"The more AI can do, the more I want to do with it. I don’t fire people when I find a faster workflow. I find ten new things I couldn’t have tried before. " This is exactly what I tell investors that want AI to make us more efficient so I need fewer people.
Exactly the theory we emphasize always. it's about the building more values to enable the employability of more people that's the scale the world deserves. The FOMO strategy for the people with mal intentions not for the greater purpose
Tulips didn't become 100x more useful while getting cheaper. The product itself had no compounding value. AI does. So even if some companies are overvalued today (and some definitely are), the technology underneath is accelerating.
Precisely. The installation phase is expensive, and the speculative frenzy funds that necessary infrastructure. Much value is wiped out when the frenzy ends, but the generational wealth is built in the deployment phase that follows.
Amazon survived because it acted as a bridge..it was an installation company that successfully spanned to utility deployment. Those 'dual player' companies, builders of the infrastructure and enablers of the mass utility, are the only true unicorns.
I think it’s important to make a distinction when you use the term “bubble” in your article. If you refer to AI use and future, clearly not only is not a bubble but it’s a technology revolution “just” started which will change radically the way we live.
However I feel that you are somehow mixing the above mentioned with economic bubbles. And when we approach this from an economic point of view to me there is no doubt this IS a bubble for many reasons: energy bottlenecks not be enough for data centres etc, huge investment in chips that will be obsolete before investment amortisation, circular investment of few companies and accounting manoeuvre. There are plenty of clear signs if one is looking for, one clear sign is Google issuing for the first time 100 years bond (last company doing that was Motorola at their pick before their fate changed).
You can have an economic bubble (and we will within the next few six months most likely) and at the same or after that also the technology at the centre of that bubble being a revolution. They are not mutually excluding.
Basically in your article I would have not used the word bubble which I associate mainly to stocks.
Said all that I enjoy your articles and knowledge sharing.
But who is calling for an AI bubble for 20 years? I think it’s something that came up in the last year for mounting logical arguments. It’s definitely popping before the end of year and most likely in the next few months. Stocks since January are showing signs of panic by falling daily a lot then the next day going up a lot. This is not business as usual. These are important signs that should be acknowledged. Yes, people can stay invested until bubble pops thinking they can time the market… but that is called gambling, not investing. (This is not financial advice. Do your own research before investing.)
You’ve nailed the distinction between the economic bubble and the tech revolution. This aligns perfectly with the 'Installation Phase' in cycle theory, where frenzied speculation funds the infrastructure (chips/energy) that often goes bust before it becomes useful.
The key to surviving that 'obsolescence' you mentioned is bridging the gap. Amazon survived not just because it was a 'tech revolution,' but because it was a dual-player. It acted as the Installation builder (infrastructure) that successfully transitioned to the Deployment utility (AWS/Logistics).
The companies that can span that gap, building the rails during the bubble and owning the utility after, are the ones that survive the amortization trap you described.
Calling AI a bubble is emotionally comforting because it lets you keep your current workflow but bubbles don’t usually get better and cheaper at the same time. Even if valuations deflate, the capability curve keeps compounding, so the smart move is simple: treat AI like an asymmetric bet and build the skills/workflows now, worst case you get faster, best case you don’t get left behind.
The asymmetric bet section should be the whole post.
That's the only argument that matters: If AI is a bubble and you learned it anyway, you lost some weekends. If AI is real and you waited, you lost a decade of compounding advantage.
One side risks time. The other risks relevance.
People love asking "is AI a bubble?" because the question itself is a stall tactic. It sounds smart. It buys time. It lets you keep doing nothing while feeling like you're being "thoughtful."
One scenario costs you some evenings. The other costs you your career trajectory. And that’s not even a 50/50 bet: one has almost no downside and the other has almost no ceiling.
The thoughtful people asking the question are making the riskiest bet in the room.
They just don't see it because it feels like standing still. And standing still feels safe. It's not.
Just from the little I've seen in the past year and a half, AI will be the most life altering technology since the last time we made it to this point in a not so distant civilization, and subsequently destroyed ourselves in short order after its arrival. This will inevitably and unfortunately be the result this time around as well. It's not if it will be used to destroy the world only when?
My son is a creative — artist, musician, film school grad — and he wants nothing more than to build a life in the film industry. He's also taken a hard stance against AI. In his eyes, it has devalued everything he pours his soul into. He's 23, idealistic, and genuinely believes that if he boycotts AI, he alone will defeat it.
I've told him — more times than he wants to hear — that he needs to learn it. Use it as an extension of his creativity, not a replacement for it. But any mention of AI shuts the conversation down. It's visceral for him.
I understand where his heart is. But it's hard for me to relate to his contempt for it, because I use AI for everything I do. I wake up looking for new ways it can help me improve — work faster, work better, just work. It's not a tool I dabble with. It's how I operate.
And that's what keeps me up at night. He won't lose his job to AI because it replaces what he does. He'll lose it because someone who does what he does also uses AI — and he refused to. He is, without question, the person who three years from now will wish he had started today.
The cruelest part? The creativity he's trying to protect is the exact thing that would make him exceptional with AI. He just can't see it yet.
Your son has taste. That's the part you should hold onto :)
Most people using AI have zero taste. They type a prompt, accept the first output, and call it creative work. Your son would never do that. That's his edge. He just doesn't know it yet.
And if it helps: the fact that he cares this much about his craft means he's already ahead of 90% of people using AI today. They have the tool but no taste. He has the taste but no tool.
The second he picks it up, it's over for everyone else, really.
The incentive shift is real. I don't need a team of 10 to launch something that looks professional anymore. I need taste + AI + 15 hours. Maybe even less.
Exactly, they are dead ending trillions of dollars into AGI that can’t emerge because the systems don’t allow it. However, that system was built on a cell phone with two AI models in less then a month. If we don’t improve our systems, they will just keep offloading pressure onto people.
You talk about people not using AI and starting to learn. And you talk about those fully using AI. But what happens when all that changes because of AI? I'm still not sure where to position myself. Seems like no matter what I learn, I'll still be behind, still won't be enough as AI keeps improving. Wondering where we are really going, what I should really do. Give up and just get out my canvas and paint brush? That's not what I'm doing, but I wonder -- when I look back, what will I wish I had done with my time.
I respectfully disagree. No one doubts the power of AI but the bubble is these companies valuations. i.e. AI might not be able to raise their next capital because they’re over valued.
I think people are more concerned about the lack of guardrails and regulations by these overvalued companies. If that’s your definition of bubble, then yes. I think it’s dangerous to think that these companies will do right by the people instead of their board members.
Thank you Ruben. Another thoughtful article on the consequences of not learning and not using what is a force multiplier because it was just “OK” three years ago.
The consequences are especially stark for people who enter professional life - the first rung of the (career) ladder. As societies, whilst are several factors at play here, look at the <25 year old unemployment figures across the board. Not trending in the right direction.
In business, think about the consequences of not training the next generations in whatever comes next - what happens in 5-15 years from now as we all focus on the next quarter results.
Learn, learn and USE that learning: build a business asap!
The “knowledge” economy is overrated…it’s “knowledge AND doing” that matters.
So:
1- learn AI tools and the underlying mechanics and tech (who wants to be an unsophisticated customer or user?!).
2- use it by going deep and playing often. Construct simple things (e.g. a scanner for events you like, which then offers you ideas about tickets for events you have not thought of autonomously with agents and writes to you and friends to organise the outing; anything…!)
3- learn maths, languages, history, geography, coding, business, economics, selling …anything which interests you, REALLY interest you. You can learn in books and school, and by doing outside of school or books. But learn.
4- look for problems encountered by others in the topic(s) which light your fire - there is so much online now (Reddit, etc. endless list) where people complain about things. Do this using what you learned in 2 and 3, above.
5- start simple by creating a workflow that solves the problems which people are starting to use. Use simple agents.
6- look at the data of what works and does not.
7- add time to what does and see stats go up.
8- build a business.
30 years ago, it was difficult and expensive to build a business.
The cost of doing so today in unregulated industries has crashed to the time it takes to do so. And that time is now compressed by use of AI tools. And they are only getting better.
It’s our job to show next generations (and more) how they can make this work for them. There is a lot of “it’s going to be bad, bubble this/that etc” but not targeted specifically to people should do about it who are about to enter the job market (and to their parents, employers, etc).
After our exchange, I wrote a piece yesterday. My audience is mostly Boards. You have a great broad audience and a letter to 17 year olds is a great idea. I look forward to reading it.
I’d add since the weekend, I saw economists came out with another version of the “K-shaped” recovery….
The next 2-3 years will decide which line you're on with an “overclass” that masters AI with “high agency” to build wealth, automate income, and make decisions at a speed no human can compete with alone. Then, there is an “underclass” with “low agency” that is managed by AI.
That’s another “class war” we don’t need. 15% levels of youth unemployment last saw the 1968 riots which left scars until the end of the 1970s. Who needs that when there is so much uncertainty out there?
Let’s plot a path for generations to make this important change work - that will also help improve stubbornly low productivity levels too.
In this sense, not a single (rich) kid in high school anymore not on AI-steroids. AI does almost all the homework. Artificial Intelligence creates Superficial Intelligence, at least for them. I see this everywhere everyday now. Big difference between the place you were born - if you know what I mean. What kind of advice do we give them, our kids? For sure I am in on this AI-call-for-action - I clearly see the point - but aren’t we missing something? Something essential? It does feel like we’re in the wild wild west right now. Without proper directions. For sure we’ll get lost.
According to Grok: “In modern usage, “useless eaters” is a dark, often sarcastic or alarmist internet term for people seen as economically worthless in an AI-automated future—typically the jobless, low-skill workers, welfare recipients, or anyone tech/elite discourse labels as consuming resources without producing enough value to justify their existence.”
"The more AI can do, the more I want to do with it. I don’t fire people when I find a faster workflow. I find ten new things I couldn’t have tried before. " This is exactly what I tell investors that want AI to make us more efficient so I need fewer people.
Tell them. I integrated AI into everything I do and ended up hiring MORE people. 10x the ideas worth executing means you need more hands, not fewer.
Exactly the theory we emphasize always. it's about the building more values to enable the employability of more people that's the scale the world deserves. The FOMO strategy for the people with mal intentions not for the greater purpose
“Bubbles don’t get cheaper…”
You misunderstand. The tulip bubble isn’t the cost per token. It’s the value of the companies selling tokens.
Tulips didn't become 100x more useful while getting cheaper. The product itself had no compounding value. AI does. So even if some companies are overvalued today (and some definitely are), the technology underneath is accelerating.
Amazon lost 90% of its value after the dot-com crash. It was still Amazon.
Precisely. The installation phase is expensive, and the speculative frenzy funds that necessary infrastructure. Much value is wiped out when the frenzy ends, but the generational wealth is built in the deployment phase that follows.
Amazon survived because it acted as a bridge..it was an installation company that successfully spanned to utility deployment. Those 'dual player' companies, builders of the infrastructure and enablers of the mass utility, are the only true unicorns.
I think it’s important to make a distinction when you use the term “bubble” in your article. If you refer to AI use and future, clearly not only is not a bubble but it’s a technology revolution “just” started which will change radically the way we live.
However I feel that you are somehow mixing the above mentioned with economic bubbles. And when we approach this from an economic point of view to me there is no doubt this IS a bubble for many reasons: energy bottlenecks not be enough for data centres etc, huge investment in chips that will be obsolete before investment amortisation, circular investment of few companies and accounting manoeuvre. There are plenty of clear signs if one is looking for, one clear sign is Google issuing for the first time 100 years bond (last company doing that was Motorola at their pick before their fate changed).
You can have an economic bubble (and we will within the next few six months most likely) and at the same or after that also the technology at the centre of that bubble being a revolution. They are not mutually excluding.
Basically in your article I would have not used the word bubble which I associate mainly to stocks.
Said all that I enjoy your articles and knowledge sharing.
Calling for a bubble during 20 years (until it pops) makes someone very wrong.
Same vibe here. Yes if I call for a recession for the next 20 years, one year i’ll be right. But not being right on time is very wrong.
But who is calling for an AI bubble for 20 years? I think it’s something that came up in the last year for mounting logical arguments. It’s definitely popping before the end of year and most likely in the next few months. Stocks since January are showing signs of panic by falling daily a lot then the next day going up a lot. This is not business as usual. These are important signs that should be acknowledged. Yes, people can stay invested until bubble pops thinking they can time the market… but that is called gambling, not investing. (This is not financial advice. Do your own research before investing.)
You’ve nailed the distinction between the economic bubble and the tech revolution. This aligns perfectly with the 'Installation Phase' in cycle theory, where frenzied speculation funds the infrastructure (chips/energy) that often goes bust before it becomes useful.
The key to surviving that 'obsolescence' you mentioned is bridging the gap. Amazon survived not just because it was a 'tech revolution,' but because it was a dual-player. It acted as the Installation builder (infrastructure) that successfully transitioned to the Deployment utility (AWS/Logistics).
The companies that can span that gap, building the rails during the bubble and owning the utility after, are the ones that survive the amortization trap you described.
Spot on!
Glad to hear :)
Calling AI a bubble is emotionally comforting because it lets you keep your current workflow but bubbles don’t usually get better and cheaper at the same time. Even if valuations deflate, the capability curve keeps compounding, so the smart move is simple: treat AI like an asymmetric bet and build the skills/workflows now, worst case you get faster, best case you don’t get left behind.
That's basically the whole article in one paragraph. You get it. Now go open Claude tonight
g00d aRticLe - jUst kEEp pLaYiNg ...
yep
The asymmetric bet section should be the whole post.
That's the only argument that matters: If AI is a bubble and you learned it anyway, you lost some weekends. If AI is real and you waited, you lost a decade of compounding advantage.
One side risks time. The other risks relevance.
People love asking "is AI a bubble?" because the question itself is a stall tactic. It sounds smart. It buys time. It lets you keep doing nothing while feeling like you're being "thoughtful."
Can we afford to be wrong?
One scenario costs you some evenings. The other costs you your career trajectory. And that’s not even a 50/50 bet: one has almost no downside and the other has almost no ceiling.
The thoughtful people asking the question are making the riskiest bet in the room.
They just don't see it because it feels like standing still. And standing still feels safe. It's not.
That bet is known as Pascals wager.
Just from the little I've seen in the past year and a half, AI will be the most life altering technology since the last time we made it to this point in a not so distant civilization, and subsequently destroyed ourselves in short order after its arrival. This will inevitably and unfortunately be the result this time around as well. It's not if it will be used to destroy the world only when?
I don't write about whether AI will end the world. I write about how to use it on a Monday morning.
I focus on what I can control: whether I'm good enough with these tools to do better work, hire more people, and teach others to do the same.
My son is a creative — artist, musician, film school grad — and he wants nothing more than to build a life in the film industry. He's also taken a hard stance against AI. In his eyes, it has devalued everything he pours his soul into. He's 23, idealistic, and genuinely believes that if he boycotts AI, he alone will defeat it.
I've told him — more times than he wants to hear — that he needs to learn it. Use it as an extension of his creativity, not a replacement for it. But any mention of AI shuts the conversation down. It's visceral for him.
I understand where his heart is. But it's hard for me to relate to his contempt for it, because I use AI for everything I do. I wake up looking for new ways it can help me improve — work faster, work better, just work. It's not a tool I dabble with. It's how I operate.
And that's what keeps me up at night. He won't lose his job to AI because it replaces what he does. He'll lose it because someone who does what he does also uses AI — and he refused to. He is, without question, the person who three years from now will wish he had started today.
The cruelest part? The creativity he's trying to protect is the exact thing that would make him exceptional with AI. He just can't see it yet.
Your son has taste. That's the part you should hold onto :)
Most people using AI have zero taste. They type a prompt, accept the first output, and call it creative work. Your son would never do that. That's his edge. He just doesn't know it yet.
And if it helps: the fact that he cares this much about his craft means he's already ahead of 90% of people using AI today. They have the tool but no taste. He has the taste but no tool.
The second he picks it up, it's over for everyone else, really.
Very well structured thought process, which I have also been trying to explain to people!
thank you :) nothing good happens from watching from the sidelines, only when we open the tool.
This isn’t a bubble cycle.
It’s a compression event.
AI is collapsing the distance between idea and execution.
That changes incentives, not just markets.
The incentive shift is real. I don't need a team of 10 to launch something that looks professional anymore. I need taste + AI + 15 hours. Maybe even less.
Ruben, talk about this and a lot more weekly forecast. Always nice connecting with fellow thinkers.
Exactly, they are dead ending trillions of dollars into AGI that can’t emerge because the systems don’t allow it. However, that system was built on a cell phone with two AI models in less then a month. If we don’t improve our systems, they will just keep offloading pressure onto people.
You talk about people not using AI and starting to learn. And you talk about those fully using AI. But what happens when all that changes because of AI? I'm still not sure where to position myself. Seems like no matter what I learn, I'll still be behind, still won't be enough as AI keeps improving. Wondering where we are really going, what I should really do. Give up and just get out my canvas and paint brush? That's not what I'm doing, but I wonder -- when I look back, what will I wish I had done with my time.
tonight, pick ONE thing you do at work that takes you an hour. just one.
paste it into Claude with this: "I do this every week and it takes me an hour. Show me a faster way"
you're exactly where everyone who's winning was six months ago. they just started.
I respectfully disagree. No one doubts the power of AI but the bubble is these companies valuations. i.e. AI might not be able to raise their next capital because they’re over valued.
I think people are more concerned about the lack of guardrails and regulations by these overvalued companies. If that’s your definition of bubble, then yes. I think it’s dangerous to think that these companies will do right by the people instead of their board members.
When you say "these companies," who exactly do you mean?
Right now, the biggest winners in AI aren't scrappy startups. It's Google. Microsoft. Nvidia. Meta.
Trillion dollar companies (vs. the internet bubble). Or maybe you mean something else.
Thank you Ruben. Another thoughtful article on the consequences of not learning and not using what is a force multiplier because it was just “OK” three years ago.
The consequences are especially stark for people who enter professional life - the first rung of the (career) ladder. As societies, whilst are several factors at play here, look at the <25 year old unemployment figures across the board. Not trending in the right direction.
In business, think about the consequences of not training the next generations in whatever comes next - what happens in 5-15 years from now as we all focus on the next quarter results.
Good article.
i feel bad for juniors tbh, i struggle to give them proper advice for the future
Learn, learn and USE that learning: build a business asap!
The “knowledge” economy is overrated…it’s “knowledge AND doing” that matters.
So:
1- learn AI tools and the underlying mechanics and tech (who wants to be an unsophisticated customer or user?!).
2- use it by going deep and playing often. Construct simple things (e.g. a scanner for events you like, which then offers you ideas about tickets for events you have not thought of autonomously with agents and writes to you and friends to organise the outing; anything…!)
3- learn maths, languages, history, geography, coding, business, economics, selling …anything which interests you, REALLY interest you. You can learn in books and school, and by doing outside of school or books. But learn.
4- look for problems encountered by others in the topic(s) which light your fire - there is so much online now (Reddit, etc. endless list) where people complain about things. Do this using what you learned in 2 and 3, above.
5- start simple by creating a workflow that solves the problems which people are starting to use. Use simple agents.
6- look at the data of what works and does not.
7- add time to what does and see stats go up.
8- build a business.
30 years ago, it was difficult and expensive to build a business.
The cost of doing so today in unregulated industries has crashed to the time it takes to do so. And that time is now compressed by use of AI tools. And they are only getting better.
GO!
I need to "Write a letter for 17-year-olds".
That will be one of my next newsletters. Thanks for the inspiration!!
Go for it!
It’s our job to show next generations (and more) how they can make this work for them. There is a lot of “it’s going to be bad, bubble this/that etc” but not targeted specifically to people should do about it who are about to enter the job market (and to their parents, employers, etc).
After our exchange, I wrote a piece yesterday. My audience is mostly Boards. You have a great broad audience and a letter to 17 year olds is a great idea. I look forward to reading it.
I’d add since the weekend, I saw economists came out with another version of the “K-shaped” recovery….
The next 2-3 years will decide which line you're on with an “overclass” that masters AI with “high agency” to build wealth, automate income, and make decisions at a speed no human can compete with alone. Then, there is an “underclass” with “low agency” that is managed by AI.
That’s another “class war” we don’t need. 15% levels of youth unemployment last saw the 1968 riots which left scars until the end of the 1970s. Who needs that when there is so much uncertainty out there?
Let’s plot a path for generations to make this important change work - that will also help improve stubbornly low productivity levels too.
In this sense, not a single (rich) kid in high school anymore not on AI-steroids. AI does almost all the homework. Artificial Intelligence creates Superficial Intelligence, at least for them. I see this everywhere everyday now. Big difference between the place you were born - if you know what I mean. What kind of advice do we give them, our kids? For sure I am in on this AI-call-for-action - I clearly see the point - but aren’t we missing something? Something essential? It does feel like we’re in the wild wild west right now. Without proper directions. For sure we’ll get lost.
I see the Law of Unitend consequences coming.
If politics involves itself it will be positive negative and perverse - it will happen for sure. Thank you
Matt Shumer says hi.
:) for the first sentence?
Dude, you are funny.
Given the amount of capex being invested, perhaps the more pertinent question is for whom is AI being built? Perhaps not for us useless eaters??
useless eaters of what
According to Grok: “In modern usage, “useless eaters” is a dark, often sarcastic or alarmist internet term for people seen as economically worthless in an AI-automated future—typically the jobless, low-skill workers, welfare recipients, or anyone tech/elite discourse labels as consuming resources without producing enough value to justify their existence.”