Prepare for the "permanent, universal gig economy

Timeline: Immediate stabilization (6 months), billable hour collapse (2026-2027), and agentic service dominance by 2028+.

The Mindset Shift

Stop thinking like an employee and start behaving like a discoverable independent contractor, even if you currently work at a big company (change how you present yourself)
Required Assets to Build Specific components you need to establish now:

Domain – Establish expertise in a specific area
Site – Your own website/platform
Narrative – Your story/value proposition
Portfolio – Demonstrable work you can show/talk about
Contact method – A way for potential collaborators to reach you
(Optional) YouTube/Podcast (less critical initially, but helpful)
The Purpose This visibility isn't to become an "influencer" (Miessler: "Being an influencer is dead now" because everyone will soon be one). Instead, being visible is about to become the default state required simply to get work.

The Endgame Prepare for a peer-to-peer economy where:

Work finds you through a "tech layer" that matches people to projects
You are discoverable by others looking to partner on specific work
The traditional employment model gives way to constant project-based matching
The Catalyst (Jan 30, 2026) Anthropic released eleven open-source plugins for Claude Cowork—automating legal contract review, compliance, sales, and data analysis. Work previously billed at $400/hour became configurable via chat for $20/month. Within 72 hours, $300 billion evaporated from software and professional services stocks (Thomson Reuters -18%, LegalZoom -20%, DocuSign -52% YTD), an event now dubbed the "SaaSpocalypse."

The Core Revelation The enterprise software industry’s mantra—"AI augments, not replaces"—was revealed as a calculated delay tactic. Executives privately knew replacement was inevitable while publicly soothing markets to protect exit liquidity. Anthropic’s move made the timeline undeniable: the technology to replace expensive knowledge workers is not coming; it is here, open-source, and virtually free.

Market Reckoning

Losers: Traditional SaaS (Salesforce -26%, HubSpot -39%), legal publishing (RELX -14%), Indian IT services (Infosys -8%), and any model predicated on "billable hours" or "per-seat" licensing.
Winners: AI infrastructure (Nvidia), AI-native startups (Harvey AI now valued at $8B), and companies that integrated AI early (ServiceNow, SAP).
Ground Zero: Professional Services Big Law’s $800-$2,000/hour model faces existential threat. Claude performs NDA triage and contract review instantly without student loans, sleep, or partnership ambitions. Entry-level hiring in law, consulting, and finance is projected to drop 30-50%, with analysts warning of a "white-collar bloodbath" affecting 50% of entry-level knowledge work.

The Shift to "Human 3.0" The article predicts a move from SaaS to "agentic services" (AI agents instead of software tools) and a "permanent, universal gig economy." As functional AGI arrives within 3-9 months, survival requires:

Visibility: Public portfolios, personal websites, and discoverability replace CVs
AI Literacy: 56% salary premiums already exist for AI-skilled lawyers; the gap between literate and illiterate workers will widen catastrophically
Value Ascension: Move from execution (replaceable) to strategy, accountability, and relationship management
Income Diversification: Side projects and cross-industry skills become survival insurance
The Irony While Davos elites discussed "human-centered AI" over $47 cocktails, they privately acknowledged a "tsunami" of displacement. The future belongs not to institutional loyalty, but to "free agents"—individuals who treat themselves as