The question everyone is asking is wrong. Here's the one that actually matters.
I'm a software engineer. I've been a CEO, board member, and investor in technology companies worth billions — and I worked at ASML, the Dutch company that builds the machines that manufacture the chips that run AI. Every advanced processor in every data center running ChatGPT, every GPU cluster training the next generation of models — the chips inside were almost certainly made using their lithography machines.
I've sat at the hardware foundation of this revolution. I've built companies on top of it. And today I want to share with you what that vantage point actually teaches you about the most important career question of our generation:
Are you becoming obsolete — or are you becoming essential?
Most people are asking the wrong version of it. The right one is harder. What kind of person are you when the easy parts of your job disappear?
— WHAT I SEE
Two groups. One direction
Two kinds of people are emerging right now, and the divide is growing every month.
The first group is reactive. They read the headlines. They get anxious. Some of them pick up AI tools — but only to do what they were already doing, just slightly faster. They treat it like a better search engine. They call themselves "AI-forward" but nothing about their thinking or output has actually changed.
The second group is architectural. They don't just use AI. They think about where it fits, where it breaks, and what it makes possible that wasn't possible before. They use it to build things, not just produce things. They're quieter about it. And they are moving at a pace that will be uncomfortable to watch in about 18 months.
The first group will not be replaced by AI. They'll be replaced by the second group.
"AI is not coming for your job. It is coming for the parts of your job you were never actually good at."
— WHAT MAKES SOMEONE OBSOLETE
It's not age. It's not your industry.
It's a mindset. I've seen it in engineers with 20 years of experience. I've seen it in founders who are 28. Here's what it looks like:
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Protecting yesterday's skills.
You confuse familiarity with value. The fact that something took you years to learn doesn't make it worth defending.
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Waiting for certainty before you start.
You say "let me see how this plays out" — until the window has already closed. Observation is not a strategy.
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Thinking expertise means knowing answers.
AI knows answers. Expertise is knowing which questions matter — and why the obvious answer is usually the wrong one.
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Treating depth and adaptability as opposites.
The expert who has stopped being curious is the most at risk. They've learned enough to stop being scared. That's exactly when irrelevance begins.
— WHAT MAKES SOMEONE ESSENTIAL
Three hings machines can't touch.
After years across engineering, executive roles, and investing — I keep coming back to three words: context, judgment, and accountability.
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Context
AI can draft the proposal. It cannot know that the client rejected the last three because of a broken trust — not the pricing. Context lives in relationships and history that don't exist in a prompt.
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Judgment
Machines execute. Humans decide. When stakes are high, data is ambiguous, and the right answer isn't the obvious one — that is judgment. Build it. Make it visible. It is your most defensible asset.
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Accountability.
No AI signs its name to the outcome. No algorithm sits across from the client when things go wrong. The people who carry real responsibility — and don't flinch from it — will always have a seat at the table.
—THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH
AI isn't taking your job. It's exposing something.
If your value was in executing a repeatable process — writing the same type of report, producing the same type of code, making the same type of recommendation — that was always a fragile position. You were always one automation cycle away from being optional. AI just compressed a decade of that timeline into two years.
But if your value is in judgment — in knowing what to build and why, in managing complexity, in building relationships that survive hard conversations — AI makes you more valuable. Not less. Because now you can do in a day what used to take a week, and spend the rest of your time on things only you can do.
"AI is not threatening you. It's separating the people who were coasting on effort from the people who were building on judgment."
— WHAT TO ACTUALLY DO
For everyone 20 to 60.
Stop asking if AI is coming for you. Start asking: what is the human layer in my work that AI cannot reach? Then go deeper into that layer than you've ever gone before.
Learn the tools — not to become a "prompt engineer" or whatever title is trending this month. Learn them the way you'd learn any infrastructure: so you understand what they can do and, more importantly, what they can't. That gap is where your value lives now.
Build things. Not presentations about things. Not reports about things. Things that exist in the world, that solve real problems, that someone relies on. The barrier to building has dropped dramatically. The people who exploit that gap are already building an advantage that compounds every month you wait.
And stay human in the parts that matter. Clear thinking. Honest communication. The ability to say "this is wrong" when everyone else is nodding at the output. AI can generate confidence. It cannot generate integrity.
Key Takeaways
01 — The real question is not "Will AI take my job?" It's "What kind of person are you when the easy parts of your job disappear?" That's the one worth sitting with.
02 — Two groups are forming — and the gap is widening fast. Reactive users who do the same things faster. And architectural thinkers who use AI to do things that were previously impossible. Choose your group deliberately.
03 — Context, judgment, and accountability are your moat. These three things cannot be automated. Every hour you spend deepening them is an hour that compounds in your favor as AI gets stronger, not weaker.
04 — Repeatable execution was always a fragile position. AI didn't create that fragility. It just accelerated the clock. If you were already building on judgment and relationships, you're in a stronger position than ever.
05 — The barrier to building has never been lower — start now. Every major technological wave rewarded the people who understood the infrastructure and built on top of it. Steam. Electricity. The internet. AI is no different. The window is open.
— FINAL WORD
The wave doesn't care about your resume.
I've watched this from a rare seat. Inside one of the most precision-driven technology companies in the world. Across boardrooms of companies worth billions. Inside early-stage startups trying to survive their first year. The pattern is always the same.
Every major technological shift in history didn't destroy human value. It redistributed it — toward the people who moved early, learned honestly, and built things instead of just watching. Steam. Electricity. The internet. Each one felt like a threat. Each one created more opportunity than it destroyed — but only for the people who chose to be on the right side of it.
AI is no different. Except it's faster. And the window to position yourself well is shorter than any wave that came before it.
You don't need to become an AI researcher. You don't need to abandon what you've built. You need to be honest about where your real value lies — and relentless about deepening it. The rest is noise.
"The question was never whether you'll survive the age of AI. It was whether you were already building the kind of value that survives everything."
About the Author
Software Engineer · CEO · Board Member · Investor
Obaid Ghafoori is a software engineer, CEO, board member, and investor who has operated at the intersection of deep technology and business — from engineering at ASML, the world's most critical semiconductor equipment company, to founding and investing in technology startups across multiple industries. He writes about technology, leadership, and what it actually takes to build something that lasts.