Argument — the bigger case.
I think a violent repricing of how value is created in technology is underway.
- Not because software disappears.
- Not because people disappear.
Because AI is attacking two economic models simultaneously.
First, it compresses labor. Work that once required a team can increasingly be performed by a smaller team working with software.
Second, it commoditizes features. Capabilities that required years of product development can increasingly be generated, assembled, or reproduced much faster.
That creates a difficult problem.
Services companies traditionally scale revenue by adding people. Software companies traditionally scale revenue by selling differentiated functionality.
What happens when fewer people can deliver more work and features become easier to create?
Value moves. I think it moves toward execution.
- Owning the business problem.
- Owning the context.
- Owning the workflow.
- Owning enough authority to make a decision.
- Being accountable for whether the outcome actually happens.
That creates businesses that look less neatly like software or services. Software takes on more execution. Services embed more software. The boundary starts to disappear.
The dangerous place in technology is a business that scales primarily with people, or sells features without controlling meaningful workflow.
Both models can continue operating. They just may command very different economics.
The question is no longer whether you are a software company or a services company.
The better question is: can you execute?
Written by Jason Wojahn. AIorDie is a personal publication about what breaks when software starts doing the work.
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