I barely have a high school diploma. I solve expensive problems cheaply.
That's the whole job.
I had a shitty job and did woodworking as a hobby. Then I learned computers so I could sell what I was making. That shitty job forced me to solve my most expensive problem: I was broke. I couldn't afford the life I was working forty hours a week to barely have.
So I started solving it. I taught myself the internet at the library. Built a way to sell my woodworking online. Did research on a product I was curious about, reached out to the company on social media, asked some questions.
A few days later the CEO called and offered me a job.
That's how I got here. No degree. No connections. No application. No HR. Just curiosity in public and a person on the other end who recognized it.
Expensive problems get you paid when you solve them.
Mine was being broke. Other people's are different. The skill is the same.
The titles don't matter.
I worked in private equity. Then I had every title marketing has to offer.
- Media manager
- Marketing strategist
- Brand manager
- Partnership marketing manager
- Senior marketing strategist
- Business development manager
- I solve problems. That's the whole job.
I solve expensive problems cheaply.
I get dropped into a business with a laptop and figure out where the money is leaking, where the leverage is buried, and what to build to fix it. Sometimes that's:
I don't care what the problem is called. I care what it costs and how to make it cost less.
That's it. That's the value.
The old game is over.
Because the shack story is the entire argument for the site. If a guy who grew his own food and cut his own firewood can get a CEO to call him out of the blue and end up running multiple businesses, the old game is over.
Education. Credentials. The right schools, the right titles, the right LinkedIn timeline.
That moat is empty.
Solving expensive problems cheaply, in public, where the right people can see you doing it.
The only skill that matters now. Everything else is decoration.
If you like wasting money, go to college. If you want to be useful, solve expensive problems.
AI is a force multiplier.Adapt or die.
You either use it or you get replaced by someone who does. People freak out about this. They've always freaked out. They freaked out about cars. They freaked out about airplanes. They freaked out at the end of the bronze age. The same people who asked if the internet was “still going to be a thing” after the dotcom bubble are the same people asking if AI is a fad now.
It's a pattern.
That's a quarter of a workweek you're either gaining or losing every Monday.
Most people use AI like a worse Google. Then they conclude it's overhyped. They're not wrong about their results. They're wrong about whose fault that is.
I'd rather just show you the work.
- I won't tell you to build an agentic workflow.
- I won't tell you to automate your life. You'll automate your job out of existence and call it productivity.
- I won't sell you a course on prompt engineering.
- I won't post threads about “the 7 AI tools that changed my business” with affiliate links.
The AI influencer industrial complex is mostly people who've never solved an expensive problem in their lives, teaching other people who've never solved an expensive problem how to look like they're solving expensive problems.
Solve expensive problems.Every Friday. Free.
Every Friday I send one real problem from my week. The tool I used. The exact solution. Before and after, with numbers when I have them. Five minutes to read. Use it Monday.
That's the recipe. That's the proof. Anything else is noise.