This episode explores how AI automation threatens all knowledge work without exception, examining the implications for an eight-figure revenue business operating with just three equity partners and one VA, while LLM models already test as top-100 coders globally and are projected to become the world’s best programmer by next year.
Key Takeaways:
- All Problems Are Soluble Through Technology David Deutsch’s physics-based optimism proves that anything not violating the speed of light is possible to replicate, meaning every knowledge worker’s output (including investing, law, and medicine) can and will be automated regardless of education level or experience.
- Scale Without Headcount Becomes Competitive Advantage Building toward eight-figure revenue with minimal personnel drag by systematically automating every task across all roles (including CEO functions) creates margins impossible for traditional staffing models to match.
- Gen Z as the Canary in the Coal Mine Over one-third of U.S. managers prefer AI over Gen Z hires and 45% prefer freelancers or former employees, signaling that early-career positions face immediate replacement with more experienced roles following rapidly behind.
- Abstraction Becomes the Only Defense As AI capabilities accelerate weekly, knowledge workers must continuously abstract to higher strategic levels rather than protecting current skillsets, forcing constant evolution to stay ahead of technological replacement.
Listen to the full episode for the framework on embracing AI tools daily to evolve faster than the automation curve rather than resisting the inevitable technological shift.
(Podcast transcript below)
Hi, Chris Duff over at Serious Land Capital, vacant land funding partner. Today, just wanting to share some updated thoughts about everybody’s favorite topic, AI, and how we’re continuing to utilize it within our own business and just thinking about knowledge work in general.
My toddler was just going through a bit of a phase transition with sleeping and then waking my wife and I up odd hours of the night. so during some of those sleepless portions, my mind just starts daydreaming. Wish I was actually dreaming about, you know, some various thoughts and so forth. And so, you know, spending like an hour plus just thinking about the implications of AI as I was
trying to fall back asleep last night.
You know, within our business first, I’ve learned a lot from, you know, I think our famous Callum Faulkner within the land space though. I’m not even sure she’s fully in the land space. She might’ve converted fully over to AI now based on our recent success. I’m not surprised. I wish her all the absolute best. I’ve learned a lot from her and just, you know, utilizing AI on a daily basis and
you know, I’ve truly hit that point now over the last few months, especially, and just like week over week, just continue to be more impressed with the capabilities of these various softwares. and. You know, more directly within our own business, for instance, I’m just thinking about, you know, every single task that is being done is there.
a route to attempt to start to automate some of this, if not all of it across every, you know, worker within the business, including myself, of course. So I know I’ve mentioned on this podcast a few times, like the great success that we utilized AI recently for SEO and geo articles specifically work like that really lends itself to where these LLM models
have, have been built out to so far. and I think that’s only going to continue to increase. And so, you know, on my end, even as like the core skill that have really built up over the years is, really underwriting and capital management and so forth. Obviously I’m trying to build a software that democratizes that capability much more. And,
effectively flattens the…
overall ability of anybody within the land industry to properly underwrite land deals because like ultimately It’s it’s something that can be broken down like there’s no That there’s no You know sacred cows. There’s no secret sauce for really anything within knowledge work. And so Yeah, I’m just trying to keep that in mind and realize that okay, everything can
be automated and probably is only going to be trending in that direction more and more so on an accelerated scale. Same with everything my partners do. You know, they have less direct input within the business, but you know, some key silos, they still participate within, know, especially within the legal side. And there’s already been some new tools that have been experimenting to help make doc prep a lot easier. And, you know, maybe a few refinements here and there.
But that saves extra time and cost and so forth as well and everything my primary VA does to trying to figure out how can I both add more to his plate while reducing the burden of a number of these tasks? You know, I mean just kind of looking at the numbers here. I mean we’re trending on
arriving at eight figure top line revenue business by the end of 2025 with clearing currently projected over a million in net profit. If we got to 10 mil top line, then that profit number should be even higher. But so far that net profit number is probably more accurately trending based on
What I was looking at over the past week or so, that’s starting, know, we’re still like a very small company compared to, you know, look at those massive conglomerates or the tech giants and so forth. But, you know, it’s, it’s starting to become, you know, business that can, you know, provide for everybody involved within it. we built up some real staying power and we’re only continuing to accelerate.
So, and, all of that is, you know, being, built with three core equity partners with really myself being the primary day-to-day operator. And then we have, you know, one core VA within the business. everybody, like we have tons of other people who help contribute to the business, but a lot of them are paid, you know, after we exit a deal or they’re contractors. And so there’s no like direct employment or.
Um, you know, even 10 99 set up within the business. And so it’s like, okay, can we, you know, can we build an eight figure business with just like one core VA can, how big can we get with having such a limited personnel, um, drag on, on the company from a, uh, resources and, um, you know, expense perspective, uh, just by utilizing, you know, top level.
technological inputs and making things as efficient as possible. So that is where my mind is constantly going. And now to take it more in a general direction, you know, just knowledge work as a whole. First, again, we need to look at, you know, science as a whole, like the raw base principles, the absolute.
core requirements for getting anything done. First principle thinking, yeah, that’s what I was looking for, sorry. So, you know, I’ve been reading a lot more on the theoretical, physical, a lot of the Brian Greene books here. It’s my favorite books ever, David Deutsch. It’s like the most optimistic, but basically using physics to prove out optimism. mean, the world changing type of books here and highly recommend them. But, you know, a core maxim that
that David Deutsch always points out is that all problems are soluble so long as they are not impossible from the realm of physics. And there are very few things that are truly impossible from a physics standpoint. Most have to do with surpassing the speed of light, which is not something we’ve even…
come close to attempting to surpass throughout all of human history. pretty much anything outside of that is in fact possible. So problems are soluble, which means that anything that we’re doing as knowledge workers can and is possible to be replicated. That is just a fact. So I think a lot of us,
especially those that are more highly educated. mean, I throw up my hand here, I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on higher education, have a medical degree, et cetera, obviously went in a different direction. But you start to become a bit more entrenched and feel like, okay, I am reaping the rewards for putting in so much time and money and resources to get to this point. I should be rewarded for the knowledge that I’m bringing to
you know, whatever industry that, that I’m in. And oftentimes that’s the case and that’s been the case for thousands of years within human history. It’s just the catch-up point from a technological perspective is just rapidly accelerating that we can’t think that any position is safe anymore or any knowledge work that is being done is safe in principle. mean, the look at, you know, from a software engineering perspective,
Some of these LLM models are already performing in the top 100 coder, you know, testing setup. I’m not exactly sure how that’s done, but you know, they’re testing as if they are, you know, one of the top 100 software engineers in the entire world. And it’s estimated that the LLMs will take over as the number one coder in the world by next year, approximately. So this is rapidly changing. So, you know,
us as investors, are we really doing anything that different from what software engineers are necessarily doing? A lot of it is just logical throughput, pattern matching, analyzing data. None of that, again, has anything that is sacred or has a secret sauce associated with it. So we just have to keep in mind that no matter how good we are,
ultimately, some of these technologies can, eventually catch up. And so to me, I just fully embrace that. Like it’s just what can I replicate? And then that forces me to evolve. Okay. I need to abstract further and further out in order to continue to, still provide value to the overall economy and the industry that I’m in. So.
To me, I view it as a positive factor. And I realize there’s a lot of trepidation and again, employees especially, any type, even entrepreneurs and so forth that feel they’ve been rewarded. Again, they’re feeling some vulnerability, especially if they haven’t used AI models and there’s even some sabotage going on in companies where it’s like, hey, I don’t want to…
use these LLMs because then that’s going to prove to whoever my boss is and so forth that I’m actually not as useful to them anymore. It’s a totally normal psychology. But nevertheless, that’s something that is not going to hold up with the test of time. I mean, me looking as pretty much the CEO of my business, yeah, I want to just make everything more efficient.
as possible, replace human, human output with technology as much as I can. You’d be foolish to think that any other business leader, is, is not thinking the same way. Maybe they’re a little bit behind the curve, you know, a bit older generation, but as soon as that info is coming, mean, look, if you sign up for Callan’s newsletter, I mean, she’s talking to a multi-billion dollar private equity manager.
who was a bit older and, you know, she opened his eyes to the AI side and just like, you know, private equity in general, but looking to make things more efficient, cut costs. That is going to be going on in every single industry because, you know, every single business owner is going to be thinking, okay, why am I paying, you know, someone 50K, 100K, 500K million dollar salary when either A, I can have AI replace that person entirely or
If I can’t do that just yet, can I hire somebody who is embracing AI more within this job role compared to somebody who is being more resistant to embracing this technological change? Like those conversations are already happening and going to continue to happen throughout every single industry. to me again, like there’s no inherent job security anymore.
And even if I’m proven wrong by that, do you really want to take the gamble? To me, it’s a major gamble that won’t come to pass. To me, that is a huge, huge risk. So I’d rather be preparing where we’re heading to a world where there’s absolutely no job security and you have to continue to keep evolving, which has really always been the case. It’s from the dawn of time. It’s just, you know, now it’s even faster to evolve. So it’s really nothing new.
just faster, faster pace here. but that, that is what I’d be thinking of constantly. Like, you know, 10 year positions and so forth doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist anymore. Like it’s changing too fast. so you can’t rest on your laurels, just technology is coming. and, you know, even if you resist it, the other.
decision makers, whoever may be above you. And we all, we all have them, right? Like even if you run your own company, if you have another competitor who embraces the technology better, you’re going to lose out on your clients and customers anyway. So ultimately you’re going to be, there’s a forcing function regardless of where you operate. Whether you’re an employee or a business owner or manager or what have you. So that’s what I’ve been thinking a lot more about. And I saw
you know, we’re wrapping up here, a longer one. but again, a lot of thoughts as I was, you know, staying up late last night, like Scott Galloway’s team was sharing some research that, especially for Gen Z, possible employees that, they, or there was some poll for a lot of us.
managers, various companies across different industries and over one third of US managers said they prefer AI over a Gen Z hire and an additional 45 % would rather hire a freelancer or a former employee. So that’s like the vast majority, right? So you’re looking at that’s like almost 80 % of all managers would prefer not to hire a Gen Z. So part of that is from a technological perspective and
Um, you know, part of that is, you know, with the COVID hit, uh, Gen Z a little less apt socially, oftentimes the training costs, cetera. Um, so that’s an additional factor there. Um, but, uh, you know, to me, it’s really that training piece as well too. They’re the earliest in their careers. So probably the easiest from a knowledge work perspective of being replaced by AI. Um,
So to me, okay, you’re starting at a little bit more of the bottom of the pyramid. And those of us who have been in our careers for longer, built up more knowledge work and so forth. Okay. We might be saying, oh yeah, poor Gen Z, what have you, but this is the canary in the coal mine, right? Like that, that technological progress again, is going to continue to increase and accelerate, um, to come after some of our much, uh, higher levels of.
of knowledge work as well. I include myself every single day. My output becomes a little less valuable compared to what some of these LLMs are doing. So again, you have to abstract and abstract yourself out further in order to continue to find ways to add value to whatever industry you are in. So hopefully this is helpful. Maybe share with anybody who
might be more resistant to technological change or maybe that, that includes you. like have you started experimenting even a couple of minutes a day of utilizing one of the AI tools, know, whether it’s chat, GBT, claw perplexity, or maybe more of the specialized ones, even utilizing, and, you’re probably using it in some way anyway, even if you do a basic Google search now, look at how many of your responses are showing up with, the AI Gemini summaries there. So.
You know, you’re already getting some usage, even if you wouldn’t directly consider it to be, um, you know, directly targeting AI use. So, uh, just notice the creep throughout all parts of your life. And, um, you know, that’s why I’m still so optimistic. Just a final point here. I gather obviously a lot going on from a macro perspective, tariffs, et cetera. It’s just kind of, um, who knows a lot of uncertainty at the moment, but I.
I just feel like, okay, this technological pretty much windfall that we’re sitting on and just accelerating right now, like if you really start playing around with these LLM models and so forth, then just understanding the potential that we have to drastically transform our lives across the world probably faster than we can even imagine if we continue to adapt.
and invest in this, to me that is going to outweigh any of the other, know, various complexities that are currently going on. So, you know, again, the future is built by optimists, never forget that, deal with challenges as they come. But that is the viewpoint that I choose to embrace. So serious land dot capital for any of your funding needs, zero cost review of your diligence deals.
our diligence deals, your land deals, that land daily diligence Facebook group. Again, sorry, I sleep the most, but last night and then landpricer.ai, a lot more beta tests were outgoing, a lot more feedback, very much appreciate it. Again, from some of the biggest names in the land space taking the time to review and test this out. Couldn’t be more grateful. I’m gonna continue to refine the product and look to launch it here later this month is the goal.
Looking forward to that. Take care, everybody. See you next time. Bye.
