AI is Founder Augmentation

The ideal number of human employees in any company is zero.

This is a flaw of capitalism, not automation, yet in the next couple years there will be a growing tendency to blame AI for the loss of human jobs. The strange truth is that the entire phenomenon of people having jobs that pay them money comes from one simple dynamic:

There are some people who want to make things that don’t exist yet, and they are unable to make those things without external help.

When either of those two things reduces, or goes to zero, so goes much of our current economy. It’s the drive to make things, and the fact that creators cannot do it alone.

This is why there are hundreds of millions of people with jobs that pay them money to live. Think about that when you see people walking around buying things with money paid to them by employers.

If that employer could do all the work themselves, they not only could-but they should-do exactly that. This is a much clearer way to think about AI with respect to human employment.

Rather than thinking about reduction of employees, think instead of AI making the founder into a superhuman that can do the work of 10,000 employees herself.

AI isn't replacing human workers; it's replacing the need for human workers.

Ask yourself this:

• Are there people outside of your home picking because they want to wash your dishes. No, because you have a dishwasher.
• Are there lantern bearers lined up outside your house angry because you won’t hire them to give your home light after dark? No, Because you have electric lights.

Dishwashers and electric lights are now just capabilities of homeowners, and so nobody is angry at them for not hiring teams of people to do those things manually

That same thing is about to happen to knowledge work with AI, and then physical labor with AI powered robots. Founders will simply be able to do sales, marketing, design, accounting, project management, administration, and 1000 other tasks by themselves using AI agent-based services.

It is hard to overstate how much of an impact this is going to have on society. The more enabled founders are, the more they can make, at higher quality, and at higher speed.

No workers, no money ​

But who exactly is buying all these new products? Weren’t we previously buying all these products with money that we earned from employers? In this world, there are far fewer employers, which means fewer employees, which means fewer wages and salaries.

So where exactly is this money coming from to buy all these new products that are being made?

This is a Matrix-like moment for me, and if you think about it long enough, it will be for you as well. Look at the freeways, look at the people in the grocery store, look at all the people on all the TV shows you watch. They all survive, and the entire economy works, because founders can only do the work of one person.

As of this year-2025-that is no longer the case, and the implications are going to be colossal.

I’m not trying to scare you. This will not happen overnight for several reasons, but it has started already and it will accelerate in 2025 as AI agent systems come online and become dependable. I suspect that by 2028 what I am saying will be undeniable, and by 2030 it will be an emergency, which will likely be addressed with legislation.

I am telling you this so that you can get ready.

I obviously don’t have a perfect answer for how to do that, but I do know it'll involve being as human as possible. What exactly that means we still have to work out, but I think it starts with being a full spectrum individual, eclectic and polymathic in your pursuits, and centered around human connection.

I recommend you start there, and we will figure it out as go. We are moving out of the time of corporate labor and into whatever comes next. It’s scary, but it’s also wonderful.