Agree! Great article! You have me feeling more grateful for walking my pathless path, doing things from my deeper purposes more since last year. I feel like lots of traditional works, and senses of achievement tied to work will dissolve. People must rethink their lives and purposes beyond norms, and logic. People will have to do something that makes them feel truly alive and stay true to their core more.
1) Coding is like typing - first it was a standalone job, now it's becoming a thing more and more people will need to be able to do at a basic level in order to do their actual, higher-level jobs. As a professional software engineer for 17 years I celebrate this and look forward to being able to do any number of interesting things in the future.
2) Your point that "it’s kind of funny to think about how much low-skill admin work is being done by highly paid people" recalls something Cal Newport wrote about in one of his books: when Henry Ford invented his assembly line it increased per-worker productivity by 50x (!) since people were no longer spending time walking back and forth to the partially built vehicle, finding the part or tool they needed in a bin, etc. The analogous breakthrough for knowledge work has still not been made, and in that vast section of the economy we may still currently be working 50x more inefficiently than we in theory could be. (Having worked at corporations myself, I 100% think this is the case.)
You talk about the loss of the bag carriers at the bottom of the pyramid. For a business that is great in the here and now for obvious reasons but in the medium to long term we’re going to see a struggle to hire “good enough and experienced enough” staff to fill those positions left.
It’s the bag carriers of today that are the middle managers and execs of tomorrow.
How do the young of today get the experience needed to fulfill these positions?
My bold bet that I posted (Loom video) to in the PP Circle regarding computer science and AI-empowered coding
> The funny thing about this is that I am learning quite a bit. I’ve made it much further than I ever have in the past in terms of learning about IDEs, coding best practices, terminal commands, git commits, and how to use a wide range of developer tools like github, vscode, vercel, netlify and understanding various frameworks like Tailwind, Next.js, and more.
"Authors who pride themselves on slow, grinding work and painful writing processes will not be happy about the millions that can write relatively close to their own level." This has given me goosebumps. As a writer, both professionally and in terms of my identity, I kind of love-hate it. When thinking about AI writing - First comes the fear. Then comes the vision - the almost begrudging acknowledgment of the vast universe of possibility. Then comes the realization that everyone you know, including your worst enemy, has access to that same vast universe of possibility. Then comes the existential questioning, of whether human exceptionalism really exists anyway, since we seem to be able to manufacture better versions of our abilities as bots. To quote Thomas Jefferson, "We have the wolf by the ears and we can neither hold him safely nor can we let him go." Wondering where it will all net out.
Thanks to LLMs with chain of thought and no safety nerfs, I’ve leveled up my company valuation abilities for investing. I’d wager I’m at the level of analyst on wall st. My next post will be about this and the implications for markets and retail investors
Input companies in your portfolio or ones you’re considering investing in, with 24 hrs you’ll get a comprehensive, unbiased valuation report with multiple methodologies, stress tested in different scenarios. Shows its work and will have multiple models check the work and sources.
Your introduction on how you have been coding is exactly my experience since I started using Cursor. I was also mostly non-technical previously, but can now easily code up simple apps within a few hours, and have been learning much more than banging my head on Stack Overflow.
Smaller groups have the advantage to pivot and not have to overhaul a ginormous system to try new ways of doing.
> This shift also raises uncomfortable questions about work and careers. If low-level tasks disappear and we now have intelligent thought-partners that can co-create with us, why would companies structure their organizations in the traditional pyramid? Why spend your time training 10-15 people, of which 1-2 may stay with the company? Why not hire 1-2 that are already really good and pay them much more?
When you have a system that has built-in achievement along with debugging, you can get so much further.
> The reason I’m learning this stuff is simple: it’s fun. These tools have removed a lot of the friction from coding and because of that, I am less likely to give up.
Agree! Great article! You have me feeling more grateful for walking my pathless path, doing things from my deeper purposes more since last year. I feel like lots of traditional works, and senses of achievement tied to work will dissolve. People must rethink their lives and purposes beyond norms, and logic. People will have to do something that makes them feel truly alive and stay true to their core more.
Very insightful. I have two main takeaways:
1) Coding is like typing - first it was a standalone job, now it's becoming a thing more and more people will need to be able to do at a basic level in order to do their actual, higher-level jobs. As a professional software engineer for 17 years I celebrate this and look forward to being able to do any number of interesting things in the future.
2) Your point that "it’s kind of funny to think about how much low-skill admin work is being done by highly paid people" recalls something Cal Newport wrote about in one of his books: when Henry Ford invented his assembly line it increased per-worker productivity by 50x (!) since people were no longer spending time walking back and forth to the partially built vehicle, finding the part or tool they needed in a bin, etc. The analogous breakthrough for knowledge work has still not been made, and in that vast section of the economy we may still currently be working 50x more inefficiently than we in theory could be. (Having worked at corporations myself, I 100% think this is the case.)
can confirm on corporate productivity haha
Great article Paul.
You talk about the loss of the bag carriers at the bottom of the pyramid. For a business that is great in the here and now for obvious reasons but in the medium to long term we’re going to see a struggle to hire “good enough and experienced enough” staff to fill those positions left.
It’s the bag carriers of today that are the middle managers and execs of tomorrow.
How do the young of today get the experience needed to fulfill these positions?
i have no idea!
😀
Ya, me, I'd rather think than work!
My bold bet that I posted (Loom video) to in the PP Circle regarding computer science and AI-empowered coding
> The funny thing about this is that I am learning quite a bit. I’ve made it much further than I ever have in the past in terms of learning about IDEs, coding best practices, terminal commands, git commits, and how to use a wide range of developer tools like github, vscode, vercel, netlify and understanding various frameworks like Tailwind, Next.js, and more.
"Authors who pride themselves on slow, grinding work and painful writing processes will not be happy about the millions that can write relatively close to their own level." This has given me goosebumps. As a writer, both professionally and in terms of my identity, I kind of love-hate it. When thinking about AI writing - First comes the fear. Then comes the vision - the almost begrudging acknowledgment of the vast universe of possibility. Then comes the realization that everyone you know, including your worst enemy, has access to that same vast universe of possibility. Then comes the existential questioning, of whether human exceptionalism really exists anyway, since we seem to be able to manufacture better versions of our abilities as bots. To quote Thomas Jefferson, "We have the wolf by the ears and we can neither hold him safely nor can we let him go." Wondering where it will all net out.
these are the questions im thinking about too - its very jarring
Thanks to LLMs with chain of thought and no safety nerfs, I’ve leveled up my company valuation abilities for investing. I’d wager I’m at the level of analyst on wall st. My next post will be about this and the implications for markets and retail investors
i believe it
could you use those skills to win a $50M M&A project? no, but you might come up with more interesting ways to use it, that's the interesting thign
I might make a wrapper for it
Input companies in your portfolio or ones you’re considering investing in, with 24 hrs you’ll get a comprehensive, unbiased valuation report with multiple methodologies, stress tested in different scenarios. Shows its work and will have multiple models check the work and sources.
AI valuations as a service
Very timely to dive into more Good Work!
How intimidating and liberating. I'm excited that I get to be more Human with more AI superpowers.
good work is just following your curiosity (or at least i tell myself)
Follow the fun 🥳
"This clearly changes the role of the knowledge worker from someone who is moving knowledge around to someone that needs to generate unique knowledge"
Your introduction on how you have been coding is exactly my experience since I started using Cursor. I was also mostly non-technical previously, but can now easily code up simple apps within a few hours, and have been learning much more than banging my head on Stack Overflow.
Really interesting, thank you! Could you say a bit more on where/how you’ve been teaching synthesis abilities?
I didn't realize you had a Ted Goia review 😅
Smaller groups have the advantage to pivot and not have to overhaul a ginormous system to try new ways of doing.
> This shift also raises uncomfortable questions about work and careers. If low-level tasks disappear and we now have intelligent thought-partners that can co-create with us, why would companies structure their organizations in the traditional pyramid? Why spend your time training 10-15 people, of which 1-2 may stay with the company? Why not hire 1-2 that are already really good and pay them much more?
When you have a system that has built-in achievement along with debugging, you can get so much further.
> The reason I’m learning this stuff is simple: it’s fun. These tools have removed a lot of the friction from coding and because of that, I am less likely to give up.