Hire Yourself

There's never been a better time to enter the job market. There, I said it.

There's been so much ink spilled recently about the plight of college graduates, so much hand-wringing about entry-level positions disappearing and AI automation stealing opportunities, that no one is saying the quiet part out loud:

No one wanted a "job" to begin with.

One of my favorite expressions is, "An inventor is never unemployed." The same can be said for an entrepreneur. And right now, as traditional entry-level positions evaporate, you're being handed something precious: the gift of bandwidth to become an entrepreneur.

The False Choice That's Trapping Everyone

Most people see only two options: get a job or face unemployment. But there's a third path that everyone's missing: get a customer.

The paradigm shift is simple but profound. Instead of asking "Who's going to employ me?" start asking "Who's going to be my customer?" Instead of optimizing your resume for HR algorithms, start optimizing your solutions for real people with real problems.

This isn't just feel-good advice. It's strategic necessity. As my podcast co-host Henrik Werdelin and longtime collaborator Nicholas Thorne point out in their new book Me, My Customer, and AI, we're heading toward a world where everyone will need to think like an entrepreneur, whether they realize it or not.

Why Now Is Actually Perfect Timing

Here's what the hand-wringing headlines miss: AI isn't just eliminating jobs—it's democratizing execution. It's never been easier to build something legitimate.

Want to create a mobile app? AI can help you code it. Need a business plan? AI can help you draft it. Building a website? AI can design it. Creating marketing materials? AI can generate them. The tools that used to require teams and budgets now fit in your pocket.

Take Liam Fuller, an 18-year-old from Ireland who’s built Source, a platform that uses AI to automate stock purchasing for retailers. His company just secured €1.2 million in funding from investors like Square Peg. Or consider Leonard Tang, Richard Liu, and Steve Li—all in their early twenties—who founded Haize Labs, building AI security systems now used by companies like Anthropic and OpenAI.

These aren't outliers. They're early indicators of what's possible when you combine fresh perspective with democratized tools.

The real constraint was never ideas—it was execution capacity. That constraint just got obliterated.

Meanwhile, you have something that's increasingly rare: bandwidth. While everyone else is trapped in the "find a job" paradigm, you have the freedom to explore, experiment, and create. That's not a consolation prize—that's a strategic advantage.

Your Secret Weapon: Fresh Eyes

As a recent graduate, you possess something that can't be taught and diminishes with experience: the outsider's perspective. You don't know what's "impossible" yet, which makes you dangerous to conventional wisdom.

Bob Taylor, the outsider who revolutionized computing by focusing on the display when experts said it was "peripheral," had training in sensory psychology that seemed irrelevant until it became everything. The computer traditionalists, despite their expertise, couldn't see past their own specialized needs.

This often happens: keepers of conventional wisdom miss the opportunities that emerge as technology changes. That’s how Denys Overholser imagined the Stealth Bomber when the expert aerodynamicists couldn’t see it. The same is true of physicists just before Einstein’s Year of Miracles.

You don't know the "rules" of your industry yet. That's not a bug—it's a feature. As I've written before, your objectivity is a precious commodity that you'll lose quickly once you gain "experience." Use it while you have it.

The 5 P's: Your Personal Opportunity Audit

Before you start building solutions, you need to understand what uniquely positions you to create value. Henrik and Nicholas developed the "5 P's" framework to help entrepreneurs identify their entrepreneurial energy:

Passions: What problems do you find yourself thinking about? What naturally draws your attention and energy? These aren't just hobbies—they're the challenges you instinctively want to solve.

Positions: What roles have you held in your personal and professional life? Each position—team captain, project manager, volunteer coordinator—has given you unique insights into how systems work and where they break down.

Possessions: What environments and resources have you cultivated? Your choice of possessions often reflects your values and can suggest populations you might want to serve.

Powers: What are you naturally good at? This includes not just professional skills but personality traits and natural abilities that others struggle with.

Potentials: What do you want to learn? These aren't weaknesses to fix but opportunities to expand your impact through new capabilities.

Take fifteen minutes right now and brainstorm each category. The intersections between these areas often reveal unexpected opportunities.

Start With Problems, Not Solutions

Here's where most people get it wrong: they try to learn AI first, then find applications. That's backwards.

The key skill isn't "learn AI"—it's "find problems worth solving." And the best way to find problems is to pay attention to what bugs you.

Keep a bug list. Write down everything that annoys you, frustrates you, or makes you think "there has to be a better way." As legendary Stanford professor Bob McKim knew decades ago, these lists become rich sources of opportunity.

Laura D'Asaro, a serial entrepreneur I had the pleasure of teaching, puts it perfectly: "The biggest thing is, I'm hyper-aware of problems. Anytime I find myself feeling annoyed, I write down the problem and think about what I might do to solve it."

Your age is actually an advantage here. You encounter friction points that older folks have learned to accept. You haven't yet developed the "that's just how things work" mindset that kills innovation.

Your First Move: Start Stupidly Small

Don't build the next Facebook. Build something that solves a problem for ten people. Use AI to help you build it faster and cheaper than ever before.

Maybe it's a simple app that helps college students split restaurant bills more efficiently. Maybe it's a service that helps local businesses manage their social media. Maybe it's a newsletter that curates opportunities for your specific major.

The goal isn't to create a unicorn—it's to create value and get your first customer. Everything else can grow from there.

Remember: an inventor is never unemployed. In the age of AI, that's truer than ever.

A Note for Parents and Mentors

If you're reading this thinking about a young person in your life, the language you use matters more than you think. Small shifts in how you frame conversations can unlock entirely different possibilities.

Instead of asking "How's the job search going?" try "What problems have you noticed lately that you could solve?"

Instead of "Have you applied anywhere?" ask "What would you build if you knew it would work?"

Instead of "You need to be more realistic," consider "What's the smallest version of that idea you could test?"

Resist the urge to push them toward "safe" traditional employment. The safest thing they can do right now is learn to create their own opportunities. Encourage experimentation. Celebrate attempts, not just successes. And most importantly, help them see that what looks like a crisis might actually be the best thing that ever happened to their career.

The job market isn't broken. It's evolving. And the people who evolve with it won't just survive—they'll thrive.

Related: Your Team Just Quoted 8 Weeks. What if They’re Off by 99%?
Related: Beware Conventional Wisdom
Related: Embrace the Outsider
Related: Preserve Your Perspective (Written for fresh grads!)
Related: Take Your Own Job Before Someone Else Does (Written for fresh grads’ parents!)

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