This is NOT an AI post…well, it sort of is…but not entirely.
I’ve been wrestling with an idea over the past few months.
With the steady advancement of AI, people are able to build more with less.
Significantly more.
Like, solo devs outputting multiple complete consumer ready applications in days. What formerly would take multiple teams (designers, project managers, devs, release managers, architects, and more) is now…Ralph Wiggum.
While I’m amazed and awe-inspired, something else akin to a feeling has been lurking and lunging at the surface of my consciousness in various forms. And like a Covid era sourdough that hath finally risen, I think I’ve identified it as this:
There is going to be a revolution in tech culture.
The next evolution of the tech bro is going to be the tech redneck and the gingham collar worker.
Let’s backtrack on how I got here.
First, was from an experiment of my own to build my daughter a garden.
I, an overly ambitious Type A with trust issues, decided to build an concrete patio extension that wrapped around a 16’x10′ box garden where we could plant marigolds and strawberries and I could instill the wonders of nature on an impressionable mind and maybe perpetuate the mythos of ‘Superdad’ for just one more year please before all the inevitable eye rolling and sarcasm and uncoolness.
With ChatGPT, it actually fucking worked. I mean, it’s not level, and there are some interesting “gaps for proper drainage”…but my handyman father-in-law said ‘hey, that’s actually pretty good.’
Next, were a smattering of ‘Personal AI Assistant’ YouTube videos.
I went down a rabbit hole – where enterprising developers built out elaborate systems for writing, research, and tech builds in domains removed from their expertise. My favorite is KAI from Daniel Miessler.
And finally, on Sunday, this comment from Ben Tossell of Ben’s Bites (phenomenal newsletter, do subscribe) where he describes a ‘new technical class’:
Prior to the advent of AI tooling, the breadth and requirements of most jobs forced workers into a niche that could typically be defined as blue collar or white collar jobs.
Even more modern advents like pink collar (nursing and other care related professions) and gray collar (EMS, pilots, law enforcement, military) are still defined by a narrow professional set of skills and capacities with a resume that stays within the ‘collar’ boundaries. Nurse resumes have nursing education and jobs, pilot resumes are filled with…planes, architect portfolios have architecture (conceptual and real world).
To remain employable, relevant, valuable you had to continuously add to your resume or portfolio, showcasing your ever increasing command of the professional niche. A surgeon who codes has way too much free time and I’m immediately suspicious of their surgical skills…and their code.
AI can now erase those barriers.
In other words, that same surgeon can leverage Claude Code to build a SaaS app for surgeons…and actually work well enough for other surgeons to adopt.
Extrapolate this further: what formerly separated two distinct worlds: office / knowledge work vs manual/trades work can no longer defend its moats and boundaries. The initial activation energy in the form of time and learning and practice is now, in both tech and trade, minimized. There’s no shortcut to expertise and mastery, but amateur personalization? Just a few prompts and requirements elicitations away.
It’s not just tech bros like myself who can jump into landscaping, or home maintenance, or woodworking projects.
The converse is accessible too. Work a trade service such as plumbing, HVAC, or contract remodeling? Want to implement a custom project planner, pre-work renderings, and payment processing + invoicing? Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, and Replit will build for you, bespoke to you.
Is it going to be perfect or enterprise grade? Not yet. But it will get there. The key pieces of accessibility and understandability are in place. And with that bridge built and paved, AI has connected formerly separated worlds that had to be navigated via niche focused companies with SaaS platforms account executives who stuffed contracts with SLAs and expensive add-ons. But no more at the smaller scales.
The innovators will cross over. They’ll tinker, abandon, start over, tweak, and build…IRL to PROD.
And let’s also be honest: at first, it will lead to a lot of half-completed, semi-abandoned, projects dotting many an AI generated portfolio page (I’m a card carrying member). And plenty of GitHub repos and YouTube tutorials that people copy, riff, and modify.
Actually, we have a precedent for this in the US: affectionately, the redneck. The one with all the half completed projects dotting the lawn, garage, or basement alongside one or two phenomenally showcased completed builds.
I expect to see a lot of these one-off, semi completed, profession-crossing projects surface in 2026. It’ll lead to some salacious YouTube comments, arbitrary huffing, puffing, and gatekeeping, and definitely some valiant no true Scotsman-ing.
But the collars will blend.
And the ranks will swell.
Proud tech rednecks with gingham collars.
We must welcome everyone.
I am excited.