Is taste a ‘new core skill’? Techies debate — and quickly get memed

Good news, connoisseurs — your judgment may be highly prized in the AI age.

A debate about the importance of “taste” has seemed inescapable on X in recent days, prompting bold declarations, a fair share of eye-rolling, and, yes, plenty of memes.

But there might be some truth to the idea.

The most recent wave of taste discourse began when Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham — who coined “founder mode” — posted a prediction on Saturday.

“When anyone can make anything, the big differentiator is what you choose to make,” Graham wrote on X.

This wasn’t Graham’s first time writing about the importance of taste; in his post over the weekend, he linked to an old essay of his from 2002, titled “Taste for Makers,” and he also wrote about the topic again in 2021.

Then, OpenAI’s president weighed in.

Will good taste get you a job?

OpenAI president Greg Brockman went even stronger, declaring, “Taste is a new core skill.”

A variety of leaders across Silicon Valley also came out in support of the benefits of cultivating taste. As engineers grow into managing more agents and making more decisions, having strong judgment skills (or “taste,” as they’d call it) could be crucial.

Cloudflare CTO Dane Knecht agreed with Graham and linked back to an earlier post he’d written in January that stated, “In 2026, taste is the engineering differentiator.”

Engineers across the industry chimed in. “The AI will make anything but it takes human taste to decide if it’s worth keeping,” one Google software engineer wrote.

What even is taste? The term is slippery.

“The taste thing works because it’s nebulous, unassailable, and it feeds the ego,” Poggio cofounder Matt Slotnick wrote on X, weighing in on the discourse.

Graham gave one glimpse, writing that it was about “being honest with yourself” and moving beyond the mindset of “I like what I like.”

Not everyone agreed that taste would become a future-proof skill of the future. Linear head of product Nan Yu wrote that “you probably don’t have better taste than AI.”

“There are plenty of other distinctly human things that we can contribute, but ‘having better taste’ isn’t one of them,” he wrote.

Matt Schumer, the author of the viral “Something Big is Happening” essay on AI, agreed.

“There’s a good chance AI will have better ideas than us within a few years,” he wrote. “I don’t see why “taste” and direction are uniquely human, like many people say. If an AI can train on it, it can learn it.”

Taste memes are on the rise

There’s another high-profile figure who championed taste (and basically built his career around it): Def Jam cofounder Rick Rubin.

There’s an interview making the rounds of Rubin, in which he says he has “no technical ability” when it comes to music. Anderson Cooper asks what he’s being paid for. Rubin responds: “The confidence that I have in my taste.”

Is that what software engineers will soon look like? Several meme accounts on X seem to think so, commenting photos of Rubin’s bearded face on Brockman’s post.

It also begs the question: Do engineers even have good taste to begin with? The answer depends on who you ask — and how you define taste.

General Catalyst creative director Reggie James wrote that techies would be “ruffled” when they learn they’re not the top of the taste pyramid.

Stripe alum Sam Gerstenzan wrote that taste was “so rare” in Silicon Valley that, if asked to name the five people with the best taste, everyone would name the same people.

The irony, of course, is that tech bros aren’t known to have the best taste in one specific arena: style.

The same people prizing taste are wearing backpacks to the bar, Very AI growth head Abril Zucchi wrote. Another user shared a “Person in tech that has ‘taste’ starter pack.”

The sneaker brand Allbirds was a popular punching bag.

“‘Taste is the new core skill’ says men who kept Allbirds afloat,” Vercel CMO Keith Messick wrote.

Graham responded to one of the memes, which showed “taste” as a polo and cargo shorts.

“Taste in clothing isn’t important,” he wrote. “If your goal is to think well, clothing should just be as comfortable as possible.”

Rick Rubin — famous for his disheveled, DGAF appearance — would likely agree.