Who gets to Build the Future?

Welcome to Monday Mornings! A publication about the new world of work beyond the 9-5: exploring the rise of mass entrepreneurialism. Through sharp analysis and interviews with the builders, thinkers, and leaders driving this shift, Monday Mornings unpacks what a post 9-5 world means for individuals, businesses, and society.

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Happy Monday, folks!

Thank you for your patience as we took a short break to run a reader survey.

Why? Monday Mornings just turned six months old. In that time, so much has changed in the world of work. My goal is to ensure that I’m researching and writing on the most pressing topics for you, whether you're navigating, or building solutions for, the post–9–5 working world.

This is the start of more than a newsletter, but a collective for change. Please consider sharing your thoughts (it takes three minutes) and play your part.

Onto today’s post….

When we talk about the future of work, much of that future is being built right in front of our eyes.

This May Briefing Includes

• Who Builds the Future: In a nutshell

• 1/ Why access to computational power trumps all

• 2/ The journalist who wants us to scrutinise the AI giants' intentions

• 3/ The investors debating the future for software developers

We’re asking: who controls these technical breakthroughs, and what’s at stake?

Over recent decades, the ability to build new tools and systems has been slowly democratised. WordPress made writing on the internet possible, open-source code helped developers become more self-sufficient, cloud computing equipped startups to build and scale independently, and in recent years, the rise of no-code tooling and consumer AI has collectively created a world where almost anyone can ‘build’.

This is a major contributing factor to the mass shift toward entrepreneurialism, as the barrier to entry for creating a business has dropped significantly, along with the cost and technical learning curve of the tools required.

Today more than ever, non-technical talent is able to build the infrastructure of a truly scalable or profitable operation without relying on a handout from investors. Very little, or even no capital, is required to start a business in many cases. And that’s only accelerating. With AI agents now entering the scene, some say a one-person business might even reach unicorn status. Either way, micro and small enterprises today account for almost half of global GDP.

But have we reached peak democracy when it comes to building the toolkit of the future?

As a16z founder Chris Dixon puts it: “Architecture is destiny.” And it is the way AI systems are being architected that is fast determining who truly gets to own the future we’ll all live in. The evidence increasingly points to Microsoft.

There’s a strong focus on AI in both this Briefing and our next Q&A interview. Given that AI is the tool du jour dominating headlines and quietly reshaping business models across every sector. More than hype, it is fast becoming the foundational layer of the future.

Let’s dig in.

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Get informed: The tools shaping our future

1/ The Fight for Compute, and the Future of AI
(Source: AI Advantage Daily News, April 2025) 

‘Who gets to build with AI when compute becomes more expensive than talent?’

That’s the big question posed by author and AJ Green, who explores the competitive nature of computational power - aka compute - the invisible layer that is fuelling AI innovation.

With rising tariffs on AI-critical hardware and ballooning cloud storage and data centre costs; compute inequality is fast becoming a major bottleneck. This bottleneck is limiting access, agency, and distribution for the smaller players and concentrating power further into the hands of incumbent tech giants and Fortune 500 firms.

Unless, of course, these constraints themselves spark new breakthroughs — as seen with the rise of examples such as China’s DeepSeek R1 which defied the existing norms. Moats around large language models can be broken after all.

Green calls for more communities to step in and build open, equitable systems that democratise access to compute — and in doing so, support the next billion entrepreneurs, educators, and creators.

2/ Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the race that changed the world
(Source: Parmy Olsen, September, 2024)

The founders of our two biggest AI players, Sam Altman of Open AI and Demis Hassabis of Deepmind, began with sweeping visions to build superintelligent machines that might solve humanity’s greatest challenges.

Instead, what unfolded has been an arms race toward an unknown future — one marked by risks like mass unemployment, algorithmic bias, and the unchecked spread of misinformation. This is the story tech journalist Parmy Olson tells in Supremacy, a behind-the-scenes account of the people, power plays, and politics shaping two of the world’s most influential AI labs. Winner of Business Book of the Year in 2024, Supremacy reveals that artificial intelligence’s real threat is not one to humanity but the spread of flawed and biased technology seeping into every industry and walk of life.

As Olson makes clear, the question isn’t just what these tools do but who gets to shape them. And, how much the battle of ego and power between these players has shaped what has ultimately been built.

In stark contrast to the name of the organisation, OpenAI have been incredibly secretive about how their systems have been built. Imagine if a company like Unilever made increasingly addictive snacks but stopped sharing the ingredients, Olsen asks us to consider.

She shares examples how at one point 90% of Deepmind’s AI researchers were men. This lack of diversity didn’t just affect the team but impacted what has been built. From racial misclassifications to tools that flagged Black individuals as ‘future offenders’ these real-world consequences should not be ignored.

The funding and infrastructure behind AI are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few tech giants. Giants who are quietly architecting the rules that will govern tomorrow’s workforce, economy, and society.

3/ Who's Coding Now? - AI and the Future of Software Development
(Source: A16z, May 2025)

One of the biggest promises of AI is that anyone can build anything. Tools like Cursor and GitHub Copilot have sparked the surge in what’s been termed ‘vibe coding’, where non-technical users can prompt their way to building complex software systems.

The development of these tools has understandably called to question what this means for the professional future of software developers.

In this roundtable discussion, infrastructure veterans and senior engineers reflect on this reshaping of software development but also, where AI’s limits still lie. They are in agreement: tools are improving rapidly and entry-level developers can now get further, faster. But, they are also aligned on the fact that high-stakes coding still demands deep context, architectural thinking, and human judgment. This is especially true when debugging, working with distributed systems, or building from sparse or niche data.

They liken AI coding to Excel: useful, scalable, but not a replacement for core expertise. “It’s empowering, until you want to tweak something, and you don’t know where to start.”

Meaning that yes, vibe coding is here, and it’s useful. But the future of software still belongs to those who understand what’s happening under the hood. Or to those who know when it’s time to call someone who does.

Trailblazers

• Replit — Founded by Amjad Masad, and Faris Masad Replit is empowering the next billion software creators by allowing anyone to start building and deploying AI applications.

• TutorBloc — Founded by Mercurius Saad and Jeremiah Mendoza, Tutorbloc enables anyone to sell their expertise, by creating a storefront and backoffice infrastructure within minutes

• Humble.ai — Founded by Mahdi Shariff, Humble is a shared workspace for building AI tools without code or complexity.

A Final Word (from me)

I started my own company five years ago, called The Ask® because I believe that anyone can ‘ask’ for the future they want to create. Empowerment is a core value of mine and informs the coaching I do with clients. Those clients being professionals who seek to leverage their expertise and set up their own independent operations. I’ve seen first hand in their lives, and my own, the extraordinary opportunities that can be created when you choose yourself. When you build the future you want to create.

As AI tools bring down the barriers to building further, I am excited for these opportunities to be shared by many more people. People not born into wealth or privilege who’ll benefit from this entrepreneurial shift.

But as this publication is dedicated to revealing, it is rarely clear cut. Tools alone do not bring about equal opportunity. Gatekeepers still persist in the form of algorithms, bias, policy and infrastructure. Structural issues like access to finances, network, mentors and distribution keep so many people from reaching their potential and so as these tools continue to accelerate, I want to see conversations about equity, access and education, accelerate in equal measure.

And, in other news this month….

👍Monday Marvels

The British Business Bank has just committed £7 million to a new seed fund aimed at backing early-stage UK founders. The fund will be run by Playfair Capital and aims to invest in 60 startups across the UK, with a focus on backing founders outside of London, especially those building in AI, climate, and deep tech.

👎 Monday Moanings

A new report finds that the online gig economy is failing to meet even the most basic labour standards. Of the 15 major digital labour platforms assessed including Amazon Mechanical Turk, Uber, and Upwork none scored above 6 out of 10 when measured against criteria like fair pay, conditions, contracts, and grievance mechanisms.

I’ll be back in two weeks, interviewing someone who has thought deeply about today’s topic!

And as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. What else do you think should be considered? Share your opinions in the comments!

Monday Mornings is written and hosted by Ellen Donnelly, a writer, speaker, and coach focused on the future of work. She specialises in the shift towards mass entrepreneurialism, and supports founders navigating pivots in her private coaching practice, The Ask.