New Competitive Benchmark for Silicon Valley Programmers: Token Consumption. Nowadays, the criterion for evaluating a programmer's ability is no longer code quality or project outcomes, but token consumption. Some engineers burn through 210 billion tokens in a week, equivalent to the text volume of 33 Wikipedias; some users face monthly bills exceeding $150,000. Companies like Meta and Shopify have incorporated token consumption into performance evaluations, making tokens a new indicator of workplace competition.
