I need to tell you something. Please listen and try not to panic. You’ve been in a coma for quite some time. Yes, yes, I know, you would like to know how long. I’m afraid it’s been… nine years.
It’s 2026 now. I’ll try to give you a brief update. Let’s start with the happy stuff.
There was a plague. It killed millions of people. We shut down everything and stayed at home. Trump is the US president again. Elon Musk is now a trillionaire, because he promised something about an AI data center in space…
Plague? Space? Wait, did you say AI? We built AI?
Ah, no. We don’t have AI yet. This is different. You remember AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol? It’s the same idea, but instead of Go games, they fed it every text on the internet and it spews out text.
Never mind the Go games. My calendar app. I was going to launch it in May.
Oh, that app you were building? Haha, I’m surprised you still remember. You’d probably have to rewrite it from scratch in this SwiftUI thing. Don’t worry, I’ll show you. It’s very easy to learn and create mediocre apps with…
Okay. SwiftUI. I can learn that. I’ll just, I’ll build it fast and sell it.
What? No. Don’t dream about making it big in the App Store. The App Store is full now.
What do you mean full? What about outside the App Store? Indie hacking! Pieter Levels! Is he still…
Don’t do the 12 startups in 12 months thing. Don’t build in public, nobody will see it or care. Don’t talk to people, nobody wants to talk to you. Actually, just forget about marketing altogether. Because the platforms don’t work like that anymore. Twitter is a right-wing website now. Facebook is where your aunt shares AI pictures of Jesus. Every other social network is either tiny or a content feed. You’re competing with cat videos. And AI-generated cat videos.
Then what am I supposed to do? Just get a normal corporate job?
… Right. About that. You don’t want to hear this, but it is very, very hard to get a job these days. Remember that AI thing? It can also spew out code. The bosses thought they could replace people with it. A lot of experienced engineers got fired. They’re now posting online begging for work.
If you need money now, you can drive for Uber. Or deliver food. Until the self-driving cars and delivery robots take those jobs too.
And speaking of money, your medical bill is 10 million dollars.