The Shrinking Island of Knowledge Work
I still remember learning English as a kid by watching Oprah on MBC 4, subtitled in Arabic, which at the time were almost as hard to follow as the English itself. Then came Tony Robbins, on pirated CDs I’d buy on Saturday market runs with my mum.
I’d sit there, rewinding the same sentences over and over, convinced that mastering this language was my ticket to something bigger than the place I came from.
And for a long time, it was part of what worked.
The formula was simpler:
Learn the skills → do the work → get into the right universities → secure the right job → lock in your place.
You could step into the middle class, or at least hover close enough to touch it.
But every day, I’m reminded how quickly that formula is dissolving, and how many are clinging to it, unaware the ground beneath them is disappearing.
Denial is the first stage
Recently, I ran a poll on my Instagram stories:
Do you believe AI will eventually replace your job?
Most people said no.
It’s wild to me.
Because if you’ve ever watched technology reshape an industry up close, you know denial is always the first stage.
Many still believe AI is coming for other people.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: the first wave of disruption is already sweeping through white-collar, knowledge-based work.
Not because it’s low-skill. But because it’s predictable. Because it relies on processes that can be digitised, automated, and optimised into oblivion.
And because it’s lucrative to replace.
When a company can swap ten salaries for one workflow, it doesn’t hesitate.
That’s why AI isn’t impressed by credentials or years of experience. It only looks for patterns it can automate and most knowledge work fits the bill.
The illusion of safety
There are three reasons this reality feels so hard to accept:
Status signaling. For decades, knowledge work has been treated as an insurance policy against obsolescence.
Comfort with incremental change. People expect a gentle slope of disruption, not a cliff.
Narrative bias. We all want to believe we’re too creative, too essential, too human to automate.
Safety nets won’t build wealth.
In a world where costs rise faster than subsidies, you must own assets, skills, equity, or IP, or you’re on a shrinking island, whether you see it yet or not. I break this down further here:
Here’s my bet
Company sizes will shrink.
Org charts will flatten.
The middle management layers without vertical expertise will vaporise.
And the AI-native employee will become the new 10x team.
We live in the greatest time in history to build.
The internet tore down the gates, and I’m proof of what happens when you walk through them.
But AI is an even greater equaliser.
It doesn’t care where you were born or where you went to school. It rewards speed, hunger, and the willingness to act before you feel ready.
Most people will watch this shift from the sidelines, convinced their jobs and lives will somehow stay untouched.
But guess what: what you don’t change, you choose.
And trust me, you don’t want to be choosing to stay behind.