As the cost of expertise drops, what counts is the will to build

Another nice conversation I’ve had lately — after Lenny’s post on how job openings in our field are doing — is about how well “builder” people are doing. Regardless of whether they’re devs, designers or PMs. What changes is the will to build.

In this video ( https://lnkd.in/dZHTe3iQ ) Karim Lakhani talks about how the cost of expertise is heading toward zero. I strongly agree. I feel I’ve implemented ML things relatively well, done sophisticated UX analyses, and the code comes out with good fault tolerance. Does it have flaws? For sure, but as the cost of expertise keeps dropping, the willpower to build is becoming the deciding factor.

It’s great to know that the resilience to keep building and the knowledge I picked up from the practices I’ve been through — a nice way of saying I’m getting old — is a factor that lets me do things I used to think were impossible. Good times… or not. I don’t know, hahahah

A joke I’ve been making more often is “I used to blame my team for delays, poorly implemented stuff, bad UX. Now I’ve just found out that I’m the one who’s bad at defining the product”. It hurts, but it’s true! :)

Originally written in Portuguese and published on LinkedIn on November 13, 2026. I translated it into English with the help of AI (Claude): it let me bring my LinkedIn posts to people who don’t read Portuguese without rewriting each one from scratch. I reviewed the translation to keep my original meaning and tone.