When I started my career in software, businesses were still writing new code in COBOL

This is a good point. I started with Turbo Pascal in school and my first job was writing VB 5 Windows apps for local businesses. SQL (and C, but I haven't written it in ages) is probably the only thing I learned in the late 90s that has been a constant my entire career. Languages and frameworks seemed to change so frequently that I never thought too much about them. I was always focused on the end goal of solving some business problem.

Sure, but those are cherrypicked cases where a technology became obsolete. There are many counterexamples of decades-old technologies that are still actively chosen for greenfield work today, in 2026. SQL was first released in 1973. More new SQL is being written today than ever. C++ (1985) is the de facto standard implementation language for web browsers, JavaScript engines, networking stacks, telecommunications, video games, high speed trading, CAD/CAM, video rendering and editing, audio processing, filesystems, databases, hardware drivers, automotive, aerospace, and robotics, among others. Is Rust making inroads? Sure, and it's a tiny fraction of C++ still. It's a long ways from being the standard. Likewise, Python is often cited as the "AI language," but that's on the surface -- CUDA, tensor libraries, inference languages, GPU kernels, compiler stacks, and so on are usually C++. Then …

What’s interesting is this sort of implies tech skills are inherently the most valuable part. Are they? Tech jobs probably paid the worst when they the most “technical” at the lowest level of abstraction. As they’ve become “easier”. The pay has increased dramatically.