I sit down with Duncan Young to discuss an essay he recently published on Substack that went a bit viral: “Jobs are dead, long live the $10 million niche.”

Duncan explains why AI is coming for repetitive tasks rather than the work itself, why mid-career professionals are facing an existential crisis, and why building your own ladder is now a far better bet than climbing a corporate one.

Enjoy.

Recording date: May 4, 2026

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

03:38 Duncan's Background

07:42 Writing With AI

11:18 First Job Compression: Industrialization

14:05 Second Job Compression: Great Offshoring

22:57 AI Came For the Margin, Not The Work

25:47 Building A Ladder vs Climbing One

32:17 Math Behind The $10 Million Niche

40:29 Building Relationships Over Margins

42:10 Leveraging AI To Build Direct Distribution

44:06 Two Doors: Build Your Own vs Build Inside

49:34 Shift From Hierarchies To Platforms

56:20 Decentralized Business Ownership

01:00:16 Four Levers Of Internal Entrepreneurship

01:05:13 Rapid Fire

Follow Jordan on X:

* https://x.com/jrwolfe

Connect with Duncan:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncanmayoung/

* Substack: https://substack.com/@saorsapartners

* Jobs Are Dead. Long Live the $10 Million Niche Article:

* Human Scale Article:

Remember to go direct!

Jordan

P.S. Build with love

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