The Unemployables
”The reasonable (person) adapts (themself) to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to (themself). Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable (person).” George Bernard Shaw
Previously at the Volcano Base I was talking about Pontius Copilot. Since then I’ve been enjoying my first week off in a year. What have I been doing with my time off? Nothing useful at all. It’s been long overdue.
Mission Briefing
The Unemployables
At a certain point in your career, you stop being a candidate and start being a threat.
You’ve seen the systems. You’ve navigated the org charts, endured the standups, rewritten the strategy decks. And somewhere along the line, you became too experienced, too self-directed, too allergic to nonsense to be safely employed by anyone again.
Congratulations. You're now one of The Unemployables.
It’s not that you're incapable. Far from it. You probably train the very people recruiters think you're not “keeping up” with. You spotted the tech trends before they became acronyms. You’ve quietly kept things running while the self-promoters were busy polishing their titles.
But none of that looks quite right in a hiring funnel designed to spot compliance, not competence.
Because the modern employment machine, like a confused AI, can’t parse your signal. It reads seniority as cost. Independence as arrogance. And age? Well, that’s still quietly filed under “cultural misfit”.
You're no longer hireable in the traditional sense. And that’s excellent news.
Cult deprogramming
Full-time employment is, in many ways, a cult. One with performance rituals, devotional meetings, and sacred texts (PowerPoint, mostly). Once you've stepped away and built your own thing, whether consultancy, freelance or fractional, you start to notice how strange the old rites really were.
Returning is almost impossible. Not because you can’t. But because you won’t. You’ve tasted agency. Control over your hours, your clients, your bullshit intake. There’s no org chart compelling enough to trade that away.
Asset-class humans
The Unemployables are some of the most valuable people in the ecosystem.
They don't want your job. They don’t want your office. They don’t even want to manage your team (god forbid). But they will absolutely save your product, fix your ops strategy, or laser-focus your GTM mess in a third of the time.
They’re not a hiring risk. They’re a deployment opportunity.
Plug them in for a project. Bring them aboard for a mission. They don’t need onboarding. They need a brief and a clear lane. No management required, just mutual respect and an open mind.
So if someone shows up with a CV that reads like the prologue to a sci-fi novel, don’t bin it. Ask them what they’re working on. And if your worlds align, bring them in for a conversation.
You might not employ them. But they might just change everything.
Classified Intel
Some interesting stuff I discovered on my adventures.
Playbook for becoming AI‑first (PDF)
I don’t buy “AI first” as a philosophy. It’s the same BS as digital first, or mobile first, or anything other than Goal First. But I usually rate Board of Innovation and this is a practical deep dive outlining how organisations can shift to an “AI‑first” mindset.
Why it matters: For the Unemployables‑friendly audience, it offers a strategic lens you don’t need a full‑time job to master: a toolkit for projects, consulting or fractional work.
Sir Tim Berners‑Lee doesn’t think AI will destroy the web
Nilay Patel
An interview on The Verge’s Decoder podcast where the web’s inventor reflects on AI, decentralisation and digital sovereignty. The interviewer likes the sound of his own voice quite a lot, but Sir Tim has an interesting perspective.
Why it matters: If you’re too seasoned to be hired wholesale, you’re precisely the kind of thinker who benefits from big‑picture tech debates.
AI will kill the smartphone and maybe the screen entirely
Jason Kehe
A feature from WIRED exploring how AI may render our phones and screens obsolete.
Why it matters: Offers perspective on the next paradigm shift. Ideal for someone operating outside the standard employment factory.
Your data is not shared. Unsubscribe with 1 click.
Member discussion