An Engineer Costs $250K. Their Tokens Cost $20K. That Math Is a Trap. (opens in new tab)

There is a spreadsheet making the rounds in boardrooms right now. On one line: the fully-loaded cost of a senior software engineer. On the other: what it costs to run a coding model that writes the same kind of code. The gap looks enormous, and it is driving real decisions about real people. The problem is that the spreadsheet is measuring the wrong two things. Let me run the actual numbers, because the headline comparison is seductive and mostly wrong. The number on the left A senior softwar...