No Limits — Now What?

Just because you can, does it mean you should?

Good morning, friends.

I’ve got a question for you which I don’t know how to answer, and I wonder if you would like to put your opinion in a hat, hopefully we can figure out the answer together.

Now that you’ve read how to build an app in 48 hours, and 48 hours is for noobs, you can probably see that building anything with AI coding assistance is a piece of cake. It still takes time, and it isn’t perfect, but there are no limits. You can pitch me any kind of crazy idea today, and I can make it happen by next weekend.

Is this superpower worth anything?

Some people would say that it is absolutely worth something. For example, now it’s possible to find a well funded company, clone their product in a weekend, and then sell it at 10% of the cost while burning 100x less cash doing it. Easy money. Do this to everyone.

There is also an opportunity to automate everything in enterprise. Walk into any department, figure out what they spend 80% of the time on, build systems around it and save millions. I did this stuff as an internet, back in the day. It’s kind of trivial. AI can enable everyone who dares to make this a business.

For me, the above options kind of torture me to pieces. What’s the point of doing something that can be done? Especially something that can be done so easily. Shouldn’t there be a larger purpose, a grander vision, an actually beneficial use case for all of this?

Look, I need much as much as the other guy, and I should want to get excited about all these low hanging fruit, but I can’t. Elon Musk is launching freaking rockets to space, should I spend my time automating accounting software? It just doesn’t fit in my brain.

My college professor, Beno Benhabib, told us once - “Nothing is impossible, some things are just highly improbable,” - and I really took that saying to heart. I think with a little bit of thinking and hard work, nothing is indeed impossible, and nowadays we can take more shots at the improbable stuff too.

So how do we channel these “impossible” powers into something actually worthwhile? Are we doomed to churn out cheap replicas of existing tools until the market is saturated and we all collectively groan?

I’ve been thinking that maybe the real question isn’t “What can we build?”—it’s “What should we build?” That opens a whole different line of thought. If we can whip up a new SaaS or an automated widget in a weekend, fine. That’s the baseline now. But the next step is figuring out how to go from quick wins to meaningful impact. If the big boys are out here colonizing Mars, maybe we can aim a bit higher than cheap software?

How do we pay the bills, while chasing the dream?

When biggest creative energy and best ideas get poured into rehashing something that’s already out there—just because it’s easy or profitable—it feels a bit like using a Ferrari to pick up groceries at the corner store. Sure, it works, but we’re barely tapping into all the horsepower we’ve got under the hood.

So here’s the challenge for you and me: How do we figure out what’s truly worth building? Do we look for personal problems that we’re itching to solve? Do we tackle big social or environmental challenges? Do we try to fuse our personal passions—like art or music or outer-space exploration—into something that harnesses AI’s wild power? Maybe all of the above?

Let’s open the door to those questions. If you could build something improbable—something a little out-there that just might nudge humanity forward—what would it be?

Let’s take our shot. Because at the end of the day, if anything is possible, then the only truly limiting factor is our own imagination. And that’s a barrier I’m pretty sure we can hack our way through.

If you would like to share your opinion with me, you can just reply to the email in your inbox, or if you are feeling grateful, become a paid subscriber and join the chat. Whoever floats your boat, I am cool with either.

— Kirill. (find me on X too)

Even though you can, does it mean you should?

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