After I published my last post about Power Tools (er, I mean AI), a reader asked me a fair question. “OK, so what do you do with your expensive workers who are being paid more than the current market will bear?”

It’s a good question, and I think the answer is actually the flip side of the same coin.

In my original post, I asserted that you can’t replace skilled workers with cheap labor plus AI tools and expect the same results. The tool makes the craftsman more powerful, but the tool does not replace the craftsman. I stand by that. But there’s another side to this that I didn’t address, and it’s equally important.

If the nail gun makes a skilled carpenter 10 to 100 times more productive, then that skilled carpenter just became incredibly valuable. Think about what that means. You have someone who already knows how to frame a house, already understands load-bearing walls and building codes and all the things that come from years of experience. Now give them a nail gun. They’re not just doing the same work faster. They’re able to take on work they couldn’t before. Maybe now they can roof complex buildings that were previously too difficult because they can drive nails one-handed while bracing with the other. Maybe they can offer additional services to the customer while they’re already on site, creating more value and charging accordingly. The experienced carpenter with a nail gun isn’t just a faster version of the old carpenter. They’re a fundamentally more capable worker.

That’s the person you want to keep. That’s the person worth every dollar you’re paying them, and probably more.

Now, on the other hand. If you have a carpenter who looks at the nail gun and says “No thanks, I prefer my hammer. Nail guns don’t drive nails as well. The feel isn’t right. I’ve been doing it this way for twenty years and it works fine.” Well. That person has a problem, and they might not even realize it.

Nobody is delivering milk by horse and buggy anymore. It doesn’t matter how good you are with a horse and buggy. The world moved on.

So the answer to “what do you do with expensive workers” is actually two answers. The workers who embrace the new tools and use them to multiply their existing expertise? Invest in them. Give them raises. They’re going to generate enormous value. But the workers who refuse to adapt, who insist the old way is the only way, who spend their energy arguing that the new tools are inferior instead of figuring out how to use them? Those are the people who should be worried. And the unfortunate part is they’re usually the last ones to realize it.