I'll go first:

In large companies, a shocking number of processes are done in a surprisingly unsophisticated way.

For example: an executive from a major corporation was telling me that a tried-and-true process involved someone writing down notes by hand, using their phone to take a picture of those notes, emailing the picture of the handwritten notes to someone, who then wrote something down by hand on another piece of paper to file it away.

In 2026, that is insane.

Companies large and small are aware of hundreds of these inefficiencies—inefficiencies that could all be solved by AI, software, and modern tools.

But here’s the problem: Large companies have so much bureaucracy, inertia, and so many regulations that making these kinds of obvious improvements becomes impossible.

This is the perpetual advantage start-ups and more nimble operations have.

Large companies have the luxury of being able to print money via an entrenched position, so there’s no incentive to improve when you’re already drowning in profit.

But any small company or start-up that relies on what I just described in this day and age is missing tremendous opportunity for growth.

…is probably underpaid, overlooked, and one bad manager away from quitting. Here's what you can do about it today.

Have you ever seen a great company full of dumb/mean/undeserving people?

Are there people in your network that you think are smart/kind/underappreciated?

When’s the last time you helped a smart/kind/generous person get better or more meaningful work?

When’s the last time you advocated for someone else’s salary?

Top-tier professionals (or “A players”, as Steve Jobs called them) only want to work with other top-tier professionals. And they won’t accept being abused, mistreated, or taken advantage of.

They know their worth.

So today, you help someone deserving get a job in your company. And tomorrow? That person might very well be your next lifeline.

Jim Rohn used to talk about the “seed, sunshine, and soil” as a metaphor for personal improvement. No one can guarantee that a plant will grow. All we can do is create the conditions under which plants usually thrive, and let nature take its course.

The same is true for building brands in the digital age:

Anyone who guarantees business results is either a quack or a charlatan. The market, economics, and consumer behavior are far too erratic to work out with any kind of mathematical certainty.

However, Tony Robbins always used to say “success leaves clues.”

Meaning, you know how your local used car dealership does it:

• An intern creates the email blasts

• Jim’s cousin does the social media

• The website is a Webflow template (or AI generated)

• …and so on.

But you also know how unicorns do it: They ruthlessly focus on things that don’t seem to matter in the short term. Things like beautiful logos, world-class websites, apps that are better than what everyone else is doing, and stunning 3D graphics.

Now clearly, having a beautiful brand does not guarantee unicorn status—nothing does.

But it’s also not an accident that breakthrough companies all tend to focus on seemingly unimportant, pretty-looking frivolities that don’t appear to be connected to the bottom line at first glance.

These are the seed, soil, and sunshine today.

These are the conditions under which brands that deserve to succeed will thrive, and they are as important as any spreadsheet or chart.

I love the Three Body Problem book series by Liu Cixin.

Without giving too much away, at a certain point in the series the Trisolarans send a probe out to the human fleet. It looks something like a metallic Prince Rupert’s Drop. A shiny teardrop with no moving parts. A piece of alien art? A gesture of friendship?

At first glance, it’s nothing special.

But then we study it. At 100x magnification, the surface remains completely smooth.

At 1,000x magnification, the surface remains completely smooth.

At 1,000,000x magnification, the surface remains perfectly smooth down to the atomic level.

And so, in an instant, we go from hopeful to terrified.

Why?

This beautiful object is now the smoothest thing in our entire solar system. We recognize that it’s far smoother than our technology could ever dream of creating.

We can see, from a simple, immobile object, that the alien race is far more technologically advanced than us—that we are completely outclassed.

The ultimate flex.

It doesn’t always take struggle and complexity to show superiority. Sometimes the simplest thing, done remarkably well, can speak volumes.

Unfortunately, no.

The vast majority of people will get mediocre results if they try to replace their favorite web applications with ones of their own.

But coding is easy/free/instantaneous!

Yes, that’s true. But there’s a memory problem: Not the memory contained within your computer, the memory contained within that other computer we sometimes use, the one called our brain.

As easy as coding is now, keeping track of a complicated code base, being able to see a project through from start to finish, and having a technical basis to overcome the very overcome-able challenges we face along the way are vital.

In short: Even with all the help in the world, automating your business with AI still takes real work, know-how, and stick-to-it-iveness. God I love that word. And gumption. It also takes gumption.

So who can benefit here?

Anyone with a vaguely technical background. Any generalized computer expert. Any power-user of computers in general with a sharp mind, limitless determination, and a willingness to try and fail can work miracles today.

Miracles.

You might be someone who previously couldn’t harness the awesome power of web applications. But you can now, if you’ve got the right kind of brain and a willingness to learn.

But it is, without a doubt, not for everyone.