-technical users would challenge the essay's thesis; churn would confirm it.