Broken playbooks in the war for talent

Six months ago, we wrote about entering a deflationary era in software—of cost, of headcount, of talent. Fewer people doing more. Founders in builder mode. Lean teams with tall mandates. All of that still rings true.

And yet, something unexpected is happening: the most capitalized companies in the world are struggling to hire.

As with any arms race, it starts with the hardest to hire: engineers, research scientists, product minds. This race is already well underway. You’ve seen the headlines – Meta is poaching from OpenAI, offering founder-level equity to pull talent into its orbit. It’s not slowing down.

Even engineering management roles are making a return. Series A and B startups are hiring them faster than expected, as CEOs rediscover a simple law of organizational physics: you can’t manage scores of direct reports and still build, ship, sell, hire, and raise.

Despite two years of “founder mode” gospel, the truth holds—leadership scales through leverage, not load.

We’ve seen this before. It played out during ZIRP, and it's happening again, but faster. The wave always starts with technical talent, then moves systemically: to seasoned operators, to sales leaders who can package magic, to marketers who can translate frontier technology into the mainstream.

And then—perhaps most telling—it reaches recruiters.

When the best-capitalized companies begin prioritizing recruiter headcount, you’ll know it’s on. It means the market is moving too fast for inbound, too competitive for passive. It means the war for talent has reached every corner of the org chart.

We’re seeing the shift up close. At TheGP, well-funded, well-positioned startups are turning to us because the industrialized recruiting machine no longer delivers. The playbooks written for ZIRP-era growth companies—careers pages, junior sourcers, top-of-funnel volume—don’t hold up when you're competing against the world’s most resourced companies for top-tier talent.

The market has evolved. So must the method.

Here’s what will work:

1. Specialization. The most technical roles demand recruiters who’ve refined their craft—those who understand the difference between applied ML and foundational research. Vague job descriptions and templated pitches don’t land when the opportunity cost is OpenAI.

2. Relationship depth. Great recruiters don’t parachute in. They stay in orbit and build trust over time through regular check-ins, referrals, and high-leverage value before there’s a role to pitch. The pitch compounds well before the offer is written.

3. Quiet trust. Spam is still easy. Trust is not. This is where the best earn their edge: coaching candidates through nuanced decisions, gathering references quietly, offering honest feedback with confidentiality intact. Rather than just selling a job, they provide a point of view on the conditions in the field. Where talent is moving. Where the category is headed. And what kind of company is worth betting on next. Their edge is taste, not volume.

This is where we’ve invested at TheGP and where we continue to see the highest return on relationships.

As well-capitalized companies struggle to keep pace with the speed of the market, startups can’t afford hesitation. In an era defined by speed and deflationary software costs, your competition isn’t just the sleepy incumbent–it’s the incumbent in a new pair of running shoes.

When the recruiting machine breaks down, the companies that can still hire don’t just survive. They win.