Why Are We Still Building to Find a Job? Why Not Build to Make Money?

Over the past several months, we applied to a stack of jobs in and around the AI space. Some went nowhere, the way most applications do — an auto-reply, then silence. But a few went further than that. Third-round interviews. Take-home exercises with real deadlines. Hours spent walking a panel through exactly how we’d approach a problem they were actually having, live, on a whiteboard, while three people took notes. And then, more than once, the same ending: the team reorganized, the role quietly disappeared from the careers page, or the thread just went cold. No rejection email. No feedback. Nothing.

The first time, we chalked it up to bad luck. The second time, bad timing. After the third time, a less charitable thought showed up and refused to leave: what if the interview was never really about the job? What if it was a low-cost way to hear how someone who’s actually building with these tools thinks — no offer required, no obligation to close the loop?