The Underrated Money Making Skill In 2026

TL;DR

Good taste is the most important moat in the AI era because building is easy but appealing to people’s emotions is the hard part. Taste is defined as proposing an identity valued by a community and communicating it congruently through lifestyle choices.

Key insights

• With AI, the hard part is no longer building or raising money; the moat is taste – the ability to make people feel “there’s something special here” and want to give money, follow, or buy.
• David Marks’ definition of good taste: proposing an identity that matters to be valued in the community of your choice, and using lifestyle choices to clearly, congruently, and authentically communica
• The process of developing taste mirrors learning guitar: you start by copying simple songs (e.g., Jingle Bells) before advancing, not by writing an original song from scratch.