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STATE OF THE PRODUCT JOB MARKET IN EARLY 2026 In spite of the headlines about layoffs and AI taking jobs, we’re actually seeing a lot of promising signs in tech hiring, and some interesting new trends: 1. PM openings are at the highest levels we’ve seen in over three years 2. AI hasn’t slowed the demand for software engineers (at least not yet) 3. AI roles in general are absolutely exploding 4. Design roles have plateaued 5. The Bay Area is increasing in importance 6. Remote work opportunities continue to decline 7. Despite ongoing layoffs, the overall number of tech jobs continues to grow More in 🧵

Fixed supply is often framed as a neutral monetary design. In practice, it’s an ideology. It encodes a belief that money should only optimize for scarcity and long-term appreciation. That works well for assets meant to be held, but it breaks down when you ask money to function as money. In a fixed-supply system, every increase in demand must express itself through price. Volatility becomes the clearing mechanism. But that dynamic rewards early holders, penalizes late users, and makes everyday economic coordination harder. While deflation may sound appealing initially, a unit of account that rises in value discourages spending, worsens debt burdens, and makes long-term contracts more brittle. When money becomes more valuable over time, obligations become heavier, and productive activity is distorted by the expectation of future appreciation. Bitcoin proves fixed supply can succeed as digital scarcity. But scarcity is not the same as monetary suitability. AMPL is the first asset to ever take the opposite approach. Instead of fixing supply and letting price absorb shocks, it fixes a purchasing power target and lets supply adapt. This reframes monetary policy as a transparent, rules-based mechanism rather than a narrative about scarcity. Fixed supply is a powerful idea. It’s just not a neutral one.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and AMPL represent three different answers to the same question: what should digital scarcity look like? Bitcoin fixes supply forever. Only 21 million units will ever exist. That makes it maximally scarce, but it also means every change in demand must be absorbed by price. Volatility is not a side effect of Bitcoin’s design. It is the mechanism. Ethereum softens this by making the supply policy flexible. Issuance can change, burns can offset inflation, and scarcity becomes a function of usage rather than a hard cap. ETH is not absolutely scarce, but conditionally scarce. AMPL does not fix supply or optimize issuance. It fixes a purchasing power target and lets supply expand or contract to reflect demand. Scarcity becomes elastic rather than absolute. $BTC concentrates scarcity in units. $ETH concentrates it in policy. $AMPL concentrates it in purchasing power. They are not competing answers to the same problem, but three distinct philosophies of what digital money should optimize for.