What Doesn’t Move
The other day I wrote “Hang On To Your Butts.” It was about speed. Everything accelerating, tools getting insane, build faster, ship more. And all of that is true.
But something hit me this morning on a run. How much is stuff really gonna change?
Yes, the best of the best will be even better. Yes, people just punching in and hitting the clock are going to go by the wayside. But the fundamentals still matter. Maybe more than ever.
The tools move. The speed moves. The fundamentals don’t. That’s the whole post.
The Design Process Is Dead (But Design Isn’t)
I was listening to Jenny Wen on Lenny’s Podcast this morning. She’s the head of design at Claude, previously at Figma where she built FigJam and Slides, before that Dropbox, Square, Shopify. She said something that stopped me mid-stride: “The design process is dead.”
And I thought, here we go. Another “AI is replacing designers” take.
But that’s not what she meant at all. The process is dead. The traditional discovery-mock-iterate cycle can’t keep pace anymore. It’s too slow. The world moves faster than that workflow can support. But design itself? Design fundamentals? Understanding human needs, visual hierarchy, usability, taste? Those are more essential than ever.
She spent the entire episode talking about what survives. Designers become “taste arbiters,” she said. Strategic guides, not execution specialists. AI handles the execution: the pixel-pushing, the variations, the technical implementation. Humans handle the judgment. The ability to recognize good direction intuitively and communicate it efficiently. The vision-setting. The “does this feel right?” question that no algorithm can answer.
Taste is the differentiator, she said. And I kept thinking: that’s exactly what’s happening to builders, developers, agency owners. The how is changing. The what matters isn’t.
You don’t need to be the fastest coder anymore. You need to be the person who knows what’s worth building. You don’t need to manually adjust every padding value. You need to know when the spacing feels wrong. You don’t need to write every line from scratch. You need to recognize when the output is good enough to ship and when it needs another pass.
That’s taste. That’s judgment. That’s the fundamental that doesn’t move.
The process changed. The fundamentals didn’t.
The shift: The process is dead. The fundamentals are more essential than ever. AI handles execution. Humans handle taste, judgment, and vision. That’s what survives.
WordPress: 20+ Years and Counting
Think about WordPress. It’s been around 20+ years. That’s longer than most marriages. Longer than most careers. Longer than entire companies have existed.
And it hit a lull a couple years ago. I felt it. The community felt it. People were looking at other platforms, wondering if WordPress was still the move. Wondering if it was time to jump ship. The block editor was controversial. Full site editing felt half-baked. There was this sense that maybe the best days were behind us.
But here’s the thing: it’s fundamentally sound. It survived 20+ years not because it was the flashiest or the newest. It survived because the core was solid. A strong content management system. A massive ecosystem. Flexibility. Extensibility. Open source. A community that gives a damn.
Those things don’t have a release cycle. They just compound.
And now? Not only am I reinvigorated, but so is the WordPress community. WP 7.0 is going to skyrocket WordPress. Maybe not day one. But the trajectory is clear. The people who love WordPress, who stuck with WordPress through the awkward years, they’re now able to build and ship faster, better quality, better UX.
The hard work is not hard anymore. The mundane work is not even mundane. I love writing code. I always have. But the ability to move and ship faster is changing the game for everybody. The barrier dropped. The ceiling raised. Everything is shaping up to be a wild ride this year.
And while that’s excellent and awesome and amazing, how much is really changing?
It’s what we physically do, or how we do it, that’s changing. The fundamentals remain.
WP 7.0 doesn’t reinvent what matters. It removes friction from what already works. The block editor was always the right direction. Full site editing was always the future. But the tools were clunky. The learning curve was steep. The experience was frustrating for a lot of people.
Now the friction is dropping. And when friction drops on top of solid fundamentals, that’s when things skyrocket.
That’s exactly what the best tools do. They amplify the fundamentals. They don’t replace them.
WordPress fundamentals: Strong CMS, massive ecosystem, flexibility, extensibility, open source, community. These don’t have a release cycle. They just compound. WP 7.0 removes friction from what already works.
My 12-Year-Old Took the Wheel
I’ve been beta testing Miles by Andy Peatling. It’s a WordPress AI tool that changes how fast you can work within the platform. It doesn’t change what WordPress is. It changes the barrier to entry. It changes how quickly you can go from idea to live site.
For people who previously didn’t love the block editor, this changes the experience. But here’s the thing: the block editor was always the right direction. Full site editing was always the future. Miles just removed the friction. It made the thing that was always good actually feel good.
Here’s what made it real for me: my 12-year-old built something with it. Solo. I mostly watched and guided. Asked questions. Pointed out things to consider. But the kid drove.
The tool made it possible. But the thinking, the choices, the “why does this go here?” questions, that’s the fundamental. That’s the part that matters.
The kid didn’t know WordPress. Didn’t know the block editor. Didn’t know design principles in any formal way. But the tool lowered the barrier enough that curiosity could take over. And once curiosity was in the driver’s seat, the fundamentals started showing up naturally.
“Does this look good?” “Will people understand this?” “What happens if someone clicks here?” “Should this be bigger?” “Does this color make sense?”
Those are the right questions. Those are the fundamental questions. The tool didn’t ask them. The kid did. Because curiosity pushes you to ask. And asking is the thing that doesn’t get automated.
That’s what tools do when they’re built right. They don’t replace the thinking. They make space for it. They remove the technical barriers so the real work can happen. The work of deciding what matters. The work of making something good instead of just something that exists.
Being part of the beta tester group has been amazing. It’s early days. I don’t know where it goes long-term. But it gives you a strong foundation, and that’s something I preach about all the time. Give people a strong foundation and get out of their way. That’s what good tools do.
Andy’s doing more cool things I hope to be a part of in the future. People should really check it out, especially if they’ve never vibed with the block editor. Install Local, fire up a test site, and see what happens. The barrier dropped. The fundamentals didn’t.
Check out Miles: If you’ve never loved the block editor, this changes the experience. It doesn’t replace fundamentals—it removes friction so curiosity can take over. Worth a look. bymiles.ai
Steve Krug Was Right 25 Years Ago (And Still Is)
I’ve been reflecting on this lately. Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think” came out in 2000. Twenty-five years ago. I wasn’t even in my twenties yet. The web was a completely different place. Flash was still a thing. Tables for layouts. Frames. Remember frames?
And yet Krug’s book is still the single best intro to usability. The principles haven’t changed. Make it obvious. Make it easy. Reduce cognitive load. Test with real people. Don’t make them guess. Don’t make them think.
You can build with punch cards or you can build with AI agents. You can design in Photoshop or you can design with Figma or Claude. But if your site makes people think too hard, if they can’t figure out what to do next, if they’re confused or frustrated or lost, it doesn’t matter what tools you used. It’s not good.
The tools change the speed. They don’t change the standard.
That’s what a fundamental looks like. That’s what “doesn’t move” means. Twenty-five years. Multiple generations of tools. Entire paradigm shifts in how we build for the web. And the core principles are still the same.
Usability isn’t about technology. It’s about people. And people haven’t changed. They still want things to be easy. They still get frustrated when they can’t find what they’re looking for. They still leave when something doesn’t make sense.
The fundamentals don’t have a release cycle.
The Monster Generalist Advantage
Jenny Wen talked about the “warped T-shape.” Deep expertise in one thing, but curiosity that stretches wide. Not just “I know design and that’s it.” But “I know design deeply, and I’m also curious about engineering, and product strategy, and user psychology, and business models, and how teams work.”
That’s the fundamental that doesn’t move. That’s the thing AI can’t replicate. Depth + curiosity.
I’m deep in WordPress. 20+ years deep. I know it inside and out. I’ve built hundreds of sites. I’ve debugged every weird edge case. I’ve lived through every major version, every controversy, every shift in direction. That depth matters. It compounds. It lets me see patterns other people miss. It lets me solve problems faster because I’ve seen them before or something close enough that I know where to start.
But I’m also a monster generalist. AI tools, agency ops, building with my kids, podcasts on runs, beta-testing things like Miles because I can’t help it. I tinker with things I don’t need to tinker with. I explore rabbit holes just because they’re interesting. I read about fields that have nothing to do with WordPress just to see if there’s something I can apply.
Curiosity IS the fundamental. It’s the thing that doesn’t get automated. It’s the thing that compounds.
The people who are going to be fine, the people who are going to thrive, aren’t the ones who know the most tools or type the fastest code. They’re the ones who are deeply curious. The ones who ask “why?” and “what if?” and “how does this work?” The ones who can’t help but tinker. The ones who read things they don’t have to read and try things they don’t have to try just because they want to understand.
That doesn’t change. That’s the core. Everything else is just tooling.
The warped T-shape: Deep expertise in one thing + curiosity that stretches wide. That’s the fundamental AI can’t replicate. Depth compounds. Curiosity unlocks. Together they’re unstoppable.
The Split: Who Thrives and Who Doesn’t
Here’s the reality: fundamentals + speed = unstoppable.
If you’re curious, if you care, if you’ve spent years building depth in something, these tools are a gift. You can finally move at the speed you think. You can iterate faster. You can test more ideas. You can ship better work. The bottleneck isn’t the tools anymore. It’s deciding what to build.
But speed without fundamentals? That’s replaceable.
And there’s always a handful. You know the pattern. They don’t ask why. They follow instructions but never question the approach. They optimize for output, not outcome. Ship fast but don’t care if it’s right. Copy-paste solutions without understanding them. Take the first answer that works instead of the best answer.
And they stopped learning. Got comfortable five years ago and haven’t evolved. The world moved on. They didn’t.
The speed of tools doesn’t matter if you’re standing still. No curiosity + no growth + just going through the motions = replaceable.
That’s not a tools problem. That’s a fundamentals problem.
I see it in developers who can code but can’t communicate. Who can build features but can’t explain why those features matter. Who can execute tasks but can’t think strategically about the product.
I see it in designers who can make things look good but don’t understand users. Who follow trends but don’t have taste. Who know Figma inside and out but can’t answer “does this feel right?”
I see it in agency owners who can deliver projects but can’t build relationships. Who can hit deadlines but can’t solve problems. Who can follow a process but can’t adapt when the process doesn’t fit.
The tools are accelerating. If you have fundamentals, that acceleration amplifies you. If you don’t, it exposes you.
Everything Compounds Faster Now
Even if you’re not 20+ years deep in your career, if you have 10 years, 5 years, things compound.
The fundamentals don’t move the same way they used to, but having that deep knowledge compounds faster now because the tools amplify it. Curiosity + depth + speed = exponential.
I can test an idea in an afternoon that used to take a week. I can build a prototype in a day that used to take a month. I can ship a site in a week that used to take a quarter. Not because I’m working more hours. Because the friction dropped and the fundamentals are still there.
That’s why the biggest issue I’m having right now is keeping up with myself. Not the tools. Myself. The ideas, the output, the possibilities. That’s what happens when curiosity compounds. The tools just made it louder.
I’m not complaining. This is the most exciting time in my career. But it’s real. The bottleneck isn’t learning the tools or figuring out the workflows. It’s deciding what to build, what matters, what moves the needle.
That’s strategy. That’s taste. That’s fundamentals. And those don’t have a release cycle.
The ideas come faster than I can execute them. The opportunities come faster than I can evaluate them. The possibilities multiply faster than I can explore them. That’s the compounding effect. That’s what happens when you have depth and curiosity and the tools finally catch up to the speed you think.
The compounding effect: Curiosity + depth + speed = exponential. The biggest bottleneck isn’t the tools—it’s deciding what to build, what matters, what moves the needle. That’s fundamentals.
What Actually Matters
So what are the fundamentals? The things that survive the speed wave?
Understanding your customer. What they need. What they struggle with. What they’ll actually use. What they care about. AI can’t fake that. You have to care enough to ask. You have to listen. You have to pay attention to what they say and what they don’t say. That’s a human skill. That’s what builds relationships. That’s what turns a project into a partnership.
Taste. The ability to look at something and know if it’s right. Not just technically correct. Right. Does it feel good? Does it communicate clearly? Does it solve the problem elegantly? That’s human judgment. That’s years of looking at things and making things and shipping things. That’s what separates good work from mediocre work. And it’s the one thing you can’t prompt an AI to replicate.
Curiosity. The willingness to ask why, to explore, to tinker, to learn something just because you want to understand it. That’s the meta-skill. That’s the thing that unlocks everything else. Curious people keep learning. Learning people keep growing. Growing people stay relevant. It’s that simple.
Depth. Years spent getting good at something. Not surface-level familiarity. Real expertise. The kind that lets you see patterns other people miss. The kind that lets you solve problems faster because you’ve been there before. The kind that compounds over time and becomes your unfair advantage.
Giving a damn. Treating the work like it matters. Like it’s yours. Like the outcome is your responsibility. Caring about quality. Caring about the client. Caring about the user. Caring about doing it right instead of just doing it fast. That doesn’t get automated. That’s a choice you make every single day.
The tools move. The speed moves. These don’t. These just compound.
The More Things Change
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Yes, the tools are incredible. Yes, the speed is accelerating. Yes, you can ship faster and build better and iterate more. All of that is true.
But the fundamentals don’t move. Curiosity doesn’t move. Taste doesn’t move. Giving a damn doesn’t move. Understanding people doesn’t move. Having depth doesn’t move.
If you have those things, these tools are a superpower. If you don’t, no tool is going to save you.
So double down on the fundamentals. Get curious. Build depth. Care about the work. Ask better questions. Pay attention to people. Develop taste. Give a damn.
The tools will keep changing. The speed will keep accelerating. The landscape will keep shifting.
But the fundamentals? Those are the same as they’ve always been. And if you have them, you’re going to be just fine.
Better than fine. You’re going to be unstoppable.
And that’s the whole point.
