In this short commentary, the speaker argues that the dramatic drop in software development costs driven by AI will dismantle existing monopolies across valuable industries within the next 12–24 months. While many businesses imagine building custom applications themselves, the speaker contends that maintaining and evolving such code is unrealistic. Instead, a wave of AI‑enabled startups will offer low‑cost alternatives that can replace incumbent systems of record, creating pricing pressure. Incumbents will either need to reinvent themselves with true AI‑driven products or watch their market power erode from the bottom up. The speaker also highlights that modern workflows are increasingly agent‑centric, positioning agents as major software users in the near future.
Chapters
I do think a lot of folks are realizing I've got to go on the AI journey and I'm struggling to figure out how. And the notion that I'm going to vibe code my own CRM and I'm going to vibe code all my own applications, I think that that it's just not a reality, right? Even if you could build it, maintaining it, evolving it, liability. I think what's going to happen is, which is an opportunity for many people here, I think any industry that is highly valuable, that has a monopoly today, will not have a monopoly 12 to 24 months from now because— I'll slow that down. Any business, technology or other, or technology that has a monopoly will lose its monopoly. I think that because the cost of building software has gone down, the ease of building it and figuring out, like, there will be more competitors in it because here's what's going to happen. For sure, more competitors. You will walk into one monopoly, gives you pricing power, right? And you told me you wanted spicy takes. So this is my hot take. But like, so look, if I come— what happens right now today is if somebody were to walk in previously and and say, here's your application, I'm a monopoly, here's what you're gonna pay. You'll grudge, you'll moan, you'll threaten to sue them, but you don't have a choice. Yeah. Inevitably you're like, well, I could hire engineers to kind of build that for cheaper, right? But you won't. But the reality is that there'll be many startups who will. And because they can say, we can help replace systems of record, we can look at existing code and workflows and map them and we can put things. So you're gonna see many things pop up. And that's what I think the future is gonna be, is that there's gonna be a lot of lower cost alternatives. And so like the incumbents in that space are gonna be pushed to say, either they're going to have to reinvent themselves and innovate with true AI and figure out how to come with more places because there's going to be pricing pressures, or they're going to hold on to their lines and they're going to see from the bottom up a lot of their basically power base get eroded. So I think that's what's happening where people are eager of how many companies are coming out. They're more modern, they're basically more tailored to modern workflows. They understand that agents are going to be big users of software and building for that. I think that's a big part of the future.
