I’m seeing a massive disconnect in the job market.
Graduates spent $50k-100k on a degree but nobody replies to a cv 😔 while even a good salary can’t keep up with rising housing costs
Meanwhile, companies compete with increasingly aggressive offers for a small number with super specific skills.
A taxi driver recently asked me how he can find other opportunities, it got me thinking about self driving taxis coming in a few years.
This is one of the core issues of our time.
The job market has flipped – from a bell curve to power law. The middle class is being flattened and we need to refocus and massive upskilling to thrive.
The middle class is being flattened through globalisation and technology. Now the majority of rewards are going to the leaders in a variety of fields.
Being quite good and working hard just isn’t the playbook anymore. The playing field has changed. The new game is about finding the high demand niche and applying leverage.
The good news? The internet makes it easier than ever.
👇Here’s what works in 2025
I’ve spent 18 years learning this, but I’m sure I could have learnt it if someone taught me on day 1!
There’s now no such thing as a safe career job.
We’re entering a third stage of the work
Each stage has more autonomy, but also more risk and requirements.
For most of human history, work was often coerced through systems like slavery or feudal serfdom. A person’s labor was an asset owned and controlled by someone else. The Era of Unfree Labor.
Then came the Era of the “Job”: The Industrial Revolution created the modern concept of a “job.” People voluntarily traded their time and skills for a stable wage within a large organization (a factory or a corporation). This model, with its clear hierarchy and promise of lifetime employment, dominated the 20th century.
Now we’re entering the third stage:
The Era of the Individual or mini-entrepreneurs: The current shift is driven by technology that gives individuals more power and autonomy. This is the stage you’re asking about, and it’s characterized by the rise of what is often called the “ownership economy” or “creator economy.”
As we’re entering the third stage, and it needs a completely different mindset.
(Note, that the entire workforce isn’t entering the third stage, it’s happening in phases, there are still requirements for jobs in local teachers and nurses and plumbers).
In order to transition to the third stage of work we need two things:
- The middle class needs to refocus on the opportunities and upskill.
- Compensation needs to align with results rather than time.
- Education needs to upgrade for this new era, be more connected to opportunities and become lifelong learning.
- We need to reduce all the infrastructure costs to level the playing field in the economy. Education, healthcare, housing and energy needs to be affordable and becomes a fundamental right in the new economy. This is the new baseline.
In this article I’ll share a framework what individuals can do and a framework for the individuals to succeed in the third stage. In a separate article I’ll share what society and education should do.
For individuals:
It’s no longer about looking for jobs – it’s about looking for opportunities. Massive difference
Jay-Z “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man”
1) 📚 learning needs to be continuous – if you can learn you can do anything. It’s the core
skill that’s needed in today’s economy.
There are lots of free courses online
Coursera / edx
YouTube / books
Mentorcruise
But, there are almost too many resources, what should you learn?
2) 📈 demand supply discrepancy – where is the demand far outweighing supply?
This sounds obvious but it took me ages to really really learn this. I thought it just matters how well you work and your results, but I saw others doing a fraction of the work and earning far more. It’s all a market. It’s essential to fill a missing need.
Opening another pizza restaurant next to 3 others just isn’t going to be profitable however hard you work. In a market your effort doesn’t matter if you’re selling the same product as others and it’s a commodity. Apple can charge much more because it’s totally unique. It’s essential to find where there’s a big need, or problem that’s unsolved and go there.
In UK there are 728k jobs listed on LinkedIn and massive gaps in
– cybersecurity / ai
– e-commerce
– plumbing / electrical / ev installs
could be short term or have opportunities
3) 🔍 hyper specialise –
a great career strategy is to focus on some hyper hyper specific thing (for me – starting at recruitment of law schools in china) become great at that, then expand, become great, repeat to bigger market when it’s saturated
– Pair AI / Internet / new tech + your subject / interest
Eg.,
– AI optimization for museums
– social media marketing for personal injury law firms
4) 📹🤖💸Use Leverage
We’re now in a leverage economy – content, code, capital, people. It you can master these tools – you can put in a little effort, and see huge results.
At the same time, the power of these tools, makes your effort relatively less valuable. Judgement, understanding, taste becomes more valuable.
In a leverage economy. If you don’t understand leverage, you’re at a disadvantage to those who do.
It’s counterintuitive because working harder feels like the right thing to do.
But one YouTube video can reach thousands, continually.
Code can work forever for free, you can build it or no-code it.
There is a dogma that you need do build a personal brand to be successful but that’s just one form of leverage.
Combine the missing need and your niche with whichever type of leverage your best at.
Are you great at writing or videos or speaking? Create media. Content and code are the easiest because they’re newer. In the leverage economy essential to understand all forms of leverage, but only need to specialise in one or two.
Combine capital + code (crypto) + people + content (build a team creating content about it).
Comment “leverage” I will send you my leverage personality quiz prompt.
5) 🧠 mindset – emotional awareness, energy, diet, sleep are all things that can give huge
advantages (internal leverage).
How you look at the world reflects what you see back.
6) 🛫 be location independent
If you move to another location you’ll understand two markets, learn more, get unique insights, can work between them, or choose the best for you.
7) 👩🏻💻the internet is the frontier
The internet is the new constantly expanding frontier and new opportunities are found at the frontier.
8) ✅build proof of work
Get started on projects to get results, make YouTube videos or podcast about topic of your focus, it matters more than resume.
Everyone’s talking about AI
We need massive upskilling.
What’s your take?
