People skills often outweigh pure technical mastery when it comes to Making Money, especially in the long run. Here’s why, broken down simply:
1. Money flows through people
- Sales, negotiations, partnerships, hiring, leadership—all require trust, persuasion, and emotional intelligence.
- A brilliant coder with zero social skills might build a great product… but someone who can sell it, pitch it, or build a team around it will monetize faster.
2. Technology is a commodity; relationships aren’t
- Tools (AI, no-code, software) are now widely accessible. The edge isn’t having the tool—it’s using it to solve someone’s problem and getting them to pay.
- Example: Two people use the same AI tool. One cold-emails 100 clients and closes 3. The other posts on X and gets 30 inbound leads. Same tech. Different people skills.
3. Trust > Features
- People buy from people they like, trust, or feel understand them.
- A mediocre product with a charismatic founder often beats a perfect product with a silent one.
4. Network = Net Worth (literally)
- Opportunities (jobs, clients, investors) come through relationships.
- The best tech in the world doesn’t matter if no one knows you exist.
That said: Tech still matters—a lot
- People skills open doors. Tech keeps you in the room.
- Without competence, charisma eventually crumbles.
- The ideal? T-shaped skills: Deep in one technical area, broad in people skills.
Real-world proof:
- Elon Musk: Not the best engineer at Tesla or SpaceX—but unmatched at vision, storytelling, and rallying people.
- Freelancers: Top 1% on Upwork aren’t always the most skilled—they’re the best communicators.
- Startups: 9/10 fail due to market fit and team dynamics, not tech failure.
Is it so – about AI, bitcoin, mobile, social networks…
The “people > tech” rule holds across every major wave, including AI, Bitcoin/crypto, mobile, social networks… and more. The real money is made not by mastering the tool, but by mastering how people adopt, trust, and pay for it.
Let’s break it down by era:
1. Social Networks (2000s–2010s)
- Tech: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter (now X), Instagram.
- Who got rich?
- Not the best coders.
- Zuckerberg → storytelling, timing, user psychology.
- Influencers → personal branding, engagement, parasocial trust.
- Advertisers → knew how to talk to audiences.
- Lesson: Same platform. One person gets 1M followers and $10k/post. Another gets 100 and $0. Connection > content.
2. Mobile Apps (2008–2015)
- Tech: iPhone, App Store, Android.
- Who won?
- Angry Birds → fun + viral sharing.
- Uber → solved trust (ratings, real-time tracking).
- Instagram → sold for $1B with 13 employees — because Kevin Systrom understood human vanity + simplicity.
- Flops? Thousands of “better” apps with no users.
- Lesson: Distribution (word of mouth, UX, virality) > code.
3. Bitcoin & Crypto (2010–2025+)
- Tech: Blockchain, wallets, DeFi, NFTs, memecoins.
- Who’s actually making money?
- Exchanges (Coinbase, Binance) → trust + UX.
- Influencers (YouTube, CT — “Crypto Twitter”) → narrative control.
- Memecoin founders (DOGE, PEPE, WIF) → community psychology, not tech.
- VCs & whales → relationships, timing, FOMO engineering.
- 99% of “better” blockchains? Dead. No community = no value.
- Lesson: Narrative > node count.
4. AI (2023–Now)
- Tech: LLMs, image gen, agents, APIs.
- Who’s cashing in?
- OpenAI → GPT demo went viral. Sam Altman = master storyteller.
- Midjourney → Discord community + beautiful outputs → cult following.
- AI consultants & prompt sellers → teaching humans how to use it.
- YouTubers making $10k/month → “I built a business with AI” (same tools as you).
- Best model in a lab? Worth $0 without distribution.
- Lesson: Demo > dataset.
Bonus Waves:
| Wave | Tech | Money Made By |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud (AWS, 2006) | Servers on demand | Bezos → vision + enterprise sales |
| No-code (Bubble, Webflow) | Drag-and-drop sites | Founders who sell templates |
| E-commerce (Shopify) | Store builder | Dropshippers who nail ads + trust |
| Remote Work (Zoom) | Video calls | Companies that branded the future of work |
The Universal Law:
Technology creates the opportunity. People skills capture the value.
| Skill | Opens Doors | Keeps Money |
|---|---|---|
| Tech | Build the thing | Automate, scale |
| People | Get users, partners, buyers | Trust, loyalty, pricing power |
Your Action Plan (2025 Edition):
- Pick one tool (AI, crypto, no-code, etc.) — learn it well enough.
- Spend 70% of time on people:
- Post daily (X, LinkedIn, YouTube).
- DM 10 people/day in your niche.
- Build in public.
- Sell the outcome, not the tech.
- Monetize trust first → product second.
Final Truth:
The best AI in the world won’t pay your rent. But 1,000 people who believe in you will.
The tool gets you in the game. The human gets you paid.