There's a fair bit of frequency illusion involved here. A lot of brilliant human minds aren't, in fact, working on ad tech, and a lot of the people working on ad tech aren't, in fact, that brilliant (as evidenced by them working adversarially against their own fellow humans, for one).
There's a wide world outside big tech, Silicon Valley, and software in general. It only tends to be a bit less visible online.
There's a wide world outside big tech, Silicon Valley, and software in general. It only tends to be a bit less visible online.