If You Never Build Anything, You Will Always Be at Someone Else's Mercy

When I say everyone should build something, I mean something very specific. I'm not talking about starting a billion-dollar startup or coding a complex app. I’m talking about the act of creating something, however small, from nothing—something real, something tangible, something whose existence depends solely on your initiative.

Most people never do this. Most people spend their entire lives working within systems designed by others. Schools, universities, corporations, hospitals—these are all systems. And most intelligent, capable people are rewarded for succeeding inside them. They become experts at navigating these structures, optimizing their performance, and climbing the ranks. They receive praise and prestige. And because they’re rewarded, they never feel compelled to create their own structures.

This seems fine, at least initially. But here’s the assumption most people implicitly make—and it's a dangerous one: they assume that the system they rely on will always reward them fairly and consistently, as long as they play by its rules. This belief, while comforting, is incorrect. Systems are optimized for stability, not fairness. They're optimized for self-preservation, not for the people inside them. And, crucially, they're optimized to limit the agency of participants, because too much agency threatens the system’s stability.

This isn't cynical. It's structural logic. For example, if you're a physician, the healthcare system values your compliance far more than your innovation. If you're a corporate employee, your company values predictability and control, not entrepreneurial risk-taking. The pattern repeats in nearly every major institution. And it leads to a subtle but profound consequence: you spend your life being chosen, rather than choosing. Your future becomes something handed to you—by admissions officers, hiring managers, promotion committees—rather than something you actively shape.

This brings us back to the idea of building. Building something, no matter how small, interrupts this pattern. It’s not about the thing you build—it’s about the person you become by building it. Building forces you, possibly for the first time, to shift from being reactive to proactive. It forces you to step outside the existing framework, even if just briefly, and to experience directly what it's like to create value without permission.

I experienced this firsthand when I was still a student. The first thing I built that generated money was nothing spectacular—just a simple Shopify store I put together for a client. The amount earned was trivial, about $500. But the impact was transformative. Until that moment, I had been an excellent system participant—great at getting good grades, securing internships, checking boxes. But this small, self-created success demonstrated something entirely new: that I could create value entirely outside of any pre-existing system.

What happened internally was subtle yet permanent. My mindset shifted from "Who’s going to choose me next?" to "What will I choose to build next?" It was the first time I genuinely understood that I didn't need permission to act. And that realization—once internalized—changes everything. It changes your relationship to authority. It changes how you perceive risk. It changes the speed at which you move.

But here's the deeper reason you must build: systems, especially large and successful ones, are inherently fragile. Not immediately—they might last decades. But eventually, all systems decay. They stagnate, become bureaucratic, calcified. Your ability to thrive inside them diminishes over time, as complexity and rigidity increase. And if your entire professional identity depends on navigating a particular system, you're deeply vulnerable to that inevitable decay.

Building something small—something of your own—creates a hedge against this fragility. Even a tiny hedge matters immensely. Having built once, you’ve proven you can build again. You’ve established a skill set, and more importantly, a psychological independence that frees you from needing any particular system to survive. When conditions inevitably change, you won’t panic or freeze—you’ll build again.

There's a reason this message isn't more popular: building is difficult, uncomfortable, and often embarrassing. Your first attempts usually fail. People might laugh at you or judge your early results. It’s far easier to stay comfortably within established boundaries, executing well-defined tasks, and avoiding exposure to judgment or risk. Most people choose comfort.

But the comfort of waiting and following orders has a hidden price: learned helplessness. Over time, you lose the sense that you can move independently. You lose the sense of possibility that exists outside of established pathways. Eventually, you lose the belief that you can meaningfully shape the environment around you. And that’s not just a personal loss—it’s a collective tragedy. Because when intelligent, ethical, driven people stop building things of their own, power increasingly consolidates into the hands of people who build without hesitation—often people whose motives and values differ sharply from yours.

This is why I keep returning to this simple imperative: everyone—especially smart, thoughtful people—must build something. It’s not about entrepreneurship, or prestige, or money. It’s about cultivating a fundamental psychological and practical independence. It’s about reclaiming your ability to move first, rather than always responding. It's about proving—first to yourself—that your future does not depend solely on being picked.

And this doesn't require brilliance or risk-taking. It simply requires action. Start by building something so small you can’t talk yourself out of it. A single product, a tool, a small community event, a piece of content shared publicly—something tangible, something yours, something real. It doesn’t need to impress anyone. It just needs to exist.

Once you've built it, you’ll realize something quietly revolutionary: that waiting for permission was never actually mandatory. It was optional all along. The gatekeepers, systems, and rules that previously defined your life suddenly become context, rather than constraints.

This, ultimately, is why everyone should build something, even if it’s small. Because once you have, your relationship to the world shifts irreversibly. You stop being someone who waits, and you start being someone who moves.

That's not just a good idea—it’s the only rational strategy in a world increasingly dominated by fragile systems and precarious stability. It’s not optimism. It’s realism.

So build something small. Don’t wait. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to start.

— Ali

p.s. I tried something different with this post. I used to write proper long form essays instead of the list and core idea style you’ve seen from me until now. Let me know what you prefer: essay style like these or the former list style newsletters?