English | Chinese Original

English translation of the Chinese original. This version is generated for international readers and may be refined over time.

Date: 2026-03-12

Looking back from 2024 to 2025, technology and social adaptation really brought us a profound experience. The situation is becoming clearer, but many may still be in a deep attachment to the past. If you want to find the secret to quick enrichment, this article may not be for you. It's longer, it's more rational, but hopefully after reading it, it will help you think more clearly about how we plan our own path for the next 5 to 10 years.

Let us first establish a central observation: ** For the next 5 to 10 years, the biggest change may not be a specific windfield industry, but a reshaping of the logic of the division of labour across society.**

Over the past few decades, we have become accustomed to the accumulation of wealth under the incremental market. The dividends of growth can be shared if committed. And now, the increase is slowing, and we're entering the age of stock games. This is not just a simple internal volume, but a structural reorganization around efficiency and value.

# # # # # I, from "organ" to "super-individual"

This is one of the most thought-provoking trends: the rejuvenation of the value of white-collar work and the rise of "super individuals".

This is not to say that the white collar class will disappear, but rather that jobs that are highly dependent on information processing and processization are facing challenges. Back in 2023, when ChatGPT was first born, we thought AI was just a novel tool. By today, 2026, looking around, you'll find that if your core job is just to sort out forms, write formatted reports, write basic codes, then even in the skyscrapers of the CBD, the alternative job is actually getting taller.

The scarcity of intellectual labour, which had been considered complex in the past, is diminishing today, when the cost of computing has fallen sharply. Work previously done by a team may now be carried out by one person, with several AI smarts. This may lead to streamlining of some intermediate management levels.

The opportunity for the future lies in whether you can be the man who drives the tool, defines the value.

Here's a perception that needs to be updated. Embrace AI, doesn't mean everyone has to be a programmer. In future AI applications, the threshold will be significantly reduced, and what is really scarce is your ** logical build-up capacity, aesthetic judgement and ultimate decision-making power.**

The real dividend may flow to "super individuals" with unique knowledge and enforcement power. In the past, entrepreneurship may require teams, premises and financing. In the coming years, there will be an increasing number of models in which one person is an efficient company. We may see more "one-man company" with a large annual income, who have no traditional employees but a group of 24-hour online digital workers. The flexibility and efficiency of this model pose new challenges to traditional business patterns.

So it might be possible to revisit the Great Factory Halo. Large companies have platform advantages, but for individuals, true security comes from whether you can turn industry experience into a standardized process that can be implemented by AI, thereby creating independent user values.

If you're a consultant, can you train a digital assistant to analyze your data? If you're a designer, can you build an automated process underlying design? That is where we should think.

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # From "digital flood" to "real scarcity": the value of experience

This leads to a second observation:** content that can be reproduced indefinitely will be free of charge; real experience that cannot be digitized will become more precious.**

There should be a feeling that online content is becoming richer and cheaper. Short video, online, AI generated music at marginal cost almost zero. Our stimulus thresholds in the digital world are constantly being raised, but what about our sense of inner enrichment?

So a reverse demand is magnified: ** at this moment, here, real connections and experiences.**

The more the digital world is developed, the stronger the desire for true touch. Over the next decade, the services that can provide high-quality, emotional connectivity will usher in new development space. Please note that it is ** high-quality services** rather than simply duplicated work.

It refers to industries that require deep convergence, complex non-standard operations and a high level of trust.

For example, future-oriented pension services. Don't listen to old age as basic care. Looking at the demographic structure, the generation that holds the major wealth of society is ageing. They are knowledgeable, classy and demanding in terms of dignity and quality of life. What they need is not only survival, but also a warm, selective life experience. Anyone who can provide old-age services with a sense of dignity and emotional value may find his place in a huge market.

And, for example, handmade and fine services with human temperature. When a design can be created with a single key and the product can be manufactured automatically, the stories and time behind an item made manually by a craftsman with traces of a fine "imperfect" will become a new luxury. In many developed countries, it is normal for skilled blue-collar earnings to exceed ordinary white-collar incomes. In China, the value of a design-reading and fine fit-out master, a senior rehabilitationer who truly masters human mechanics, is being rediscovered by the market.

Because AI can't fix a corner of your old house without hands; it has no heart to give you a true hug when you're vulnerable.

# # # III, from "material satisfaction" to "psychological export": the value of emotion

This involves a third dimension: the integration of emotional values with economic patterns.

In modern societies, after material enrichment, the demand at the spiritual level has become unprecedented. In the next 5 to 10 years, industries that offer psychological comfort, emotional companionship and spiritual exploration will usher in sustained growth. This is not limited to professional counselling.

Any industry that can build emotional resonance with users can regenerate.

You sell not only a cup of coffee, but also a quiet corner from which you can temporarily draw; you offer not only a trip, but also an experience where you can leave your real identity for a while. Those who can better understand and respond to the loneliness of the present generation and the pursuit of meaning have the key to the depth of the user. The logic behind this is that when people are held hostage by algorithms and information flows, they are instinctively looking for a spiritual habitat of their own.

The interest of many young people in psychology, philosophy and even some new forms of cultural activity is not simply "blind", but an exploration of the spiritual world. This suggests that mainstream value systems sometimes fail to fully explain the plight they face or to appease their anxiety. Behind them are social phenomena and business possibilities that deserve attention.

# # # iv, from "model innovation" to "hard nuclear deep tillage": macro trends

Then we broaden our perspective and talk about opportunities at the macro level.

Understanding the strategic direction of national development is important as a reference to our individual opportunities.

Over the next 10 years, China will continue to work in two directions:** science and technology self-reliance** and** higher levels of openness to the outside world**.

Science and technology self-reliance means technological breakthroughs in key areas. This is not only the cutting edge areas of chips, optical carving machines, but also the thousands of sub-industrial chains of new materials, precision manufacturing, core industrial software, etc. This means that from basic R & D to industrial applications, a great deal of expertise is required at every level. Over the past decade or so, the Internet and finance have been central to resource allocation, and in the future, science, technology and innovation will be central drivers of value creation.

And a higher level of openness is no longer simply "sale". Exports over the past few decades have been more of a global sale of Chinese-made goods. Future voyages will be the overall output of** industrial chains, brand power and even business models**.

The view is focused on emerging markets such as South-East Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The infrastructure, industrial structure, may be at some stage in the past few decades in China, where there is a strong demand for Chinese products, services and development experience. For many who feel competitive at home, these markets may offer a new dimension. Business models, business experiences that you're used to in the country may be valuable cognitive advantages. New opportunities for globalization, from catering, logistics to mobile Internet applications, are waiting for adventurers and practitioners who dare to leave.

# # # # # # V, from "Universal Growth" to "Different Values": the wisdom of survival

Finally, we inevitably have to talk about the reality that the wealth structure of society may be a K-type divide.

Over the next 5 to 10 years, some of those who hold core assets (e. g., high-quality equity, scarce IP, unique knowledge) may continue to grow in wealth, while others receive basic security through the provision of basic services. The most stressful is probably the group in the middle - those of you and me who rely on common skills to work in relatively comfortable areas.

If we do not proactively seek a leap in capacity, we can slide to a more price-dependent dimension of competition. Because your skills are not unique enough for top-level design or cheap enough for bottom-level execution.

The future logic of personal investment and development therefore needs to be adjusted. Core assets are no longer real estate, but your ** capacity to continuously create value** - healthy bodies, scarce skills, influential personal brands, deep industry awareness.

In the era of division, two strategies are relatively clear:

1. Deeply done, top of service: to serve a small minority that is not price-sensitive but highly critical of quality and experience. It requires you to have the highest professional competence and level of resources.

2. ** Wide and inclusive of the public**: products or services of excess value are provided to the widest possible range of users through extreme efficiency. This requires strong supply chain management capabilities and scale effects.

What is most important is the intermediate status of those who have neither brand premiums nor cost advantages. Such operations will face enormous survival pressures in the future.

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** In the end: more important than the wind, it's our heart.**

Having said so much, I'd like to end up talking about ourselves.

For the next 5 to 10 years, change may be normal. The technological, economic and social structures are constantly evolving. In such an environment, some may feel discomfort, become anxious or tired.

At this point, if you can maintain a steady force with a strong adaptive and stress-resistant capacity, you already have valuable "heart strength".

When people are anxious about new technologies, you calmly think about how to use it for me; when people lie down because of temporary difficulties. Normally, you keep your strength to look for new cracks, and you keep staring at your long-term goals when others are being led away by noise.

The world has no perfect window from the sky. Every outbreak we see is followed by long preparation and accumulation.

If you are now confused, facing a devaluation of education and employment pressures, this is precisely an indication that we are in a critical period of a new and old alternation. Each major adjustment implies a reshaping of patterns and new possibilities.

To embrace those changes that make you uncomfortable but represent the future. To explore hard skills that have a threshold and build up. Go to the scene where those problems happen and find answers. Go build your real, credible personal brand.

The only way to provide us with a sense of security in the next decade is our ** ability to solve real problems.**

To sum up a few areas of concern, it is: ** AI-enabled personal value amplification, a high-quality emotional and service economy, opportunities for the hard-core technology industry chain, and globalization exploration in emerging markets.**

This is an era of challenges, because the old path is blurring; it is also an era of possibilities, because new maps have yet to be drawn.

If you're finished with this article, I hope you don't just add it to the collection. Even if it gives you a little inspiration, from today on, try to learn a new tool to understand a strange industry and connect people in different fields. Five years later, you may be grateful for this sobering and action today.

May we all find our own rhythm in this era. Conspiracy.