I am begging you to start building something

There has never been a better time in human history to build something.

If you disagree or have a cynical attitude go ahead and click that big red X in the top left corner because you’re not going to like the rest of what I have to say.

Still here?

Alright good.

In this newsletter I will explain 5 reasons why I believe this is true and what you should do about it.

Now let’s get into it.

Reason #1: Companies are subsidizing frontier AI intelligence

Anthropic just released their numbers in preparation to go public.

Do you want to take a guess at how much money they made in the first half of this year?

$16 billion. That’s about $3 billion per month, or about $100 MILLION PER DAY.

Now, how much of that do you think they kept as profit?

• $5 billion?

• $3 billion?

• $1 billion?

Nope, lower.

They had to at least break even right?

Nope.

They lost $80 BILLION to start the year.

They made $16 billion, and they spent $96 billion (!)

Now why do you think that is?

Rather than get into the complexities of compute contracts, inference, training, and accounting principles, I’ll simplify it for you.

They are selling tokens below the overall cost it takes to generate them.

So they are literally paying you to use the product.

Now why would they do that?

A few reasons:

• They want to show growth more than they want to show profit (so they continue to reinvest in the business)

• They want to get as many people using their product as possible (so they can gain market share and, eventually, pricing power)

• Their models get stronger the more people that use them (so they are incentivized to acquire early users at a loss)

Now, this is the same strategy companies like Uber used early on in their company history.

If you’re old enough to remember taking Ubers back in 2008, you remember they cost basically nothing. They were selling rides far below the cost to provide them in an attempt to gain market share. And, it worked. They got more users than any other ride share company, allowing them to raise prices over time.

Now, there was only so much “upside” you got from taking the early cheap Uber rides. It saved you a couple dollars versus taking a taxi, and you can only take so many Uber rides in any given week or month.

But now, the exact same thing is happening, except you’re getting access to literal INTELLIGENCE to help you save time and build products & services.

Now, if you’re a cynical person, you will say “that means I shouldn’t build anything right now, because it will cost me more in the future!!”

And again, if you think that is true go ahead and hit that big red X button because the rest of this article is certainly not for you.

Instead, since you are a smart person, you will realize that when the masses are offered a great deal on something, it’s best to use it to your advantage. Then, if the situation changes in the future, you can adjust your approach.

And that is exactly what you should be doing with current AI token pricing.

• For $20/month, you can get a ton of usage in ChatGPT/Codex and Claude/Claude Code. That’s 66 cents per DAY.

• For $100/month, you can get 5x the usage with ChatGPT Pro/Claude Max. This will be overkill for most people, but at less than half a cup of coffee per day, this is exceptionally cheap.

Now, the average person will spend $50 to get a mediocre lukewarm burrito delivered to their door, but won’t pay for the maxed out version of AI tools that give them access to infinite intelligence.

This is your competition.

So remember, this type of pricing will not last. Those who use AI to its full potential right now will take massive leaps forward that will be hard to overcome when the pricing changes in the future.

Reason #2: You need a vehicle that forces you to get better & work harder

If you work a W2 job, the best thing you can do for your career & your personal growth is to start a side-hustle.

Why do I believe that?

Because when you only have a W2 job:

• There is no feedback loop between your improvement and your compensation

• You are fully dependent upon an employer who dictates your schedule & future

But when you start to build something:

• You create a vehicle where more effort = more income & more skills, which incentivizes you to get better

• You create something where you are the bottleneck to its growth, which helps you confront and overcome your weaknesses

• You create something that is not dependent on an employer, which ultimately gives you more optionality in the future

Now, I lived this first-hand when I was 22 years old making $170,000 per year working on Wall Street.

At the time, I thought I was set for life. Then, I took a look around at the other people on my floor who were 15 years older than me, commuting 3 hours per day on a train, sitting all day under fluorescent lights, and unable to take a break because of the golden handcuffs they’ve locked themselves in.

Now, on top of not leading to the lifestyle I eventually wanted, the role itself did not incentivize me to work harder or to learn more.

If I got significantly more skilled, or worked significantly harder, how much more money did I make?

Like, a 3% raise at the end of the year, if I was lucky. And then maybe a 10% jump when I got a promotion 5 years later. Barely enough to keep up with inflation.

This was very demoralizing to me, because I didn’t feel any “healthy pressure” to improve. Why would I put out so much discretionary effort if I ended up with basically the same results if I instead just slept in & watched Netflix?

Unfortunately, this is the exact scenario most people are stuck in for their entire life.

• They don’t see any reason to work harder, because there is no reward for doing so

• Because they don’t work harder or learn more, they remain at the same skill level

• Their employer recognizes they don’t need to pay them more, because they won’t lose them if they don’t

But all of this changes when you start building something.

When I committed to write a newsletter every week for 52 weeks, I immediately had a place with positive returns on my extra effort. I had to continually learn new skills, prioritize where my limited time went, and identify what was keeping me from seeing success. This newsletter helped me land my first writing client, meet my future business partner, launch my first digital product, and build skills that would let me write my own paycheck.

Now, this does not mean you need to go quit your job immediately. That is not what I did and that is not what I am recommending.

Instead, I’m saying you need to start to build something on the side that increases your ability to work for yourself in the future. You still need to show up and perform at your full-time job, well-enough to remain in good graces with your bosses.

But all of your additional discretionary effort should be spent on building something of your own, because that is where the upside lives.

Not to mention, you are now competing with AI agents who:

• Work 24/7

• Don’t ask for raises

• Cost significantly less

• Don’t need career trajectory

• Can stay up to date on their own

• Do not have emotions to manage

• Do not have their own side hustles

• Iterate after one piece of feedback

• Do not need clarity years into the future

Every one of these are an additional cost to the business owner beyond the fixed cost that comes with hiring someone.

This does not mean AI agents are going to replace employees.

But it will be an increasingly high bar for a business owner to hire someone, versus taking the first pass at the required activities with an agent.

So you can either wait around and compete with them, or learn to employ them for yourself.

Reason #3: Rapidly changing technology = constant new opportunity

If you spend any time using AI tools, you recognize the frontier model companies are all in a fierce competition with one another releasing tons of new features, which is an amazing thing for the consumer.

Now, what happens as a result of these new capabilities?

More problems are solved (by people building things to solve problems).

And what happens when more problems are solved?

Do we just run out of problems, meaning there is no point to build anything any more because AI is going to solve them all?

That is what the cynical person might think, but it’s not true.

Instead, when more problems are solved, more problems are created, which means more opportunities to build solutions.

In nearly every industry that is innovating, there are significantly more problems to solve today than there were 5 years ago.

Additionally, AI democratizes access to the tools that make solving problems easier (mainly the ability to write computer code). Compare that to the past when only a handful of highly skilled people had the tools available to create solutions. You now have the same technical ability as some of the smartest engineers had just a few years ago.

And every new capability makes it easier for you to build something useful.

Reason #4: Building is the best way to meet people

There are few greater wastes of time in the world than going to “networking events.”

Just the idea of dressing up to go stand around a hotel lobby talking to people I don’t want to meet about topics I do not care about sends chills down my spine.

The people you want to meet are way too busy building things to waste time at such events. And they know that other people building things are busy as well, which further suggests they should not attend.

Instead, building is the new networking.

When you build something, you immediately become a more interesting person.

Why is this?

• You have something to talk about that isn’t complaining about your employer (which is what most people spend their time talking about)

• You share interesting things that you discover while building (that you never would have found otherwise)

• You discover and engage with niche communities (that you never would have stumbled into if you weren’t building something in that niche)

Each of these will make it significantly more likely you meet the people that you want to meet.

When you’re building something, you immediately have a “jumping off point” for people to reach out to you.

If what you’re building looks interesting to them, they can shoot you a DM with context to start a conversation. And chances are, if someone is interested in similar ideas to you (like the ones you’re building), you’re going to get along.

And this has been my exact experience as well. At this point, 90% of the people I talk to on a regular basis I met through something I was building.

• Friends

• Collaborators

• Team members

• Business partners

Heck, I even met my girlfriend at a coffee shop while I was building my newsletter.

And none of this would have happened at a “networking event.”

Reason #5: There is actually no downside

Now, if you’ve made it this far, congratulations for having an attention span that continues to function.

At this point, you might be thinking:

“Alright Dickie - this all sounds good. But what if what I build fails?”

This is a very common question, and unfortunately one that holds a lot of people back.

Because they’re scared of failing, people spend significant amounts of time “preparing to start” or “choosing the right thing” from the very beginning. But this turns into an endless loop of productive procrastination, until one day they wake up 3 years later and realize they have still not started building anything.

So, I want to help you avoid that.

And the way to do that is recognizing that any time spent building anything is a productive use of time.

(Yes, even if you build something that nobody ends up using, produces zero revenue, and to the average person looks like a complete “failure.”)

Why is that?

Because in that absolute WORST CASE scenario, you built skills that you can reapply to the next project in the future.

• This means when you take another crack at building something, you start on significantly higher ground than the first time

• It’s also likely you found new ideas through the process of your first build attempt, because action always creates additional information

• And it’s also likely you met other people during that first build as well, which gives you more community support for the next time

So please take this reframe to heart.

When you build something, you tap into significant amounts of upside that you would not otherwise tap into.

And even in the worst case scenario, you will meet new people, learn new skills, and discover new ideas you can explore next.

So please, I’m begging you to start building something

To recap everything we talked about:

• AI tokens are cheaper than they’ll ever be. This means those who use them now will get significantly ahead of those who wait.

• You need a project where more effort = more skills & more income. Your W2 job will not provide this for you, so you need to make this for yourself. Build something where your own improvement becomes the driver of its growth.

• Rapidly changing technology creates constant new opportunity. Every new capability gives you another chance to solve a problem. And you now have access to tools that were previously available only to highly skilled technical people.

• Building is the best way to meet people. “Networking events” are complete wastes of time. Instead, invest that time into building something other people find interesting. It gives you something to talk about and gives the right people a reason to reach out.

• There is no downside. It’s not the actual project or result that matters, it’s the skills you build and the person you become by working on it. Best case, the project works. Worst case, it flops—but you leave with new skills, new ideas, and new relationships you can bring into the next one.

If you’re weighing a bunch of different options or paths (and have been for a long time)…

Please, please, please, just pick something.

Remember:

• There will never be a perfect time to start

• The path you start on is not a forever commitment

• All the information you’re consuming “preparing to start” is nothing but procrastination disguised as productivity

• And you can reapply all the skills you build on your first project on every project that comes after

I promise, everything you’re looking for stands on the other side of that first step.

-Dickie

PS: If you want a full roadmap plus community accountability to figure out what to build & how to build it, come join us inside AI Writing Skool.

PPS: If you want to watch me break this down in more detail, you can watch the video version on my Youtube channel.