AI Is Changing Who Gets to Build

I personally love The Journal. It’s about 25 minutes of going deep on one story that’s actually hitting the news, rather than 25 minutes of the latest headlines. Both are useful ways to stay informed, but sometimes a curious mind wants to go a little deeper, especially when it comes to AI.

A recent episode featuring Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator, got me thinking about AI a little differently.

We’ve heard a lot about AI replacing jobs. We’ve heard about how it makes us more efficient and pushes us to become more like conductors in the workforce, directing and managing the work rather than doing all of the data crunching ourselves.

But what really stuck with me was the idea that AI is also creating space for more people to become entrepreneurs.

I’m currently building a few businesses of my own, and the podcast made me stop and think about how much AI is actually accelerating that process.

Sure, there are the obvious things. AI can help with scope documents, NDAs, business plans, and figuring out how to set up an entity. You still have a lawyer review anything important, but it can dramatically reduce the time and cost of getting started.

For me, though, the real unlock has been research and development.

One of the businesses I’m working on is in the home tech space. I’m a homeowner, but that doesn’t mean I know much about HVAC, plumbing, electrical systems, or how all the various systems in a home actually work.

My baseline knowledge was basically: test the carbon monoxide detectors twice a year, change some filters, and make sure nothing is leaking into the basement.

Building this business meant I had to learn a lot.

AI became my learning tool. I could ask questions, dig deeper, have complicated things explained in plain English, and keep going until I actually understood them. I could then take that knowledge and start thinking about how to turn it into something useful for other homeowners.

And then it went beyond research. With AI and other tools, I built an app, thought through how uploaded documents could be detected and categorized, layered in metadata, and started thinking about how to build something that could actually scale.

And I’m a recovering marketer. I’m not an engineer. I’m not a developer. I’m not a home systems expert. But I knew there was a problem I wanted to solve.

That’s what I think is so interesting about where we are with AI.

It’s not just helping people do their existing jobs faster. It is starting to bridge the gap between “I have an idea” and “I can actually build this.”

Many great marketers, operators, subject matter experts, and entrepreneurs understand a customer problem incredibly well but don't have the technical expertise to build the solution themselves.

AI doesn’t magically give you all of those skills. But it can get you a lot further than you could on your own.

And I think that could lead to something pretty interesting.

We spend a lot of time talking about how many jobs AI will change. I’m equally curious about how many new businesses it will make possible.

There are a lot of great conductors out there. And I have a feeling we’re about to see a lot more of them start building.