The Vanishing Ladder
Why the future belongs to builders
I’ve been thinking about the world our kids are stepping into, and how violently different it is from the world we were prepared for.
Last week, I read a New York Magazine piece called AI Is Replacing Entry-Level Jobs, and It’s Only the Beginning. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It confirms something I’ve felt for over a decade, long before AI, long before ChatGPT, long before this moment of upheaval, that the first rung of the career ladder, the one every generation relied on to enter adulthood, is disappearing. Completely.
“Entry-level” used to mean something predictable and straightforward: you did the grunt work, learned by osmosis, developed instincts, made mistakes, absorbed expectations, and slowly built your professional identity. You were shaped by the work before you were trusted with the work.
But today, that pathway is evaporating… AI can write the first draft, handle the spreadsheet, debug the code, generate the campaign, screen the leads, and prepare the research.
Microsoft recently said that AI now writes 30% of all new code across the company. Think about what that means for a junior developer trying to learn. The same shift is happening in law, consulting, marketing, finance, design, and media. The bottom of the pyramid, the apprenticeship layer, is collapsing into software. And when the bottom collapses, the whole structure must be rebuilt.
What worries me isn’t automation (we’ve been automating things for centuries). What worries me is the disappearance of the on-ramp to adulthood, the disappearance of the place where craft is born. You can replace an entry-level analyst with AI, but can you replace what the analyst becomes five years later? In my mind, that’s the real crisis.
And yet I’ve never been more hopeful. Everything I’ve built over the past decade has pointed to this moment, even if I didn’t see it clearly at the time.
I want to tell you why.
When we started Kano, the question wasn’t how to teach kids to code. The question was: What happens when you give a young person the power to build something real? We shipped those little boxes around the world, computers that kids could assemble themselves, and something transformational happened. I saw 8-, 9-, and 10-year-olds open a box, follow a few steps, and suddenly their computers came to life.
They built a sense of themselves, not simply a machine.
There’s a moment (I’ve seen it thousands of times) when a kid looks at something they’ve made and realizes, “I did that.” The posture changes, the spark ignites, the identity expands. It had nothing to do with coding but everything to do with creation over consumption. One might think of Kano as an identity engine, not a computer company.
And then, years later, at Supersocial, I witnessed the next evolution of the same phenomenon. Many people perceived Roblox as a game, but in effect, it was the largest youth creation platform on the planet. Millions of kids were logging in to build, not just play — worlds, economies, characters, stories, cultures. In many cases, businesses. Some of these creators were 14, 15, 16 years old. They were also creating their own opportunities.
And so the pattern is undeniable: When people create, they come alive. When they consume, they go numb.
What struck me (and what I didn’t fully appreciate until now) is that the most powerful way to unlock human potential is to place someone at the center of creation. As the builder, not simply as a spectator nor a passive participant.
And then AI arrived.
And suddenly the world began to shift in exactly the direction I’ve seen before with kids. Because AI turns everyone into a creator. The tools that were once reserved for “experts” — code, design, strategy, analysis, storytelling, are now available to anyone who can express an idea.
A teenager today can build something in an afternoon that required a team of adults just a few years ago. A single founder can do the work of five people. A kid with curiosity and YouTube access can do things that used to take degrees, credentials, and years of experience.
But this is the part that many people misunderstand: it only works if we embrace the builder's identity. AI isn’t necessarily a replacement for effort but a significant force multiplier. It gives more leverage to the people already inclined to build and less shelter to those waiting to be told what to do.
That’s the new divide emerging in the world — between those who build and those who wait.
And here’s the irony that keeps echoing in my mind: As AI eliminates entry-level jobs, it is also democratizing the most powerful tools humanity has ever created. The ladder is disappearing because the staircase is being rebuilt as a wide, open, frictionless ramp that anyone can climb if they choose to.
The challenge is that society isn’t ready for it. Universities aren’t designed for this shift. Corporations don’t know how to train people without entry-level talent. Governments are still investing billions in reskilling programs for jobs that won’t exist. Parents are raising kids for a world that has already ended.
But the future is still bright. And I know this because I’ve seen what happens when people, especially young people, discover they can create. They become bigger than the system they were handed. They become capable of extraordinary things.
Which brings me back to you — the builder.
If there’s one thing I want you to take from this letter, it’s that every meaningful path in the next decade will begin the same way — with someone choosing to build. Building will be the new apprenticeship. Projects will be the new resumes. Portfolios will be the new credentials. AI will turn builders into forces of creation.
And so the question for each of us, and especially for the next generation, is simple:
Are we preparing ourselves to be builders?
Are we preparing our kids to be builders?
Are we cultivating the curiosity, courage, and agency that creation demands?
The truth I’ve seen from my journey building Kano and Supersocial applies to the AI age we’re stepping into: Human potential doesn’t emerge from consuming the world.
It emerges from shaping it.
If we can help shape a generation that sees creation as identity, not as an elective, then I believe the collapse of the old ladder won’t be a tragedy at all, but the beginning of something far better.
With belief,
Yon
👋 Hello! My mission with Beyond with Yon is to help solve humanity's greatest existential challenges and advance the human condition. Connect with me on LinkedIn and X.
Thumbnail Credit: Freepik
Spot on. You totally nailed the AI career ladder shift.