30 Great AI Inversion Thoughts
What if white and blue collar pay flips because software tech costs become commoditized to just one shot prompts
Random Observation/Comment #923: Just because the technical part of the product development is accelerated, doesn’t mean that the “what’s my Product Market Fit?” question has been solved. It’s a whole new market of thrifty builders.
//Clembot trying to keep up
Why this list?
TL;DR: We're cooked. I have been building with AI tools for the past few years and it feels like every new shiny tool just accelerates passed my previous implementations. So much refactoring Clembot has gone through. I wonder if I can just skip a cycle?
There’s going to be a lot of disruption if we extrapolate the impact of the death of SaaS. For each point, I’ve thought of a “Hedge” which has helped ground me with my AI adoption strategy.
Status Reversal - Physical skills become so much more valuable than tech saturation.
The Hedge: Maintain a “Physical Anchor.” Whether it’s my basement renovation or disc golf, I intend to keep skills where the “Undo” button doesn’t exist. I’ve always found a joy of using my hands.
SaaS Decimation - Bespoke internal tools can replace expensive subscriptions (at least 75% of features). I actually thought the buy vs build narrative would shift to buy in the past decade, but now the pendulum is swinging hard the other way.
The Hedge: Stop learning “how to use Salesforce” or other specific tools like Figma. Instead, understand Schema Design. If I own the data structure, then I can prompt the trending CRM. Tools like Figma will likely be jumping file formats that get immediately moved to working prototypes.
The Death of “Features” - We prompt for outcomes, instead of buttons or new UI/UX consistent across apps. Maybe this is my own bespoke app or maybe there’s going to be a wave of “customized” dashboards for each user based on their overall usage. I already feel like I’m accessing all the endpoints through skills instead of waiting for the UI from someone else.
The Hedge: I aim to become an Outcome Architect. Consider focusing on defining the “Definition of Done” so clearly that an agent can’t misinterpret it. I probably won't need to write another line of code.
Hardware as the Only Moat - Compute and energy are the real foundations. The hardware itself can house my personal Jarvis server with high mem instead of relying on services that might try to connect to your data (or learn from your prompts).
The Hedge: Invest in Edge Hardware. Own a high-spec local machine (or a private server) to run local models (SLMs) so you aren’t throttled by a provider’s API.
Blue Collar Renaissance - AI can’t swing a hammer (yet). I have always felt it more rewarding to build things.
The Hedge: Build a network of Trusted Humans. In a world of digital “perfection”, knowing a reliable electrician is more valuable than knowing a Python dev.
The One-Person Unicorn - Efficiency over headcount. A very motivated and hardworking person might actually be more successful than a smart one.
The Hedge: Master Agentic Orchestration. I've learned to manage 10 specialized AI agents (one for SEO, one for copy, one for lead gen, etc) as if they were a marketing team.
Algorithm vs. Mass - Efficient algorithms win over brute-force scaling. There were so many times people went to market faster with human labor, but I don't think that's the case anymore.
The Hedge: Stay “Algorithm Agnostic.” Use libraries like LangChain or Ollama that allow you to swap your model “brain” without rebuilding the “body.”
Bespoke Everything - Every employee has a custom-generated UI. You can build something that fits for you. It can be a full life dashboard. You can fully copy a SaaS app.
The Hedge: Curate your Personal Prompt Library. Your specific way of directing AI to build your “Cognitive OS” is your proprietary intellectual property. I think this will also kill ads.
The API Apocalypse - Local models simulate third-party services. You might not need someone else's skill because your AI agent can rebuild it from scratch.
The Hedge: Practice Local-First Development. Whenever possible, try to run a task locally before reaching for a paid API. It builds “Inference Intuition.”
The Consultant’s End: Middle management is replaced by routers. We may still see some people rely on consulting companies for accountability, but the real 10x engineers are managing agents and keeping people connected.
The Hedge: Move to the Front or the Back. Either be the person finding the problem (Front) or the person ensuring the physical result (Back). I'm not sure what the “in-between” will become if reporting is just automatically updating the company wide knowledge data lake in real time. My software contribution can be tracked by more than just github pull requests.
Physical Proof of Work - Human-made becomes a premium label.
The Hedge: Document your Process, not just the Product. Show the “behind the scenes” of your work to prove human intentionality was involved. We may add imperfections to seem more human.
The Prompt is the Product - Intent is the new code. It’s more important than ever to dream big and architect your setup and revisit your tooling.
The Hedge: Study Linguistics and Logic. The better you understand how to structure an argument or a command, the better your “code” will be. Maybe I just need to practice being more bossy to my Agent swarm.
Local-First Sovereignty - Enterprises might flee the public cloud. Imagine the infrastructure team in banks going back to maintaining internal AI infrastructure.
The Hedge: Learn Data Privacy Architectures. Understanding how to keep data local and secure will be the most requested “white collar” skill of 2027. This might especially be true with configuring localized virtualization infrastructure.
The IQ/EQ Swap - Empathy is the new high-value skill. A “smart” person is someone that doesn’t necessarily answer complex questions, but works well with people to close deals.
The Hedge: Double down on Community Building. AI can’t organize a neighborhood bourbon crawl or lead a disc golf tournament. People still need to spend their time in person.
Maintenance over Creation - Designing is easy; keeping it running is hard. Deploying to production with low overhead costs and good practices is harder.
The Hedge: Focus on Systems Thinking. Learn how things break. The person who can diagnose why the AI-generated code is crap is the one who gets paid.
The “Good Enough” Plateau - Diminishing returns on “perfect” software.
The Hedge: Value Speed over Perfection. If a 90% solution takes 5 seconds to prompt, ship it and move to the next “Main Quest.” I do feel like all my weird side projects are very buildable and shippable on a whim.
Agentic Hyperinflation: Digital workers outnumber humans.
The Hedge: Establish a “Human Signature.” My personal brand with “Lists of 30” feels unmistakably like me rather than Clembot. I hope people seek me out specifically for the manual joys of brainstorming and using my brain.
Zero-Interest Rate Software - The market value of “code” goes to zero.
The Hedge: Pivot to Value-Based Pricing. Never charge for your time; charge for the impact your bespoke system had on the business.
The New Tech Stack: Compute + Energy + Materials. It seems like the composable models can learn context of existing projects.
The Hedge: Understand Supply Chains. Knowing how chips are made and where energy comes from might open new opportunities. Maybe AI is trying to recruit me to do this stuff.
Education Inversion - Trade schools > CS degrees.
The Hedge: I've always wanted to be a Polymath. It’s important now more than ever to combine a high-level tech understanding with a practical, “blue collar” hobby. The intersection is where the money will be because the plumbers might just work with me to update their tech (even though they could also just do it themselves, but they think it’s too technical to get started).
The Ghost of Technical Debt - AI rewrites code instead of refactoring it. It might be interesting to see Claude code just keep shipping new and more optimized ways to run through and add more features.
The Hedge: I practice Version Control for Ideas for code bases and random ideas. I need to remind myself to not worry about the code history; keep a history of the evolution of the strategy.
The Artisan Economy - Mass production yields to mass bespoke.
The Hedge: Focus on Niche Customization. Use AI to build things that are “too small” for a big company to care about, but life-changing for a single person. Your product market fit might just be for a handful of people for that service. Maybe it's not all plumbers, but just one plumber. Perhaps we all become our own independent contractors.
Data as Currency - Private data is the only tradeable asset.
The Hedge: I’ve started a Personal Data Lake. This includes saving important emails, blog posts, notes, and outputs/deliverables in a clean, searchable format for my private AI Clembot to use. I don’t even know if I want my Clembot to be me.
The Trust Tax - Premium for “verified human” services. I still think we will be the trust layer for execution while using tools.
The Hedge: Use Blockchain networks for Provenance. I'm still unclear on the price addition, but perhaps this is the only way to create some levels of useful interaction. Maybe IPFS and Arweave or DePIN services will be the only thing that lasts economically.
Memory Optimization - Edge devices with high RAM outcompete the cloud. I want a big enough context window memory to easily complete and feed the outcome.
The Hedge: Optimize for Low Latency. I’ve been building my personal tools to work offline (like what Google does with gemini nano instances on your phone). Resilience is being able to work when the Wi-Fi (or the cloud) is down.
The End of Subscriptions - Own the weight file, don’t rent the app. Ownership will remove you from the SaaS world of large recurring bills for most things you don't need digitally. Besides, it might be more fun building than consuming.
The Hedge: Buy Open-Weights Models. Support and use models that you can download and keep forever.
Physical Logistics > Digital Logic - Moving atoms is the new hard problem. It’s scary that China solved this already and the AI strategy literally solved the moving bytes problem for them. AI can make China's physical edge and economy more valuable than ever.
The Hedge: In your free time, consider studying Robotics and Automation. Even if you’re not building robots, understanding how AI interacts with physical sensors is the next frontier.
The Prompt Engineer is a Parent that Rears AI, and not scripts it - I think we'll just be tapping into a new economy with new tools.
The Hedge: Develop Patience. Treat your AI agents like a team you are mentoring. Invest time in “training” them on your specific style and preferences.
The Sovereign Individual 2.0 - Self-contained civilizations where my agent swarm is a one person company.
The Hedge: Build Redundancy. Have a “Plan B” that doesn’t rely on the internet like a physical garden or a library of actual books. The offline Wikipedia phone was a fun project.
The Final Flip - Remembering what makes us human.
The Hedge: Prioritize Analog Experiences. No matter how good the AI video is, the taste of the picanha or the cold air on an Aspen ski run cannot be digitized. I can see concerts, stand up, conferences, Disney, and maybe even cruises to be even more valuable than before.
~See Lemons Hedge AI Bets