AI Will Make Plumbers Earn More Than Lawyers

Just watched Daniel Priestley on The Diary of a CEO drop this bombshell: “AI will make plumbers regularly earn more than lawyers.”

At first it sounds wild… but his reasoning is rock-solid.

AI is eating routine knowledge work at lightning speed. Lawyers, analysts, coders, admins, many tasks are now handled by tools like Claude for pennies. Meanwhile, hands-on trades (plumbing, electrical, building) face shortages and can’t be fully automated.

Priestley (who’s built companies through the dot-com boom and GFC) also warns of a potential 2029 economic shock from the insane $650B+ spend on short-lifespan AI data centres.

But here’s the hopeful part: This disruption creates more opportunities than it destroys (Jevons Paradox). Barriers to building businesses have never been lower.

Jevons Paradox simply means: when something becomes dramatically cheaper or more efficient, we don’t use less of it, we end up using far more of it, often in completely new ways.

Priestley applies this to AI: as AI tools get cheaper (some now cost just a few dollars a month) and more powerful, they don’t destroy jobs or businesses overall.

Instead, they make it so easy and affordable to create products, services, marketing, automation, and entire companies that people start dozens of new ventures they never would have attempted before.

The result? More businesses, more niches, and more economic activity, not less.

Just like cheaper coal in the 1800s didn’t reduce coal use but powered the entire Industrial Revolution, cheaper AI is quietly fuelling an explosion of new human-led opportunities rather than replacing them.

Key takeaway for professionals: → Don’t compete with AI. Complement it. → Build a defensible personal brand based on real human experiences. → Master entrepreneurial thinking. → Use the “tombstone exercise” to future-proof your role. → Focus on lifestyle businesses for freedom + fulfilment.

The future belongs to those who adapt fastest.