The Builder's Moment: Why 2026 Will Separate the Founders from the Followers

I've never been more excited to build a company than I am right now.

Not because things are easy. Not because the path is clear. But because we're living through one of those rare moments in history where the rules of what's possible are being completely rewritten — and the founders who see it are going to build things that nobody thought possible just 12 months ago.

Let me tell you what I mean. And let me start with a confession.

Six months ago, I was the guy making AI-generated pictures for fun. Cool party trick. Neat technology. But not something that was going to fundamentally change how we built Cargado.

Then something shifted.

I started using Claude Code to stitch together our marketplace data with our HubSpot data. I'm not a developer. I've never written a line of code in my life. But suddenly I was building real systems that pulled insights I couldn't have gotten before.

Then I built my first Notion agent. Then another. Then I couldn't stop.

Within weeks, I went from "AI is interesting" to "we're going all in on this."

I literally told my team in January: "Here's the deal — we are going all in on AI, and I will devote some of my time to meet with people in smaller groups or 1:1 to coach you through how to use it."

That's when I knew I'd been red-pilled. Once you see what's possible, you can't unsee it.

Today, I have 20+ AI agents running in production at Cargado, some are Notion agents and some were built with Claude:

These aren't experiments. These are production systems that replaced work that would have required multiple full-time employees.

And here's what's wild: I built most of these myself. Not our engineering team. Me — a guy who has never written production code in his life.

This is the most consequential technology the world has ever seen. And we're still in the early innings.

In December, I recognized two team members — Carlos and Zach — who had built real production systems with Claude and VAPI that let them do work that would have required entire teams at traditional companies.

When I shared that recognition, I wrote something that captures exactly what we're building toward:

"2026 is going to be dramatically different than 2025. The way companies are built is evolving right now. We're not building a 250-person company — we're building a team of fewer than 40 people who operate with the impact of 250 through the right technology and infrastructure."

That's not a slogan. That's our actual operating model.

Our engineering team's productivity has approximately doubled since late 2025. And we think we can get to a substantially higher multiple on the impact. Not by working longer hours — by working with AI as a genuine multiplier.

A few weeks ago, I was in a conversation where someone asked a simple question that reframed everything:

"Do you think about AI as the product, or AI as the accelerant to the things people do?"

For us, the answer is clear: AI is the accelerant.

We're not an AI company. We're a freight marketplace that uses AI to move faster than anyone thought possible. The AI isn't what we sell—it's what makes our small team punch way above our weight class.

That distinction matters. A lot of companies are building AI wrappers — using LLMs to make phone calls, scrape data, generate emails. And look, that stuff works. But we're building something different.

We're building the modern version of the ledger — the structured source of truth for cross-border freight. Pickup locations, delivery locations, dates, times, trailer types, commodities. Structured data that moves at machine speed.

When you combine AI agents with structured data:

That's not a feature. That's a moat.

Here's the part that makes me most excited: AI doesn't replace great people. It makes them superhuman.

Carlos and Zach aren't being replaced. They're being amplified. They're building systems that let them do several jobs at once — not because they're working harder, but because they're working with leverage that didn't exist 18 months ago.

The single-thread employee who can only do one specific task? Sure, we don't need to hire for that anymore. But the creative problem-solver who can harness AI to do ten things at once? That person is now worth 10x what they were worth two years ago.

That's why I've been coaching team members 1:1 on how to use these tools. Not because it's a nice perk — because it's a competitive advantage. The companies where leadership actively pushes AI adoption will move faster than the ones where it bubbles up from individual contributors.

Here's what I keep thinking about: this window won't last forever.

Right now, most companies in our industry — hell, most companies everywhere — are still skeptical. They're waiting to see how this plays out. They're debating whether AI is overhyped. They're forming committees to study it.

Meanwhile, companies like us are shipping.

Every week we sprint at this technology, our competitors fall another week behind. The gap isn't 10%. It's 10x.

And that's not hyperbole. Look at what's happening at Cargado:

This is the builder's moment.

I want to share a few moments that have stopped me in my tracks recently.

I drive a Tesla, and I use Full Self-Driving 99.9% of the time. The only thing I do myself is back into my garage — and honestly, if I let it pull in on its own, it would back itself out too. I'm basically a passenger in my own car. And it just … works.

I set up an AI agent named Walter that can make phone calls on my behalf. Recently I had Walter call the barbershop and schedule concurrent haircut appointments for me and my son — so I didn't have to wait on hold for someone to answer. It worked flawlessly. We both got our haircuts. They had no idea they were talking to AI.

My five-year-old son asked for my phone so he could "use AI to make a game." He also talks to ChatGPT to come up with creative stories — getting genuinely excited as the story takes shape based on what he told it to do. He's not consuming content. He's creating with a collaborator that responds to his imagination.

Think about that. My car drives itself. My AI assistant books my appointments. And my five-year-old already sees AI as a tool for creating things. Not something scary. Not something abstract. Just … the way you make stuff now.

And his dad? I'm being chauffeured around by software while I think about what to build next.

That's when I realized: we're not just living through a technology shift. We're living through a generational shift in how humans think about building things — and living.

My generation had to unlearn the old way. My son's generation will never know it.

So here's the bet we're making at Cargado in 2026:

We're betting that 40 people with AI can beat 250 people without it.

We're betting that structured data infrastructure beats conversational wrappers.

We're betting that companies willing to sprint at this technology now — while it's uncomfortable — will build compounding advantages.

We're betting that the founders who see this moment for what it is will build the next generation of generational companies.

And we're betting that AI doesn't diminish the role of great builders — it amplifies them.

The question isn't whether AI will change how companies get built. It already has.

The question is: are you building with it or getting built around?

At Cargado, we're not waiting to see how this plays out. We're not forming committees. We're not debating whether this is real.

We're building. We're shipping. We're sprinting.

Because I genuinely believe: this is the greatest time in history to be a builder.

The leverage is real. The tools are here. The window is open.

Let's build something incredible.