My great-grandparents were farmers. My grandparents were farmers. My parents grew up as children of farmers, working the land until they left for high school and college.
My father got a degree in mechanical engineering, and ended up owning a manufacturing business. Him and 30 people out back in the factory, making things out of metal. I grew up watching this. I worked there. I was the child of a skilled trades parent.
Then I took the track we were all told to take: high school to college to postgraduate to white-collar workforce. I was the first generation in my family that didn't start my career farming or in a trade.
In college, I had a propensity toward technology. I was building websites, data bases, buying servers on ebay, ripping them apart, putting them back together. Learning how it all worked. During my MBA, I could see the writing on the wall. Every business was going to have a technology backbone. SAP. Oracle. IBM. These were the giants. I knew I needed to skate to where the puck was going so I did.
I got an MBA and a Master of Information Technology. And for the past 20+ years, that's exactly what I've done. Worked in the intersection of business and technology.
Today, the puck is at the optimization of the white-collar workforce. The industrial revolution of knowledge work.
That's why I'm all in on AI. That's why I write The AI Boss newsletter. This isn't going away. People need to get hands-on with these utilities. If they don't, it's the equivalent of refusing to learn how to use a computer in 1995. You will be dead in the water if the only skill you have is knowledge work that AI can replicate.
You can't be a Luddite and pretend the sewing machine won't change how clothing gets made. A sewing machine did the work 10x faster than a human hand, but a human still had to drive it. AI works the same way. The machine does the tasks. The human stays in the loop. At least for now.
Here's what most people miss: this isn't new. It's a cycle.
In 1800, 74% of Americans worked on farms. Today it's under 1%. Machines didn't eliminate work, they shifted it. From farms to factories. From factories to offices. Now from offices to AI in the cloud and probably on your computer or phone soon.
I've been thinking about this since 2022. Not because I read a report. Because I could see it happening.
I'd drive through industrial parks around Chicagoland and see Help Wanted signs everywhere. Countless signs. I'd talk to friends in blue-collar trades and they'd tell me how hard it is to find young apprentices. Nobody wants to do the work, they'd say. Meanwhile, I'd watch knowledge workers stack up credentials and debt, chasing jobs that AI is now learning to do.
The data backs up what I was seeing on those drives:
80% of the American workforce has meaningful task exposure to AI. 19% could see half their job automated. The roles most at risk? Programmers. Accountants. Legal assistants. Marketing. Customer service. The "safe" knowledge economy jobs we told an entire generation to pursue.
Meanwhile, the skilled trades face a 500,000+ worker shortage this year alone. 41% of tradespeople will retire by 2031. Electricians and plumbers now out-earn the average college grad. 60% of Americans say trade skills are more valuable than a four-year degree.
This chart can help you visualize the change over time.
We're at an inflection point where the shifts go in opposite directions. Knowledge work will shrink rapidly, just like farming did when machines arrived. Skilled trades will grow. They'll be in high demand. The opportunities there will expand as opportunities in white-collar work contract.
I hope my kids end up in farming or blue-collar trades. And that wouldn't be a step backward. It would be skating to where the puck is going.
Honestly? I might end up there too. Because I see so much opportunity.
The cycle is turning. What's old is becoming new again.
We're not at the beginning of this shift. We're at the end of the last one, and the start of something different.
Learn AI. Get your hands dirty with it. And don't sleep on the trades.
The puck is already moving. Will you be there?