AI Has Changed Work, But It Cannot Change Your Future

Letter:

Written at 9:28 a.m. on July 7, 2026:

Teacher James:

Hello! I am writing this letter today mainly to sincerely thank you. I happened to see people in the community recommending your books. During this period, I have repeatedly listened to your audio content, gained tremendously, had many realizations, and feel deeply grateful.

I would like to briefly share my personal experience with you. Back then, the domestic economy was in a golden period of rapid development. After graduation, I worked in traditional industries for many years and have remained in this field until now. The core of my work has long been export-related. In the early stage of my career, my overall development was relatively stable.

But after the pandemic in 2020, I deeply felt that the overall domestic environment and job market had undergone earth-shaking changes. I experienced unemployment, and I also deeply felt the impact brought by the rapid spread of AI technology.

In the past, companies placed extreme importance on workplace experience when hiring and using people. Senior white-collar workers and middle managers were the core backbone of companies. The implementation of AI has had a clear impact on many traditional white-collar jobs. Middle-aged people like us, with many years of workplace experience, have instead lost our former employment advantage, and the career crisis arrived suddenly.

Compared with many people of my age around me, I consider myself relatively lucky. Starting in 2025, I proactively transitioned into allocating capital to index funds. So far, I have achieved fairly good investment results. This has also allowed me to remain very calm and composed when facing unemployment, without falling into anxiety or panic. This investment income has allowed me to remain very calm and composed when facing unemployment, without falling into anxiety or panic.

After deeply studying your books, audio, and video courses, I completely adjusted my investment logic and switched all my holdings into Nasdaq and S&P 500 overseas indexes. At present, the overall returns are steady and in good condition.

Here, I would also like to honestly explain my current living pressures and situation to you: my family's financial burden is not light. After becoming unemployed, I stopped looking for salaried work and chose to start my own business. Over the past year, my overall income has been stable and considerable.

At this stage, I have already invested a fairly significant amount of capital, mainly allocated to the Nasdaq and S&P 500 indexes. My living expenses are highly controllable, and my monthly living costs can be fully covered by income from my trading side business. My overall financial condition is relatively stable. All of these changes and this confidence are inseparable from your knowledge sharing, which helped me break out of the fixed mindset of a traditional workplace employee.

Based on my own experience and the current changes in society, I deeply agree with the view you have always held: in the AI era, the career barriers of corporate white-collar workers and experienced professionals have been completely broken down. Middle managers like me have been especially clearly impacted.

I also have a deep feeling about this era. When I graduated twenty years ago, workplace salaries were around 500 US dollars. Nearly twenty years later, the starting salary for today's new college graduates is still at this level. Long-term wage stagnation is a very cruel and worrying thing.

The current changes in the industry have also left me very confused. A large number of manufacturing peers and friends around me have gone to Vietnam and Mexico for work. Many large domestic contract manufacturers and manufacturing supply chains are moving outward. Although the core end market for overseas factories is still the United States, the outflow of supply chains and the shrinkage of local manufacturing have already become visible trends. The living space for those of us in traditional manufacturing is being continuously compressed.

At the same time, I have also observed a very obvious social phenomenon: whether in African or North American markets, consumer demand remains strong, and overseas economic cycles are relatively healthy. But domestically, many young people today choose to lie flat, have low desires, and consume less. Insufficient consumer momentum makes it difficult for the entire social economy to form a positive cycle.

I know you have been deeply involved in the industry for many years and have also witnessed Taiwan's economic transformation and industrial changes. You have rich experience of the times and unique insight. Therefore, I sincerely want to ask you: in the future, will the domestic economy fully complete its manufacturing transformation? Facing the great changes of this era, including industrial migration, AI replacing workplace roles, economic-environment changes, and weak consumption among young people, how should ordinary middle-aged people of our generation, as well as today's young people, adjust their thinking, find the right direction, and calmly respond to changes in the times?

I look forward to your reply, and I am extremely grateful for your sharing and guidance!

James's Reply

Thank you for your letter. The experience you shared is very rich and quite rare.

Every era has its opportunities and its tests.

Let's talk about Taiwan 40 years ago. With China's rise and the outward migration of industries, many Taiwanese companies later moved to China. Taiwan therefore went through about twenty years of low wages and industrial adjustment. At that time, all the factories moved to China. Taiwan had low wages and low margins, and salaries did not grow for a full 20 years.

This is an industrial transformation. Every manufacturing industry will be affected after a certain period of time, because manufacturing is all about low margins. So when labor, land, and capital become expensive, all manufacturing will move outward. This is a normal phenomenon. It is just like when the United States faced very heavy competitive pressure from Japan, and at that time there was the slogan "Japan No. 1."

Japanese industries moved to Taiwan, and Japan entered its lost 30 years. Later, many Taiwanese companies moved to China, and Taiwan therefore went through about twenty years of low wages and industrial adjustment.

Today's China is merely copying the past path of Japan and Taiwan.

So as long as it persists, and eventually finds the next industrial outlet, China will be reborn through fire.

So when we look at the market, we need to look at the history of past markets. No matter how manufacturing rotates, in the end only one country benefits, and that is the United States. Because as long as you are producing and manufacturing for export to the United States, you will always face cost issues and competition.

Now, in the age of artificial intelligence, the United States is involved in some advanced manufacturing and semiconductor supply chains, while a large amount of advanced AI chip manufacturing capacity is concentrated in Taiwan. Therefore, Taiwan plays a very important role in the AI supply chain.

In the end, the world still depends on changes in demand from the United States, the world's largest consumer market.

China, meanwhile, has the opportunity to rely on its huge domestic demand market to find new growth directions in emerging technology fields such as artificial intelligence, and gradually reduce its dependence on traditional manufacturing exports. This is a rare industry where it can develop in sync with the United States. In the past, such an opportunity would have been impossible.

No matter what region you are in, there is absolutely opportunity. I have always believed that people all over the world will live better and better lives.