I think you're both kind of right. The market is exceptional for the best in a very specific niche of tech.
Yes, people with specific, real AI skills (and by "real" I'm specifically excluding the "let me show you the secrets to a good prompt!!" LinkedInfluencers) are making obscene amounts of money. But there are other folks who were experts in their fields and truly the best are now having a mighty difficult time getting hired. There was a front page HN post recently by a guy who headhunters used to trip over themselves to contact, who wrote a number of programming books, who was considering leaving tech because he couldn't get hired. Now, granted, a big reason he couldn't get hired is because he was looking for a fully remote job and that world is largely gone, but I think another big reason is that he was a technology expert in specific programming languages, and that is exactly the type of expertise that AI is making less valuable.
Yes, people with specific, real AI skills (and by "real" I'm specifically excluding the "let me show you the secrets to a good prompt!!" LinkedInfluencers) are making obscene amounts of money. But there are other folks who were experts in their fields and truly the best are now having a mighty difficult time getting hired. There was a front page HN post recently by a guy who headhunters used to trip over themselves to contact, who wrote a number of programming books, who was considering leaving tech because he couldn't get hired. Now, granted, a big reason he couldn't get hired is because he was looking for a fully remote job and that world is largely gone, but I think another big reason is that he was a technology expert in specific programming languages, and that is exactly the type of expertise that AI is making less valuable.