This is a summary of a video I published on YouTube. You can click on the link below to watch the full video.<\/p>\n
Right now, a lot of developers are acting like AI is some kind of unlimited resource. It isn\u2019t. Microsoft just reminded everyone of that when internal usage of Claude blew up and the bills followed right behind it.<\/p>\n
Same story with other companies\u2014heavy experimentation, then a sudden pullback once the invoices land. People jump to extremes: either \u201cAI is too expensive to matter\u201d or \u201cAI will replace everyone anyway.\u201d Both takes miss the point.<\/p>\n
The real issue isn\u2019t AI. It\u2019s how you use it.<\/strong><\/p>\n Stronger models help, sure. But I\u2019ve seen teams get wildly different results using the exact same model. The difference wasn\u2019t intelligence. It was structure.<\/p>\n If you let AI run loose, it burns money and gives inconsistent results. If you put it inside tight constraints, clear inputs, and defined outputs, it becomes useful and predictable.<\/p>\n I call this \u201charnessing.\u201d You\u2019re not doing research. You\u2019re building systems that guide behavior.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where the real value is. Not prompts. Not model hype. Systems.<\/strong><\/p>\n Here\u2019s where a lot of people go wrong. They think AI replaces the need to understand software. It doesn\u2019t. It exposes whether you actually understand it.<\/p>\n Anyone can get something working to 70\u201380% now. That\u2019s easy. The last 20%\u2014making it stable, predictable, and maintainable\u2014that\u2019s where most people hit a wall.<\/p>\n And that wall is always the same:<\/p>\n AI doesn\u2019t fix that. It amplifies it.<\/p>\n The developers who are going to do well here aren\u2019t the ones chasing every new model. They\u2019re the ones who understand tradeoffs.<\/p>\n Sometimes you use an expensive API. Sometimes you run a smaller local model. Sometimes you chain multiple tools together.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve built simple systems where one tool grabs data, another cleans it, another rewrites it, and another publishes it. Nothing fancy. But it works because the flow is controlled.<\/p>\nThe real skill: controlling the tool, not chasing the model<\/h4>\n
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Why fundamentals still decide who wins<\/h4>\n
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Where the opportunity actually is<\/h4>\n