Outline

This is a space to test my first post.

• Understand what topic you want to write on first
• Start a draft of that post
• Iterate and eventually publish

Maybe a little story?

• Avatar & Zaheer. Great scene in which you see a whole new body of people enabled to become benders. It was previously locked to a select few, almost like a noble class / class structure. All of a sudden, a whole new group of people uninundated on the philosophy of bending become benders.
• I feel this way about AI. There was previously a class of people that were software engineers. That class of people is expanding (not to everyone), but to many more people that are technically native and engaging with the tools.
• I believe that now is the best time to be learning software engineering. You have an always-on teacher, someone that can summarize the arcane into easy-to-explain examples, and of course in instances write the actual code for you.
• It’s a seminal moment where net-new developers have been created.

What am I writing about?

• The idea that founders of a startup can go full stack from building a product to inking contracts.
• And that much of this is enabled by AI. The founder has more autonomy to complete tasks and realize their vision.
• I still think that building quality software (especially ones that are integrated systems) will require effort. It won’t be one-shot.
• And that interpersonal skills, taste, and being able to make tradeoffs become essential. Especially in a world when so many people will be able to generate boilerplate software. The cost to launch an app is going to zero, but the quality bar for building software is only going to go up.
• This idea that superstar coders could make teams. Akin to a Michael Jordan or superstar player on a basketball team. I think there is opportunity to enable more superstars given today’s tools. People that were previously blocked can now be unlocked. My personal journey around this is telling: I have been enabled through AI - my skillset really lies in connecting dots between systems, a willingness to research and experiment, and a desire to communicate my learnings (often through conversations).
• I was previously blocked by what I felt was an archaic learning style, getting discouraged from hours of fixing small bugs, or just not having access to understanding the basics. Most of which has been unlocked by AI. I now have a teacher at my disposal to answer my dumbest questions on a daily basis. And as I learn more and more frameworks, someone who can summarize or explain to me from first principles how to integrate different components into my software stack.

What does it mean?

• The ability to write code, draft legal contracts, and run sales. Much of it powered and enhanced by AI (not necessarily fully replaced).
• Maybe a hot take, but I am more in the camp of AI enhancing a founder and enabling more autonomy for a founder to realize their vision.
• It has the power to minimize the number of handoffs, reduce management overhead (essentially communicating requirements to employees and contractors), and enables faster iteration cycles.
• Gives the founder a direct chance to experiment with and iterate on their vision.

Concepts

• Software Eng: Full stack alongside coding agents. You still need to learn how to build great software though. Frameworks, architecture.
• Legal: Help with contract templates. Helps with boilerplate, but you still need an eye for the law and the provisions that will protect users and company IP.
• Operations: Still mostly managed by SaaS, but potential for agentic solutions.
• Sales: Still an interpersonal dynamic. You’re really training yourself to do discovery and build interpersonal skills to work with customers. Though there are definitely automations for filtering down your ICP and outreach.
• Marketing: Still have to build a brand. This is where taste will dominate. But AI can support content creation and marketing lifecycle tasks.