Everything is Barbell: Don’t Get trapped in Murderous Middle

I swear Naval Ravikant is a business prophet and genius. I’ve only seen a few investor-operator types in Silicon Valley like Naval. He isn’t just ahead of the trend but is able to articulate what he sees so well. It truly is impressive. 

He wrote on X: “Software will proliferate just as videos, music, writing did. The market structure will shift from a “fat middle” to mega-aggregators and a long tail.”

Basically a barbell. Two sides where all the action is. God help those who are in the middle. Disaggregated, irrelevant and rekt. Arjun @neuralunlock responded with specific example: 

“Yes. Music and video industries had thousands of mid-sized labels, studios, and distributors that captured meaningful revenue. 

This was before Spotify and Netflix emerged. The market structure then changed: massive platforms at the top and a long tail of creators. 

AI collapses the cost to build, so aggregators like Google absorb the most common use cases, followed by a long tail of tiny, hyper-specific tools.  

If you’re in the middle, you’re in trouble. The mid-sized vendor will be getting squeezed on both sides.”

So if you run a company in the murderous middle, or work at one. You better be careful. Or better yet, go build something new. It’s not all bad. There will be massive opportunities around the corner. They are probably already here. 

Arjun goes on to say: 

“Also important to consider: if AI eats the switching costs, the moat that kept enterprise software sticky disappears.

Expect to see a ton of micro SaaS companies emerge.”

I think they are both right. Forewarned is forearmed. Start building and start selling, now is the time.