AI Didn't Kill the Corporation... Creators & Founders Did
Solo founders, small teams & personal brands armed with AI aren't just competing with corporations—they're replacing them entirely.
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Those who move fast, think sharp and act independently are dismantling traditional power structures… and there's nothing legacy systems can do about it.
The obituary for the traditional corporation has been written. We're just waiting for the body to realize it's dead.
What we're witnessing isn't just another business cycle or technological shift. It's an extinction-level event disguised as innovation. While corporations debate AI implementation strategies in conference rooms, solo founders are already building the future from their kitchen tables.
The asteroid has landed. The question isn't whether you'll adapt—it's whether you'll survive.
AI isn't another tool in the entrepreneur's toolkit. It's a phase transition that has fundamentally altered the rules of business itself.
The specialization that corporations spent decades perfecting? It's been commoditized overnight.
The credentials that gatekeepers used to control access? They're now as relevant as a typewriter repair certification.
The complex hierarchies that justified corporate overhead? They've become anchors dragging companies toward irrelevance.
This isn't creative destruction—it's creative replacement. And the replacements don't look anything like what came before.
Taste development has become your most critical assets in an age where technical skills are increasingly commoditized and distribution is increasingly democratized.
The Corporate Tax vs. The AI Dividend
Corporations dominated for a reason. They made scale possible. They coordinated complexity. They organized specialized talent.
But every solution eventually creates its own set of problems… and the “corporate tax” has become glaringly obvious:
Simple decisions take months
Creativity gets filtered through fear
Meetings outnumber momentum
The work becomes about the work
For decades, we accepted this tax because there was no alternative. The coordination advantages outweighed the inefficiencies.
But AI has fundamentally changed this equation. Now, a founder with vision and discernment can deploy AI across every function that once required departments:
The marketing team? Replaced by one person with strategic vision and AI execution tools
The content creation department? A single creator with clear voice and AI amplification
The product development cycle? Compressed from months to days with AI prototyping
The customer service team? Transformed into AI systems guided by human empathy
The sales process? Reimagined as relationship-building while AI handles qualification and follow-up
What corporations tax in bureaucracy, AI returns as a dividend of time, focus, and creative freedom… and it’s making way for the new titans of industry… the modern day creator, personal brand and solo founder.
The New Titans of Industry…
…don't occupy glass towers or employ thousands.
They operate from co-working spaces and spare bedrooms, wielding AI like a force multiplier that would make entire corporate divisions envious.
What we're seeing is the emergence of the "superhuman entrepreneur/creator” — individuals who leverage AI to perform the work of entire departments
The old model required you to hire specialists for each function. The new model allows you to become all the specialists, with AI handling the execution while you focus on strategy, vision and, of course, taste.
This isn't just efficiency… it's evolution. These solo founders and small teams move faster, pivot quicker, and adapt more readily than their corporate counterparts.
They don't have shareholders to appease, committees to convince, or bureaucracy to navigate. They see an opportunity and act.
While corporations debate quarterly projections, these new titans of industry are already dominating the markets that don't exist yet.
And this isn’t about technology replacing people…
this is about people with independent thinking skills, authenticity, clarity and real world experience… replacing outdated infrastructure masked as necessary organizational complexity
This transformation isn't just about tools or efficiency.
It's about the fundamental advantage small teams have when armed with exponential technology: taste.
Corporations are designed to average out human judgment, to standardize and remove "risk" through consensus.
But in doing so, they eliminate the very element that creates extraordinary value — distinctive thinking patterns applied consistently over time.
In other words, taste.
When I wrote about taste becoming the new currency, I didn’t want people to think taste as merely aesthetic preference. Taste is much more fundamental — it's the consistent application of values to decisions.
It's discernment made visible. And this is precisely what AI amplifies. AI doesn't have taste — it has patterns. It doesn't have vision — it has prediction.
This means:
— A corporation using AI will produce more of the same, just faster
— A founder with taste using AI will produce what never existed before
This isn't theoretical. We're already seeing it happen:
— Solo newsletter writers outperforming entire media companies
— Single product designers creating software used by millions
— Individual creators building audiences larger than television networks
— Small teams developing AI implementations that outperform solutions from tech giants
These aren't anomalies — they're proof of concept.
Midjourney hit $500 million in annual revenue by 2025 with just a few dozen employees, achieving over $4.6 million in revenue per employee while spending zero on marketing.
Perplexity AI went from $20 million to $100 million in revenue in just one year with around 100 employees, directly challenging Google's search monopoly.
Meanwhile, the share of new US startups founded by solo founders with no venture funding has surged from 22% in 2015 to 38% in 2024, with AI startups reaching $1M in revenues up to four months faster than traditional SaaS companies.
Agency Trumps Credentials…
The great sorting has begun, and the dividing line isn't education, experience, or expertise. It's agency.
In the essay, Agency is Eating the World, Gian Segato defines agency as "the raw determination to make things happen without waiting for permission."
In the AI era, this single trait has become the ultimate competitive advantage. The MBA from Wharton means nothing if you're waiting for corporate approval while a high-school dropout with ChatGPT is solving the same problem from their garage.
Traditional pathways to success—degrees, specialized skills, years of climbing corporate ladders—have been rendered obsolete almost overnight.
The game has changed so fundamentally that previous experience might actually be a liability, creating mental models and assumptions that no longer apply.
I heard Dan Martell point out, "The real competitive edge isn't technical skill. It's having a vision of what should exist that doesn't yet."
Technical skills can be automated. Vision cannot. Execution can be accelerated by AI. Imagination cannot be replaced by it.
The new economy rewards those who see gaps and fill them, who identify inefficiencies and eliminate them, who spot opportunities and seize them… all without asking for permission from industries, institutions, or intermediaries.
High-agency individuals armed with AI aren't just competing against specialists… they're making specialization irrelevant.
Why hire a full-time designer when AI can generate designs based on your vision?
Why maintain an accounting department when AI can handle bookkeeping with greater accuracy and speed?
The specialists are becoming middle management in their own careers, while the generalists with agency are becoming the new specialists in everything.
Here's what I'm curious about: Which side of this transformation are you on? Are you the specialist watching your expertise get commoditized, or the generalist finally getting your moment to shine?
Beyond Replacement…
Make no mistake… corporations aren't simply going to fade away.
They will respond to this existential threat in predictable ways:
Acquisition: Buying the small teams who demonstrate the most promising replacements for their core functions
Imitation: Attempting to create "innovation labs" and "autonomous teams" that mirror the advantages of founders
Regulation: Seeking regulatory protection under the guise of safety and stability
Denial: Convincing themselves that their industry is different, their advantages insurmountable
But these responses will largely fail for a simple reason: the corporate structure itself is the limitation.
The organizational design that created success in the pre-AI era becomes the primary obstacle to adaptation. Some will successfully transform, but most will find themselves in the position of the dinosaurs… specialized for a world that no longer exists.
This transformation isn't just about replacing corporations — it's about unleashing possibilities that corporate structures made impossible.
What does this look like in practice?
A solo founder can now pivot their entire business model in a weekend. When Perplexity's founder wanted to challenge Google's search monopoly, he didn't need board approval, committee consensus, or quarterly planning cycles — he just built it.
When Midjourney's David Holz decided to operate exclusively through Discord with zero marketing spend, no corporate hierarchy questioned the unconventional strategy.
Compare this to traditional corporations: Google took years to respond to ChatGPT's threat because every AI initiative required navigating layers of approval, legal review, and stakeholder management.
Meanwhile, solo founders and small teams were already building and shipping competing products.
The new possibilities include:
Instant strategic pivots: No board meetings, no stakeholder management—just immediate response to market opportunities
Experimental business models: AI-first companies can test pricing, features, and entire business approaches in real-time without corporate bureaucracy
Authentic brand building: Personal brands and small teams create genuine connections that corporate marketing departments struggle to replicate
Global reach without infrastructure: A solo founder with AI can serve customers worldwide without opening offices, hiring local teams, or navigating corporate expansion timelines
This isn't just about doing the same things faster—it's about doing things that were structurally impossible within corporate constraints. When creativity isn't filtered through committees and execution isn't delayed by approvals, entirely new categories of value creation emerge.
This means we're not just witnessing the replacement of one organizational structure with another.
We're witnessing the emergence of entirely new possibilities for how value is created, how problems are solved, and how human ingenuity expresses itself.
The truly transformative question isn't "How will small teams replace corporations?" It's "What becomes possible when human creativity is no longer constrained by organizational limitations?"
That's the asteroid moment we're living through — not just extinction, but the creation of conditions for entirely new forms of building, connecting, and creating value to emerge.
The corporations that recognize this will transform themselves from hierarchies into ecosystems.
The founders who understand this will build not just businesses but new categories.
And those who develop taste that transcends trends will shape not just products but culture.
This isn't just about keeping pace with change. It's about becoming one of the forces directing where that change leads. The asteroid has hit. The dust is still settling. And what emerges next depends not on the technology itself, but on the vision of those who wield it.
Where You Stand In the Shift
This transformation creates three distinct positions, each with its own imperatives:
1 — For the solo founder or small team:
Your moment has arrived. The tools now exist to express your vision at a scale once reserved for organizations hundreds of times your size. The constraint is no longer resources or reach — it's clarity and conviction.
Develop taste. Refine judgment. Build systems that amplify your distinct perspective. Move with intention but without hesitation.
Your next step this week: Choose one business function you're currently outsourcing or avoiding and replace it with AI. If you're paying for copywriting, learn to direct ChatGPT or Claude to match your voice. If you're avoiding financial modeling, spend two hours with AI building projections. Pick the area that costs you the most time or money and AI-fy it by Friday.
2 — For those within corporations:
You face a choice. You can ride the existing structure toward its inevitable limitations, or you can develop the skills that will matter when that structure transforms.
Focus on developing judgment that transcends process, connections that survive reorganizations, and vision that can guide implementation when execution becomes abundant.
Your next step this week: Start building your "AI-amplified portfolio" outside work. Launch a side project, newsletter, or consulting service where you practice directing AI tools without corporate constraints. Spend 5 hours this week learning to use AI for something you've never done before—design, coding, market research, or financial analysis. This isn't about leaving your job; it's about developing the skills you'll need when your job inevitably transforms.
3 — For those considering their next move:
The risk equation has inverted. Starting something small but distinctive now carries less risk than remaining in structures designed for the pre-AI world.
The greatest security comes not from organizational stability but from developing the core capacities this transformation rewards — taste, vision, and the ability to direct AI implementation toward human needs.
*PS, if this is you, whenever you’re ready… I created Creator Founder: an algorithm-free space for visionaries building with clarity, alignment, and momentum… yes, you can have creative fulfillment and financial prosperity together. If you want structure without burnout and a community that gets it… I got you…
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Your next step this week: Test your idea without quitting your job. Use AI to build a minimum viable version of whatever you've been thinking about. If it's a service, create the landing page and pricing. If it's a product, build the prototype. If it's content, publish the first piece. Don't plan for months—ship something real by Sunday and see if anyone cares. The cost of testing has dropped to nearly zero; the cost of not testing has never been higher.
This shift isn’t just about replacing old models… it’s about creating new possibilities.
AI isn’t a tool for doing what we’ve always done — faster. It’s a force that removes the limitations of the old world.
What happens when you no longer need permission to build?
What emerges when creativity isn’t managed by consensus?
What grows when distribution is as fast as intention?
We’re not just replacing corporations. We’re restoring autonomy. Reigniting originality. Rebuilding trust in creators.
You were never supposed to be a cog. You were born to create systems that carry your soul, not just your strategy.
So ask yourself:
Will I be replaced?
Or will I become irreplaceable?
That decision is still yours to make.
Have a great week!
Matt
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I agree with Kat, this quote is amazing and sums it up so well. It’s also inspiring - ai can indeed be an opportunity to shine.
I love this quote “Technical skills can be automated. Vision cannot. Execution can be accelerated by AI. Imagination cannot be replaced by it.” This is what I see for myself. As a writer I finally stopped looking to the gatekeepers for approval. AI is changing the traditional gatekeepers. This is scary but also exciting it means we have our own agency.