In the AI era, rewards are only given to those with awareness.

On Sunday morning at Palo Alto zombie cafe, Alan Walker watched out the window and said, quietly:

“Many people still think the AI era is about diligence, execution, overtime, and stacking more people.

Actually, it’s not.

The cruelest part of the AI era is that rewards are not distributed evenly. It only goes to those who truly have understanding. It’s the same in product building, the same in engineering, and the same in investing.

Because what you’re facing isn’t an ordinary tool, not an ordinary timeline, but a reshuffling of productivity brought by high-intelligence.”

The following 6 paragraphs are how I organized what he said that day.

AIis not a tool upgrade; it’s high intelligence arriving

Today, many people are still trying to understand AI using internet thinking, and that’s already behind.

The internet was a revolution in information distribution; AI is a revolution in intelligent distribution.

In the past, you used tools and the tools didn’t understand you. Now you’re facing a high-intelligence agent that can understand, reason, collaborate, and even counter-amplify you.

What does that mean?

It means AI is no longer just helping you save time. It begins to directly participate in judgment, generate structure, compress trial-and-error costs, and even redefine how much a person can do.

AI isn’t an enhanced version of old tools. It’s high intelligence entering ordinary people’s work routines at scale for the first time.

So in this era, the first people to be rewarded are not the busiest ones—but those who first realized:

You’re no longer facing software. You’re facing a new intelligent infrastructure.

AIonly amplifies understanding; it won’t replace people’s thinking

Many people think that once they use AI, they automatically upgrade.

Actually, the opposite is true.

AI, in essence, is especially ruthless. It doesn’t improve everyone evenly; it only amplifies each person’s existing structure, judgment, and boundaries.

If there’s no framework in your head, what AI gives you is often just prettier nonsense.

If you can’t abstract problems, it can only keep you circling at the surface.

Only when you have a clear understanding of goals, constraints, costs, and paths will it truly be able to unlock its potential—giving you deeper reasoning and stronger output.

AI isn’t a cheat code for a useless brain. It simply amplifies the human brain.

So why do some people get stronger the more they use AI, while others get more and more mediocre?

It’s not model favoritism; it’s because the levels of understanding are far too different.

The rewards in technology flow first to people who understand the direction

The tech industry has always been like this:

The truly huge returns have never been for the “people who suffer the most,” but for the “people who understand the next-generation paradigm.”

In the steam engine era, rewards went to those who understood mechanization;

In the internet era, rewards went to those who understood connection and distribution;

In the mobile internet era, rewards went to those who understood entry points and network effects.

In the AI era, rewards begin to flow to those who understand how high intelligence rewrites the production relationships.

Many programmers today are still stuck on how to treat AI as a plugin, an assistant, or a productivity tool.

But people with deeper understanding are already thinking on another layer:

Which jobs will this high intelligence swallow first, which processes will it rewrite, which organizations will it restructure, which product boundaries will it change, and finally—who will get the value redistributed to.

The biggest tech dividend has never been for people who know how to use tools. It goes to the ones who first understand what those tools will destroy—and what they will rebuild.

That’s the gap.

While ordinary people are still learning how to use tools, people with higher understanding are already redrawing the map.

The rewards in investing go only to those who understand the center of the era

Investing is even more ruthless.

Because when building a product, if you make a wrong move, you can slowly fix it. But if you make a wrong bet in investing and the direction is off, in three to five years it’s gone.

The most valuable investors in the AI era are not the best storytellers, and not the ones who chase hot trends first. It’s the ones who understand first:

This is not an opportunity to “add one more track.” It’s an opportunity for the entire technology value chain to be reordered.

What does it mean to be an investor with understanding?

It’s not just being able to look at valuations, growth, and hype.

It’s being able to understand:

Who high intelligence will eat first—whose profits it will first compress—whose moats will first be repriced—finally, where profits and power will be concentrated.

So an investor with understanding doesn’t just see whether “some AI application” is hot;

What they see is:

In the whole chain—models, compute power, data, interfaces, workflows, organizational efficiency, user relationships—which layer is most likely to crystallize long-term returns, which layer is just a tollbooth, and which layer will eventually be directly eaten by native models.

The biggest reward in investing is not given to the most lively people—it goes only to those who see the endgame first.

That’s also why many people, on the surface, are all investing in AI, yet the eventual returns end up differing like two species.

Because some people are chasing volatility; others are押ing structure.

Humans’ first time being forced to reprice themselves by high intelligence

The deepest layer of this isn’t technology, not investing—it’s people.

In the past, the machines humans encountered were low-intelligence machines.

They did the work for you, did the math for you, connected you to the internet for you—but they wouldn’t force you to face yourself directly.

Today’s AI is different. For the first time, it makes many people admit that many abilities they used to be proud of were actually only localized advantages in the old era.

So for many people, the real emotion toward AI isn’t excitement—it’s discomfort.

Because once you really use AI deeply, you’ll find that:

Many abilities that used to be able to make money are rapidly losing value;

Many abilities that used to feel unattainable are starting to be diluted by the system;

The gap between people is no longer reflected in how hard they work—it’s reflected in how deep their understanding is.

The most painful thing about AI is not that it’s faster than you; it’s that it makes you realize you weren’t as valuable as you thought.

That’s why most people talk about AI but don’t actually dare to truly enter AI.

Not because the barrier is high—but because the barrier of self-respect is high.

In this era, rewards won’t go to people from the old era

I remember Alan’s last line very clearly.

He said:

“This era isn’t about not giving people opportunities. It’s about not paying old-money for old brains. If you treat AI like a toy, it’ll just play with you. If you treat AI like a search engine, it’ll just help you search. If you treat AI as a high-intelligence collaborator, it will lift you up.

Investing is the same. Technology is the same.

If you can’t understand the rule changes brought by high intelligence, even if you stand on the top of the wave, you still won’t get the real big results.”

So what this article truly wants to say isn’t that “people with understanding are more capable,” but that:

In the AI era, rewards won’t be evenly given to everyone.

It will only go to those who see high intelligence first, who understand the new rules first, and who dare to restructure themselves first.

It’s true for people building technology, it’s true for investors, and it’s true for ordinary people too.

AI won’t reward every participant. It only turns a minority’s understanding into outcomes that most people can never catch up to again.