2026, One-Sixth In

One-sixth of 2026 is enough to see the pattern.

AI is raising the pace of work. Capital is moving more defensively. Engineering labor is being repriced. And beneath all of it sits the same old background: instability.

The world is not just changing its tools. It is changing how people work, how they protect themselves, and how they measure their value.

1. AI is no longer just a tool

By now, saying “AI is everywhere” is almost pointless. It is already built into how people write, code, analyze, research, and decide. Work that used to take days can now take hours. One person can do what used to require a small team.

It looks like progress, and much of it is.

But there is a hidden cost. When productivity rises fast, expectations rise with it. What used to be strong output becomes normal. What used to be enough starts to look slow. AI does not just help people work faster. It resets the baseline.

That is where the pressure builds.

AI may reduce effort in some tasks, but it also encourages a mode of work where people stay switched on longer, process more context, and produce more output with less recovery. Over time, that starts to feel like overclocking.

At first, it feels powerful. Then it feels tiring. Then it becomes normal.

That is the real risk. If this becomes the default mode of work, burnout will not be the exception. It will be the background condition.

So the question is no longer whether AI is useful. It clearly is. The better question is what human value should look like in a world where machines handle more of the execution.

I do not think the answer is “work even harder.” The people who stay valuable will be the ones who think clearly, choose well, and keep enough mental space to see what matters.

2. Money is moving because the world feels unstable

Another clear pattern this year is the movement of capital.

Money is moving across assets, across borders, and across narratives. Some of it is trend-chasing. But a lot of it is defensive. When the world feels less stable, capital starts looking for shelter.

Most people react in predictable ways. They either freeze, or they chase whatever is already hot. Both usually hurt returns. Panic selling locks in damage. Chasing trends often means arriving late.

The wealthy operate differently. They do not stay wealthy because they always predict correctly. They stay wealthy because they have enough assets to spread across multiple outcomes. They do not need perfect certainty. They need positioning.

That matters more in unstable times.

Bitcoin, gold, cash, real estate, and productive businesses each represent a different response to uncertainty. Some people want upside. Some want history on their side. Some just want to sleep better.

One practical point stands out to me: if you are holding a meaningful amount of cash that you do not need soon, it matters where that cash sits. In stable times, that question feels optional. In unstable times, it becomes strategic.

3. Engineers are becoming the blue-collar workers of the digital age

This sounds harsh, but I think it is directionally true: engineering is becoming less romantic.

There was a time when coding felt rare and creative. Software engineering looked like a high-leverage craft. But more and more, especially with AI in the loop, a lot of engineering work feels procedural.

Pick up the task. Connect the parts. Fix the issue. Ship the change. Move to the next ticket.

Fast, measurable, repeatable, replaceable.

That does not mean the work has no value. It means the labor market around it is changing.

The supply side is growing from multiple directions at once. More people learn to code. More regions compete in the same labor pool. Better tools reduce implementation time. And now AI multiplies the output of each engineer, so smaller teams can do more.

When output capacity grows faster than demand, labor gets repriced. That is basic economics.

If companies can get most of the same result with fewer people, they will not keep paying yesterday’s premium forever. That puts downward pressure on salaries, especially for engineers whose value is mostly in execution.

So yes, I think engineering compensation will compress over time across much of the market.

Not because engineering stops mattering. Not because all engineers become interchangeable overnight. But because acceptable output becomes easier to produce, and scarcity shifts elsewhere.

The scarcity premium will move toward judgment, system thinking, product sense, ownership, and trust.

This is also why politics becomes more visible in engineering. Once technical execution becomes easier to standardize, the social layer matters more. Who gets trusted. Who gets influence. Who gets promoted. Who gets protected.

That is uncomfortable for engineers because most of us were trained to work with computers, not with human systems.

But the market pays for what is scarce. And “can code well” is becoming less scarce on its own.

4. Another wave, another war, another crisis

Another conflict. Another rupture. Another reminder that stability was never as guaranteed as people assumed.

The headline changes. The condition does not. Uncertainty remains. Systems stay under strain. People keep reacting as if each new shock is unprecedented, even though instability has always been part of history.

In that kind of world, there are two easy mistakes. One is to fight the chaos directly. The other is to get absorbed by it.

Neither helps much.

The smart resist the wave. The wiser ones learn how to move with it.

Not passively. Not cynically. Just calmly enough to read timing well.

There is real strength in not panicking on command. There is also strength in knowing that not every moment is your moment to act. But when your moment does come, you need enough clarity left to move well.

The older I get, the more I think calmness is not softness. It is an advantage.

Reflection

If I had to summarize what the first sixth of 2026 has already revealed, it would be this:

• A lot of old assumptions are breaking.
• Faster is not always better.
• More output does not always mean more value.
• High income is not automatically durable.
• And the world is not going back to an older, slower rhythm anytime soon.

This era will likely reward people who can adapt without draining themselves empty. People who can use technology without worshipping it. People who understand that money is not just about return, but also about positioning. People who know that skill matters, but skill alone is rarely enough.

I do not think the lesson of early 2026 is that we need to overpower the times.

I think the lesson is that we need to stay conscious inside them.

Because in a world where everything is accelerating, the rarest person may be the one who can still keep his own pace.