{"id":90059,"date":"2026-07-21T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/?p=90059"},"modified":"2026-10-10T15:21:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T19:21:56","slug":"a-utility-won-t-take-your-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/a-utility-won-t-take-your-job\/","title":{"rendered":"A utility won’t take your job"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Utility Was Never the Story<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In July 2026, a founder I follow posted<\/a>\u00a0that AI can ship 15 items to anyone in 4 weeks, so shipping proves nothing anymore. The real flex is knowing which one of the 15 matters, and having the discipline to ignore the other 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I replied with one line. More people are about to learn what it feels like to be a CEO. Someone who can direct capital anywhere, and who has to show restraint and subtract instead. Steve Jobs mode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reply kept working on me after I posted it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start in 1890.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electricity<\/strong>
In 1890, electricity was a competitive weapon. If your factory had it and the one across town didn’t, you won. Electricity was the strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1930, it was a line item. By 1960, nobody thought about it unless it went out. The technology kept getting more important until it disappeared into the walls. That’s what full adoption looks like. The thing becomes invisible, and being good at it stops mattering, because everyone has it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicholas Carr made the same argument about corporate computing in 2003, in “IT Doesn’t Matter”<\/a>. People read it as an attack on IT. The actual argument was colder. IT had become infrastructure, available to everyone at similar cost, and something available to everyone at similar cost can’t be the source of anyone’s advantage. Executives hated the essay. It aged perfectly. Nobody in 2026 lists “we use cloud computing” as a differentiator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

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The Utility Was Never the Story In July 2026, a founder I follow posted\u00a0that AI can ship 15 items to anyone in 4 weeks, so shipping proves nothing anymore. The real flex is knowing which one of the 15 matters, and having the discipline to ignore the other 14. I replied with one line. More […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"paid_subscribers","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":true,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_focus_keyword":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digest-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7CVvN-nqz","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90217,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90059\/revisions\/90217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}