Daniel Priestley: AI Will Make Plumbers Earn More Than Lawyers! (2029 PREDICTION)
In a Nutshell
Daniel Priestley predicts AI will disrupt white-collar jobs like lawyers and drivers by 2029, while elevating blue-collar trades like plumbers due to shortages and economic shifts, alongside a potential financial meltdown from $650B data center overinvestment triggering an "Engels Pause." Entrepreneurs thrive via the six-step value creation loop—starting with founder-opportunity fit and validation through cheap experiments—building personal brands, lifestyle businesses (e.g., niche SaaS with 500 customers), and ecosystems of products/services leveraging irreplaceably human elements like lived experiences and communities. Key advice: pause-reflect-document personal intellectual property, become a curious generalist combining ideas, reject market distortions, and prioritize relationships over linear success amid boom-bust cycles.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Top 10 jobs most likely to be disrupted by AI. Nature of economy changing: blue-collar work like plumbers, electricians, bricklayers has been devalued, but in next couple of years these roles elevated most, with plumbers regularly earning more than lawyers.
Speaker has built companies from scratch for 25 years, experienced global financial crisis and COVID, but never seen more fear for disruption. Bare case for AI: every request goes to big computer in Walmart-sized building; these computers last 3-4 years before replacement. This year ahead, spend $650 billion, could cause massive financial collapse.
Never seen more excitement for opportunities.
Everyone should build personal brand to position with group who know you and what you do, could enroll you in opportunities—not to become influencer.
Key skill: learn how entrepreneurs think and behave. Entrepreneurs follow six steps repeatedly.
Living in most interesting, opportunistic, terrifying time. AI as replacement of human brain for productivity; robotics disrupting physical form. Demonstration in China: robots doing backflips, landing perfectly.
Jevons Paradox: technology expected to disrupt often has opposite effect. YouTube didn't wipe out TV; Hollywood lost tens of thousands jobs, but YouTube created 500,000-600,000 jobs. Used to take 150 people for TV show/movie; now 5-10 people make successful YouTube channel.
Software company example: previously needed 10,000 customers, 50-person team, $1-5 million funding. Now: 500 customers, 2-person team, tiny funding. Leads to millions of tiny successful niche software businesses (5-10 people). These add software + dinner parties, annual ski retreats, podcast, YouTube channel—all with AI tools.
Jevons Paradox: millions of unmet needs unexplored due to high cost; now costs down, so millions of new businesses emerge for needs we didn't know existed.
Dara (CEO of Uber, turned around Expedia and Uber from losing $2 billion to $9-10 billion revenue) says their 9,000 couriers/drivers won't have jobs.
AI transition speed: instantaneous rollout via existing network. AI learns to be lawyer/diagnose disease in one place, deploys everywhere. Boston Dynamics: one robot learns on shop floor in Boston, all robots learn.
Tesla built world's first Cybercab yesterday: fully autonomous car, no steering wheel/pedals, $30,000. Rent/lease/buy fleets for Uber networks. Uber ride cost drops from $50 to $6-7.
Transformation creates exponential growth unexpectedly.
Newspapers: 500,000 journalists, dropped 80% in 25 years; but bloggers, Substacks, content creators now 100x more, 3-4x more people make journalist-like money.
Content disruption still human-owned previously. Now AI agents churn AI slop on social media.
Graphs show plateau in time spent online (Gen Z first to plateau); content exploding (kid in Mumbai example). Attention limited, content unlimited.
Personal brand like airport in fog: if airplane already above fog, continue flying. Invested personal brand (live events, DOAC community, dinner parties) means liftoff achieved. Starting now/soon: too much AI content, no traction.
Data analysis: variance between worst/best content posts increasing yearly—algorithm cares about most interesting content today, not followers. End of social media, birth of algorithmic media (interest algorithms).
Multi-dimensional creators defensible: books, live events, podcasts, community meetups. One-dimensional (YouTube + AdSense) ending.
First principles defensibility: agricultural age analogy—farmers decide planting time (step 1), toil soil/seed (middle, AI good at), harvest/market (steps 9-10). Entrepreneurs: steps 1-2, AI 3-8, steps 9-10.
Entrepreneurial mindset for exponential: imagine any rate of improvement (e.g., 5% per quarter, 1% per month) eventually viable.
Data centers: like Walmart/airport filled with computers running AI. GPUs like iPhones, last 3 years. $650 billion spend = giving every American an iPhone Pro + AirPods; 95% won't pay, 5% pay $20/month—numbers out of balance.
Predict 2029 financial meltdown (100 years after Great Depression) from data centers. Historical pattern: >3% GDP on infrastructure bankrupts economy for 10 years (railways twice UK/USA, electrification, highways). Data centers worse: 3-4 year lifecycle vs. trains (100 years), roads (50+), fiber (30).
Entrepreneurial skill set most important: identify opportunity, prototype fast/cheap experiments, initial sales, scale to addressable market, exit, new idea. Needed even in corporates for prototyping/spinouts.
Idea validation: rookies fail by going all-in without it. Experienced: fast cheap experiments. Example: set up waiting lists for two ideas last year. One got 750 people joining, filling questions showing interest.
Idea with waiting list: Invited people to join, 4,500 people joined. Not the favorite idea but excited more people and sat on bigger need. Collected data, went to angel investors a week later, raised £250,000 (~$300-400,000) in 1-2 weeks.
Question on ensuring business delivery meets expectations: Examples where ideas sounded good in ads but delivery fell short.
Six steps:
- Step 1: Founder opportunity fit - Finding something you want to do.
- Step 2: Validation - Test if market exists, can build and sell it.
- Step 3: Product market fit - Deliver to meet expectations cheaply; group of people buy and are happy.
- Step 4: Go to market - Make sales.
- Step 5: Scale up.
- Step 6: Exit.
Value creation loop: Validate each step, achieve milestones, proceed as entrepreneurs.
Everything is an opportunity: Entrepreneurs improve things better, faster, cheaper, or with more emotional benefits.
Best opportunity: Small SaaS (software as a service) companies.
- Previously elite: Needed 10-30 developers, millions in funding, 10,000 customers to break even.
- AI reduces costs: Profitable with 500-1,000 customers in tiny niche, plus community, media, training.
Advice: Turn knowledge into playbook, use AI for software ideas and building.
ATS (Applicant Tracking System): Database for recruiting candidates.
Paid tens of thousands yearly for ATS. This year, built bespoke ATS in a couple weeks; first version in 1 week, significantly better.
Opportunity: Cheaper/easier software means more usage, but less paying for others' tools, especially productivity tools.
Enhance with community, education/training, agents.
Example: ATS with DOAC system/training on onboarding, culture; plus bootcamp, retreat, dinner series, funding.
Previously: Software had natural moat due to labor intensity. Now AI enables quick build; what cost $500,000/6-18 months now done in a week.
Risk: 1,000 new ATS daily; one trends on Twitter, people switch to better/agentic ones. Software becoming commodity.
Businesses like YouTube: 25-30 years ago, impossible for 10-person unfunded team to produce weekly TV content cheaply.
- Seinfeld: $5M/episode; Simpsons/Friends: multi-millions/episode.
- Now tiny teams do it free weekly.
As things get easy/free, value declines (e.g., everyone content creating).
First principles: Bet on irreplaceably human things a kid in Mumbai cannot do.
- Software/content: Commoditized.
- Physical real-world experiences: Standing on stage sharing story; thousands attend to be in room sharing experience. AI can't attend events.
Counter: Real-world + custom short-lived SaaS (2-3 weeks for conference attendees); things cluster (e.g., hair salon as media business).
Most entrepreneurs (not tiny fraction) want lifestyle: Live/work anywhere, travel, 3-4 days/week, drop kids at school, non-monotonous/creative/chaotic/fun work, small enjoyable team.
Harder to build big businesses (constant disruption), easier for small successful ones: $1-5M revenue, 10-person team totally possible. Beyond that: Need elite entrepreneur skills to handle disruption.
For corporate workers in monotonous/tethered jobs: Small dynamic businesses (never big, but fun/flexible/great).
Blue ocean strategy:
- Red oceans: Hyper-competitive, race to bottom, same positioning (e.g., wine labels).
- Blue oceans: Uncontested, less competition, unique fundamental value.
Build big boat in blue ocean; easier for all, even lifestyle businesses.
Example: Marketing/social media agency in 2014 = blue ocean (lasted ~10 years briefly). Now 2024: 70% friends run them, having therapy sessions; big agencies (WPP, Martin Sorrell) losing margins/market share.
AI: Disruption in months, not years; blue oceans replicate fast.
Low social mobility/hyper-competition societies: Constant festivals (medieval, rural Africa/India: seasonal, weddings, funerals). Big cities lost this.
Not blue ocean (companies add it), but defensible: Community experience, embrace chaos/change, new ideas.
First principles: Human needs unchanged (e.g., connection).
Rhesus monkey experiment (psychology class): Wire mesh "mother" → psychopath; cloth → more stable; real mother → fine. Unmet connection needs have consequences.
Content: Factual (e.g., bank break-in) = commodity.
Irreplaceably human: Podcaster/streamer personal experience (e.g., AI knows menopause facts, not experience).
Bullish on streamers: Sit 7 hours watching Judge Judy, chatting (parasocial: "chat if X/Y/Z", "drop W's" = friend-like).
Football game: Loudest cheers for streamers connecting.
Example: Matt Pitcher (financial planner, TED talk): Met 100 lottery winners via British lottery partnership. Connected dots to unique story (in living rooms eye-to-eye). TED talk: 500,000 views in weeks, business exploding.
Everyone has relatable personal intellectual property (PIP), story, playbooks, triumphs/disasters quantifiable/describable.
Relatable beats impressive: Diary of a CEO episode (millions views) vs. billionaire CEOs (hundreds thousands). No need to cure cancer/launch rocket/win Nobel/float NASDAQ.
Turn PIP into products/services via AI.
Content creator mistake: Churn easy AI content. Now: Less content, human stories (LinkedIn: family photos, personal experiences only I can say).
AI: Data/knowledge, no lived experience. Can't stand on stage, host dinner, hand on shoulder.
Best post: Proposing to fiancée (irreplaceably human/relatable).
Content for parasocial relationships: Vulnerable/honest/struggles > generic (e.g., "everything happens for a reason").
Not one piece: Personal playbooks (only you can say) = personal intellectual property.
- Ideal customers/personas = personal brand.
Productize into products/services ecosystem (not single product). Used to suffice with one; now...
It's not one product or service. It used to be that you could just have a product or service that you offer. Now it's the product and service ecosystem. The people making the most money don't do one thing. Your personal P&L probably has 27 different ways money came into your bank account last month: speaking, podcasting, AdSense revenue, sponsors, shareholdings in different companies, one-to-one coaching, appearance fees, book royalties from multiple books, software launched. This sounds crazy and chaotic in a pre-AI world, but in a post-AI world, it's not hard to create all these different products and services, launch different things, go on a journey with people, and have a product and service ecosystem. The speaker has about 20 different things involved in at any given time.
Spotify said their best developers haven't written a line of code since December thanks to AI.
What occupations won't exist in 5 years as we know them? Lawyers are going to be disrupted. In a recent legal case costing £50,000 ($60,000) to start with a law firm, they used Claude for $20 a month: Claude provided a coaching session on handling it, multiple decision tree pathways, documents needed, Excel spreadsheet of do say this/don't say this in negotiation. This raises the question of what lawyers will do if they charge for time to regurgitate contracts.
Multiple reports say legacy legal tech and data firms lost roughly 20% of their value so far in 2026. £280 billion wiped off the value of publicly traded companies like that in the last week. These business models need to change and adapt. Lawyers will become part business coach, part lawyer, part prompt engineer—the key person of AI in the room, working on AI prompting to get resolutions. You'll need a lot less lawyer time.
Blue collar work has been devalued, but it could be elevated: plumbers regularly earn more than lawyers because the nature of the economy has changed. Over 25 years, the pendulum swings—white collar work behind a screen was high value, now blue collar work with hands.
Government disrupted natural opportunities for children with university loans, pushing everyone to university: get in debt or no job. Young people who should have been plumbers, electricians, concreters, bricklayers got master's degrees in random subjects like mating habits of butterflies, ending up with $60-80,000 debt for degrees no one wanted. This market distortion means shortage of plumbers and electricians—blue ocean is being a trades person.
Companies hit a phase where they no longer focus on selling, bogged down with admin that creeps up. PipeDrive is a simple but powerful sales CRM giving visibility on deals in pipeline, automates tedious repetitive time-consuming sales process parts, saves hours to get back to selling. Syncs CRM with multiple email inboxes for team work from one platform. Over 100,000 companies use it. Go to pipedrive.com/ceo for 30-day free trial, no credit card required.
Cometeer flash freezes coffee at optimal tasty moment in little frozen ice cubes sent by post—processing takes out taste. Founder Matt sent shipment to office in London; team loved it, messages in Slack: delicious. Pop out in morning, pour hot water, mix. Get $30 off first order at cometeer.com/stephven.
Top 10 jobs most likely disrupted: drivers (McKinsey estimates 30% automated by 2030), customer service reps and call center reps (50% headcount reductions after AI rollout, some estimates 80%; new tool with real human voice indistinguishable from humans launched). CEO of Cler TLDDR: currently 7,000 employees, down to 3,000 after summer due to AI; existing team does more bespoke white glove VIP stuff.
Jeans paradox: dehumanizing repetitive work goes away, but AI bots good at setting appointments for VIP human conversations means VIP work goes through roof. Companies want more VIP conversations but lack low-level appointment setting; if cost goes to zero, VIP treatment more feasible.
Retail cashiers, admin assistants, bookkeepers and payroll clerks, sales development reps, warehouse workers (Amazon etc. robots assist/replace labor in 40% fulfillment tasks; Boston Dynamics humanoid robot in factory video). Many jobs are repetitive, dehumanizing, late night/early mornings—positive if Jevons paradox creates more fun, humanizing, VIP, chaotic work.
Fast food workers.
Disruption at record speeds—where do people go? Examples like AI labeling require upskilling, but rate of disruption outpaces creation of new opportunities.
Philosophy: keep conversations on AI because no good answers yet. Elite mindset trap: organize society top-down so everyone gets a job (root of socialism: I know better, run society to look after everyone). Better: give education/training, make opportunity transparent, provide price signal data—people self-organize bottom-up revolution, find amazing things to do. Money is in the economy—that's capitalism, which works.
UK example: unemployment up 25%, youth unemployment grown >25% (16.1% for 16-24). Not talking economy, screaming about brown people. When people can't get ahead, blame others—historically consistent. Government now 45-50% of UK economy spending (socialist, market distortion). All government spend is market distortion—not market driven, monopoly on spend.
Market distortion: markets can't function due to big organization like government spending removing price signals/realities. Student loans example: capitalist society, young people hear bricklayers make £300/day, become apprentices paid to learn. Bank pays for finance degree if needed. Government distortion: unlimited lending for any university course, no price/signaling data—borrow £50,000 for master's in butterfly breeding habits, no jobs. Pushed £50,000 debt for unwanted degrees. Now £280 billion student debt bubble unlikely repaid. Generation saddled with debt demotivating work (pay £600, debt up £650). Classic government meddling.
Rishi Sunak article: if UK fails to fix productivity, seize AI opportunity, risks becoming tourist theme park (not even good one—no beaches, mountains, ski resorts).
Trap: top-down fix society (socialism, doesn't work). If prime minister seeing future:
- Reduce government spending <35%.
- Cut: wind/solar farms (£40 billion), prevent natural gas access under feet, give away island (£20 billion), bureaucracy (Birmingham City Council SAP to Oracle CRM migration: thought £19 million, cost £220 million).
Government should do less: high spending erodes success benefits via taxation, people leave. Capitalism benefit: creative entrepreneurial process creates better/faster/cheaper. Remove incentives, no growth, debt erodes economy, downward spiral—socialist scam.
UK removed incentives: people who should be UK tax residents left (like UK, enjoyed living, but left). Debate with Gary Stevenson: rich won't leave despite high taxes, house prices explode. Instead: housing flat, economically active producers/providers left in droves, economy in trouble. Reasons: pessimism/unmanaged decline, high taxes/can't get ahead, talent/capital/employees elsewhere (Dubai low taxes, America lower taxes/more opportunities).
Even mindset: fix top-down vs bottom-up. With AI, give price data/signals: young people see profits/opportunities, know what's no longer good (e.g., house renovations—many houses need it).
Henley & Partners data: 2023, 3,200 millionaires net left UK; 2024, 9,500; 2025 projected 16,500 (record outflow); 2026 trend continues.
Why matters: 1% pay 30% bills, 10% pay 60%. They leave, bills passed to everyone. New York: socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani proposes 9.5% property tax rise on all homes (regardless value) for $5.4 billion shortfall (February 2026 preliminary budget; alternative: tax top earners/corporations). Promised free stuff—nothing free, someone pays. Rich leave, can't pay for free stuff.
Rich create growth, high taxpayers—don't want them leaving.
Individual: identify founder opportunity fit—opportunity to earn money anywhere in world, not geographically limited, so can move.
New York: personal tax income strong, business tax collections $378 million lower than projected, business formation slows.
Socialism like hot stove every generation touches: take from rich, redistribute—tried 180 years since Karl Marx, disaster, ruins economies. Free incentives without productivity gains = downward spiral.
Bare case for AI future involves Engels Pause, mirroring the industrial age where for 50 years wealth concentrated at the top due to industrialization. Transition from agriculture to industrial age displaced many, sparking revolutions. AI will be faster and more disruptive.
Visited friend's accelerator in San Francisco, formerly software-focused, now everyone building robots. Example: frying pan with robotic arm that cooks dinner, like making an omelette. 10 years ago, expensive part was intelligence, costing tens of thousands; now costs cents. This is the Renaissance age of robotics.
Other examples: machine that makes custom perfume based on how you want to smell, with all scents loaded. Anything with Bluetooth will gain intelligence: toothbrush assesses brushing and books dentist appointment.
Even non-smart items like bed sheets, pillows, mattresses will access agents. Bare case not focused on intelligence benefits—more intelligence means better society, never been a bad thing—but on financial bubbles. Lived through several; they impact society unexpectedly.
Real bare case: overinvestment in data centers causes massive financial collapse, wiping out pension funds. Debt for these assets packaged as private credit sold to pension funds at 6% above inflation, backed by Google, Microsoft, Amazon. But mathematics unsustainable: $600 billion/year on 3-4 year lifespan infrastructure. Every time in last 180 years spending >3% of economy on infrastructure buildout led to recession or depression.
Anthropic CEO (maker of Claude) Dario Amodei wrote post-Davos essay: "Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it. I believe we are entering a rite of passage, both turbulent and inevitable, which will test who we are as a species. We are considerably closer to real danger in 2026 than we were in 2023. If the exponential continues, which is not certain, but now has a decade long track record supporting it, then it cannot possibly be more than a few years before AI is better than humans at essentially everything."
"The same AI enabled tools that are necessary to fight autocracies can be turned inward to create tyranny in our own countries. There is an alarming possibility of global totalitarian dictatorship. AI is so powerful, such a glittering prize that it is very difficult for human civilization to impose any restraints on it at all."
Imagined island with billion geniuses: society would be very different. All advice on success, entrepreneurship, business may be for an economy that no longer exists. Shifting from industrial age to AI age economy with different models.
Aging population problem: 65% of wealth held by people over 65. Financialized/inflationary government economy pumps stimulus, inflating faster than AI productivity gains. Entrepreneurs make things cheaper/free; governments top up with stimulus.
AI creates deflation; governments can inflate massively, enabling UBI from fundamentals—productivity makes things zero cost, pump money during transition to prevent chaos. Use huge intelligence for fun society structures. Not utopia, but end shitty, dehumanizing jobs. Fix pair bonding, community, families; end two-job survival.
Short-term UBI likely. Sam Altman backed 2024 Open Research study: UBI recipients worked fewer hours, earned less than control group, dropped out for leisure, net household income decrease.
Humans need meaningful struggle. Likely: data center investments catastrophic, governments bail out, own data/data centers; tech companies pay royalties for UBI funding. Mathematics bend reality ~2029; need 45x growth in subscribers/businesses.
Comparison: GLP-1 weight loss drugs (e.g., Ozempic) exponential, capex ~20% revenue for factories. AI: capex hundreds of percent revenue—unprecedented financial feat.
Build personal brand: 2-20,000 people know who you are, what you do, experiences—approachable for opportunities. Share knowledge/playbooks; don't be invisible.
Try entrepreneurship: join team, side hustle, read books/watch videos. School teaches standardized employee for office/factory; entrepreneurship is non-standardized value creation—spot opportunities, solutions. Example: notice dirty cars, knock doors, wash for $200/day.
Opportunity: cater to small businesses learning AI (Mark Cuban). 65% businesses by valuation owned by over-65s—2/3 must change hands in 10-20 years. Baby boomers want to retire, fund buyers with personal brand. Cody Sanchez advises buying baby boomer businesses.
Play with free AI tools like free iPhone. Employers screen for AI experimentation evidence. Example: hired person synthesized 100 documents via Claude co-pilot agent by dessert, analyzing sentiment on all social/LinkedIn posts over years, identifying best posts despite likes.
Key trait: curiosity, fluid identity ("I have no experience, but I can try"). Don't use AI as search tool; give hardest problem + data/PDFs/backstory: "Help solve this."
Example: AI analyzed 3 months sales calls—75% mentioned spouse/family decision-maker, no process to invite them. AI spotted, wrote script to invite; sales conversions up.
Bifurcation: positive re: disruption vs. cognitive dissonance/ostrich. Entrepreneur mindset: problems = opportunities, test assumptions, build/test/scale cheaply. Employee: "Not trained, ignore."
Writing more important: proxy for understanding/great questions. Example: "Could we analyze sales calls with Claude?" Write to understand (Feynman: learn, condense, share for feedback). AI defers condensing/understanding.
Pause-reflect-document: go to nature, no tech, pen/paper, allow boredom. Reflect: zoom out, journal, dot-connect (last 5 years events, impacts, problems, possibilities). Fast world lacks pause; top performers do more.
Richard Feynman process accelerates learning. Prompt: last 5 years, "when did I do something special impacting certain people I can explain step-by-step, how it felt, of interest to many?" Captures lived experience, feelings, playbooks, unique dots.
See so many people think so much about the future and the uncertainty of the future but a lot of value comes from just looking backwards and connecting the dots and then thinking what is it that I now know that I want to take forward and add value to others. Adjacent to that is trying to get more information and experiences from a wide set of reference points because innovation is the connection of two ideas or thoughts or principles that someone else hasn't put together.
Non-stick frying pan: a guy who was fishing and was trying to make a material so his fishing tackle didn't stick together and his wife walks past and says, "I'd love some of that stuff on our pans." And that ends up selling tens and tens of millions of non-stick pans.
iPhone: a combination of an internet device, a music device, and a telecommunications device put together, which you rarely found those three things in one space. Someone would have had to understand music, the internet, and phones.
Steve Jobs: his skill stack contains typography and design which is why he was able to disrupt Blackberry. He stumbled into a calligraphy class at university and loved calligraphy and he was the first company to ever have fonts and those fonts became a huge differentiator on the first Mac because he combined calligraphy with computers.
Future's owned by the wide not the narrow. Become more of a generalist, become more curious and go out of your comfort zones. The industrial age asked us to specialize and do one thing over and over. Grandfather of capitalism Adam Smith said efficiency is about doing one thing in the process over and over but it's going to destroy the human spirit. He wrote about the fact that having to just twist this knob over and over creates the most value in the economy but it's horrible for you as a human.
We've been trained to twist the knob over and over. What we need to relearn is to become more human and explore nature, explore weird passions like particular theater companies and how they run, entrepreneur accelerators, and combine things. Trust your instincts that you're pulling on a few threads and bringing them together while still focusing on a job.
Sit here connecting reference points: someone talking about Alex Hormozi, then about this, next person about neuroscience and bringing a human brain. You don't need to quit your job and go live in Peru to orchestrate your life. Be intentional about resisting the urge to be a narrow person and identify too much with one's identity.
When left former business, resisted all labels because now a social media CEO. Tempting to gather around social media people, go to social media parties, put it in bio, get social media opportunities, and go further down that narrow line. Instead went and worked in psychedelics and biotech, cancer biotech, started to DJ, started a podcast called The Diary of a CEO, tried to do as many things as possible to remain wide.
Your superpowers are extra superpowers when you take them somewhere new. If you've got social media superpowers within the social media bubble, everyone's got those. But take them into a completely new place and what you learned becomes a massive differentiator.
We all want the future to be bright. One of the best ways to improve the world is to improve your own situation because the world is made up of people who have their own situation. Trying to fix every problem on the planet feels crushing. Instead say what's my opportunity: improve the world by building a great business that helps 500 clients, adding value in your unique way through this AI adventure.
Resist the trap of trying to fix everyone and everything. Figure out your opportunity, your way of adding value to others, your way of getting paid, your creative entrepreneurship contribution to the world.
If difficult because assumes self-awareness, find someone who inspires you and join their team. Follow your inspiration: sometimes to start something, sometimes to help propel something forward by being part of someone else's team.
Self-awareness is a skill we all have to learn on a crash course with reality. Question the narrative that everybody can live their dream and quit their job to pursue it.
New size of business that makes sense is small, dynamic, lean, 10 to 50 people, probably 2 to 20 people shaking things up.
Being part of a small, dynamic, vibrant, entrepreneurial team is a great place to explore. Not everyone suitable to quit job and start from scratch; that's the founder role. Not everyone starts as a black belt in martial arts.
Even in 10 to 50 people teams, one in 50 or one in 10 are founders. A lot more people going to be founders. Not wildly unnatural: historically most people worked in little family businesses, most never past 30 people. Natural way is family groups, tribal groups less than 150 people.
Idea that founder means Steve Jobs or Elon Musk building world-changing thing is wrong. Many friends and clients: them, assistant, head of customer development, 3-4 people, 600-700k revenue, loads of flexibility, everyone takes kids to school, finishes at 4pm, travel, live/work anywhere.
Most recent book: Lifestyle Business Playbooks: How to Have Fun, Freedom, and Fulfillment with Your Own Business.
About the times we're living in. Gives hope against negative narrative that AI will wipe out everything. Counternarrative: more than any other time, live/work from anywhere, 500 to few thousand clients worldwide, add value uniquely, career based on randomness, creativity, fun. Learn playbooks of entrepreneurship and trends unfolding, it could work out really well.
Passive income reflects desire that working hard is horrible, so wish it takes care of itself. When discover lifestyle business where work reasonable time, have fun with great people, desire for passive income evaporates: better than passive because creative journey, great money, fun, expressing self.
Passive income is actually asset income. Create asset like digital business, or make enough in lifestyle business to own traditional assets like houses, stocks, shares. Focus on lifestyle business supporting how you want to live.
Playbook one: side hustle or apprenticeship.
Apprenticeship example: earn $100k at big corporate, join four boards for $20-25k each, work with startups, still earn $100k but learning from smaller entrepreneurial companies.
Or go from big company to job paying almost as much but smaller interesting business learning from founder.
Side hustle: do stuff on side, open and shut, build entrepreneurial confidence. Not designed for big financial leap.
Then: two-person scout team scouting opportunity; four-person fire starting team getting something started; eight-person core team running cool lifestyle business. Little steps, not zero to 100 jump.
Important to know your nature, who you are, what you want from life. Many don't, handed wants from Instagram/LinkedIn like build $5B AI company.
Speaker's experience: started business ambitious, left at 20, worked Silicon Valley as consultant (okay temporarily), realized money not matter, about people and challenge, back to building businesses 6 years big around world, left for consultant/freelance (unfulfilling), back to mission with group regardless of what it is.
Many discover more is not better, bigger not more fun. Idea of independence/freedom not what thought. Have more responsibility now than ever; could choose less but less satisfied/fulfilled.
Rich kids with everything taken care: constant depression. We love responsibility, creative tension, being up to something, on mission with great group, natter, solve, get curious, run ideas, voice note at 2am.
Chapter: know when enough is enough. Endless scrolling no cue to stop; same with business, think bigger better. Normally not case.
Need increasing levels of challenge: crosswords/video games get harder for flow state, motivation. Striving bigger/better proxy for wanting challenge.
Go really big with one thing or challenge across portfolio of interests.
To younger generation: energy normally into kids going into business. Natural: struggle providing and raising kids. Reservoir of creative energy divided amongst projects. Misplaced into one thing as proxy for kids, wonder why no warmth back (biology wired for kids).
Encourage have kids (best thing), portfolio of interests: business bucket full at $3M revenue team of 10, then health/fitness, travel, teaching youth group, bigger role in church.
Grew up Sunshine Coast, dropped out of university, zero qualifications, not good at anything particular, no skills (at 21). Huge fear: running first ad in newspaper for $8k on credit card, had to work or serious trouble.
Weird 25 years: boom bust. Early 20s built $10M company rapidly then lost it; built another multi-million then lost it; wiped out by COVID, reinvented; negative co-founder experience, reinvented team. First 15 years boom bust.
Fear: never feel fulfillment, never say it was worth it, keep going exhausted. Fear of providing for family, business ideas not valued by others, doing something stupid/fail again.
Pushed through fear, better on other side. Had no choice at 21. Secretly would do it knowing ups/downs because like roller coaster, wanted interesting story not straight line.
At 24 offered $14M for company, blew negotiation, all walked away. Would have been worst thing at 24.
Drew graph success over time (age 20-35):
- Nightclub party success.
- Job with mentor, build to $6M first year, 60 employees.
- Fight with mentor, start scratch, negative place.
- Multi-million business.
- Government changes law, reinvent.
- New contract, $1M/month (age 24).
- Screw negotiation, back to start.
- London new business, Palladium theater, hundreds thousands/week sales year 1.
- Global financial crisis, lose contracts.
- Relaunch.
- COVID, 11 cities couple million per city.
- Relaunch digital, off scale.
- Now own assets/brand/great team/multiple businesses, stable/fun, around time have kids.
Boom bust punch in face get back up, zero millions repeatedly.
Reality of entrepreneurship: not linear journey. Often boom bust cycle or...
Growth patterns resemble nothing, nothing, nothing, then something exponential. Podcast growth followed this: nothing for a long time, then 2 million, 4 million, 8 million, 16 million.
Surviving boom and bust or no man's land periods requires a certain resilience. Daniel had no choice but to persist because he lacked fallback skills like coding, editing, designing, accounting, or dentistry. His only qualification was a driver's license. His strengths: organizing teams, getting people in the room, exciting them, and building together.
He wouldn't change it. Every crushing drop taught lessons leveraged today. Told business partner George Gibson, who emailed two years ago to invest in a startup Daniel had failed at: "This is not going to work, but do it anyway because the value might not be the million-dollar exit. The lessons from failure will be leveraged, as I did at 20 years old."
At 20, after two years failing in social media, got paid $70,000 a month to talk about it in Silicon Valley with no qualifications—because he was one of the few who had failed, gaining deep understanding and rare skill. No longer featured in BBC Newsnight or Forbes as a success, but the great failing becomes the most valuable asset. Every time it goes higher proves this.
Bottom moments feel horrible: alcohol involved, wanting to hide forever. Friend who failed several times: feel like falling off a tightrope, but it was only 6 inches off the ground—not as bad as thought. Hop back on and go again. Every time: better, bigger, more stable, more reliable.
Daniel is wildly successful now—people recognize him, millions tune in. But there's a version where it doesn't end that way. Knows someone fighting 15 years to build businesses worldwide, lacking self-awareness, risking family. Same boom-bust cycle, but never goes higher. Objectively, unlikely to have Daniel's breakthrough moment.
Survivorship bias: we think it was hard then paid off. Response: no happy endings. Life ends abruptly. Under 40, think everything ends well; later, discover no happy endings. Everyone dies. Get a phone call: amazing person has a stroke—that's it. Thought they'd have 20 more years, but no.
Life is an adventure with moments of triumph and disaster. Lose people, have everything taken—guaranteed. Some with houses, cars, private jets are miserable. Others lose it all but reconnect with friends and are happier than ever.
Insight from someone very close who recently had a stroke. Realization: mental timeline of endless decades, health, relationships is a fantasy. Impact: treasure relationships. Happens: "Wow, I didn't know that was the last conversation."
Legacies include voice notes in phones or WhatsApp. Listen back: "Wow, didn't know that was a treasure."
Person who had stroke was wonderful at voice notes, signature phrase: "it's not lost on me." Example: "Stephen, it's not lost on me how much you're dealing with at the moment and it's not lost on me that you are responsible for a lot of people's lives and I just want to acknowledge you." Did this with everyone—came out everyone got these lovely voice notes.
Think you'll leave money, big financial structures; actually, touching voice notes are most treasured if lucky.
Listening to voice notes brings deeper awareness: despite talk of technology and business, the whole game is relationships. Easy to get wrong amid whirlwind—people want much from you. Think you must lift everyone heroically; actually, little text or voice note means a lot.
We're on a rock, few laps around the sun. Pop into existence like electrons. Zoom out: all little dots figuring stuff out, ignoring difficulties. Value: moving through time together.
No happy ending—ending is sad. Loved ones get old, die, or lose chunk of selves suddenly. Treasure happy moments while they last.
No regrets. Biggest relationships: kids, wife, family formation—core of happiness. Had high highs: big boats, private jets, parties in honor, big paydays. But intergenerational passing of life is wild—passing on consciousness; they have own ideas, challenges.
Thank you. We're done.
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