—The Tower Builders Series (I)
Not everyone is failing to try hard enough.
The problem is that we're checking our watch against a clock that's no longer ticking.
I sat on this thought for a month. Then three events collided — and I finally wrote it down.
The Three Events That Broke My Pattern
A 32-year-old just raised at a $20 billion valuation. No company registered yet.
An engineer I know — 30 years of solid work — is now buried under tens of millions in unpaid receivables.
Last Saturday, I watched 100 graduate students surround me after a talk. I couldn't name what I felt.
Three events. One era. Two clocks.
Here's the uncomfortable truth
The old formula is broken.
Not because individuals stopped trying. Because the formula itself no longer works the way it did.
Read credentials. Climb ladders. Wait for payment cycles.
Many people see this. They still live by the old rules anyway.
Psychologists call it bicameral mind — knowing and pretending not to know at the same time.
That's where the feeling of "missing the boat" really comes from. Not confusion. Clarity without action.
The Tower of Babel Never Left the Building
4,000 years ago, humans built the first tower — Babel.
They said: "Let us build a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven."
God saw it. Said something revealing:
"Behold, the people are one... nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do."
So He confused their language. The tower stopped. The people scattered.
The tower didn't fall because God demolished it.
It fell because the builders stopped speaking the same language.
This is the first tower story. And the story of every tower since.
Kafka wrote about it in 1917 — "The Great Wall of China." He saw what we're only now living:
The old tower is collapsing. A new tower is being built. And the new foundation often sits in the rubble of the old one.
The new tower's name? AI.
The Real Choice
The tower will fall. The foundation won't.
Old industries will restructure. Careers built on old rhythms will struggle.
But the underlying skills — judgment, vision, the ability to build systems that work — never become obsolete. They just find new towers to build.
The question isn't whether your industry will change.
It's whether you're building on sand or stone.
What This Means for Your Next Move
- The speed gap between "industrial time" and "AI time" is widening — your planning horizon may need to shrink
- Systems are breaking, not just careers — stop blaming effort and examine the formula
- The foundation beneath real value is still there — but the tower you're building might be the wrong shape
- Adoption of new technology follows organizational change, not the other way around — be patient with the process, impatient with inaction
- The builders who survive aren't the most hardworking. They're the most adaptable.
If this resonates — or if you've felt this tension in your own industry — I'd genuinely like to hear your story.
Drop it in the comments. I'm collecting these for the next piece in the series.
And if you found this useful, share it with someone who's been running faster but falling behind.
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