Humans are wired for reciprocity.
We feel uncomfortable if we receive too many favours without giving something in return.
And in a similar way, the more problems we solve for the market, the more it will want to reward us.
With this in mind, think back to our discussion of leverage.
Increasingly, the mechanisms of leverage are commoditised. Anybody can post a video, or write a program, or outsource repetitive work to an AI agent.
Only the core insight, the value, remains unique.
The upshot?
As leverage gets cheaper, the incremental cost of replicating this value approaches zero. We can build a solution once, and give it to billions of people with no extra effort.
Then, if these cost savings are transferred to the end user, it can generate ridiculous amounts of goodwill.
By all means, it's possible to cash in early. This is what people do when they sell online courses, or expensive software, or any other highly leveraged asset.
But when money is left on the table, it tends to multiply.
And if we wait, and make our money on the backend (rather than upfront), the market will often reward us handsomely.
There's just one problem: this requires a long time horizon.
How can we be sure that some new technology doesn't wipe us out in the meantime?
The answer lies in having runway.