Never Work Alone

There’s a growing belief that with all the AI agents and tools available today, the first one-person startup unicorn will be born in the next decade. According to experts, it’s only a matter of time before someone builds a company worth over a billion dollars without hiring a single employee—just the founder running the entire operation.

The question is whether—with enough automation—one person could handle everything needed to build a sizable business: coming up with a product idea, building it end-to-end, selling it, supporting customers, and more. But there’s another, similarly important question within the first one: Would anyone actually want to do all of that work alone? And would they stay sane if they tried?

We collaborate not because we’re lazy or inefficient. Working with others tends to bring out the best—and sometimes the worst—in us. Real debates spark the most creative ideas, and team spirit helps us dip into extra energy reserves when the going gets tough. Maybe AI will eventually replace some of these elements as well, so it’s worth asking the question: What do we really gain from seeking help from partners, co-founders, co-authors, and other collaborators?

“My brain is open”

Paul Erdős, one of the most prolific mathematicians in history, showed us just how powerful collaboration can be. Although he was a brilliant thinker, Erdős chose not to work alone. He gave up having a permanent home and instead traveled from one colleague’s home to another, greeting each with his famous line: “My brain is open.” He was always ready to tackle new problems with a new group, and by the time he died in 1996, he had co-authored around 1,500 papers, more than any other mathematician on record.

Erdős’s network spans over 500 different co-authors and links over 130,000 mathematicians. His productivity highlights the key strengths of collaboration: the sharing of ideas, the combination of different skills, and the creative sparks that fly when minds meet. Working together also helps uncover blind spots, challenge assumptions, and build solutions that nobody could reach alone. As mathematician Béla Bollobás once put it, Erdős had “an amazing ability to match problems with people,” connecting the right minds to the right challenges.

Research shows that teams consistently outperform individuals across disciplines, especially when solving complex problems. A Northwestern University study found that, by combining diverse expertise, groups produce more effective and more innovative solutions. Even the slower parts of collaboration, such as explaining ideas or resolving disagreements, often lead to deeper understandings and better outcomes in the end.

This raises the question of whether success is determined less by individual genius and more by where you sit on a network. Sociologist Ronald Burt’s research on “structural holes” suggests that the most innovative people aren’t always the smartest, but rather the best positioned—the ones bridging gaps between disconnected groups. In a study of 17,000 scientists, those who connected previously separate fields produced the highest-impact work, regardless of raw talent. Simply put: Being in the right network multiplies the reach of your ideas.

Need for speed

Collaboration has its limits, too, of course. Networks can become echo chambers where bad ideas spread just as easily as good ones. Group dynamics can also stifle dissent, making radical breakthroughs harder. And when too many people share the credit, participation can drop off. The real skill isn’t just joining networks—it’s knowing when to lean on them, and when to step away and work alone.

So, how do you build a network for maximum success? Or choose to go solo?

Avoiding the costs of coordination is a big win. As teams grow, communication overhead grows even faster. Harvard research shows that larger groups face steep innovation drag simply because it gets harder to move ideas through the system. Solo founders sidestep all that friction.

In fast-moving environments, small teams have real advantages. They don’t need endless meetings or consensus-building. They can pivot quickly and execute clearly. When Instagram founder Kevin Systrom decided to pivot from Burbn to a photo-sharing app, he didn’t have to argue the case—he just did it.

Your next best friend

The rise of advanced AI tools has opened a third path between going solo and building a traditional team. AI now acts as a sounding board that’s available 24/7, extending individual thinking without the coordination costs of human collaboration. Solo founders can keep full decision-making control while tapping AI for fresh perspectives, challenges, and blind-spot detection.

One especially powerful use case is “red teaming,” or testing ideas by deliberately trying to break them. While human collaborators might hesitate to challenge you, AI can be programmed to do it without the ego or status games. It can surface weak points, generate counterarguments, and suggest alternate approaches, acting as a brutally honest, always-available sparring partner.

This process is exactly what legendary chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov called “weak human + machine + better process.” The highest-performing systems will blend human and AI strengths. Research from Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI shows that human-AI partnerships consistently outperform working alone, especially on creative and analytical tasks. AI’s knack for spotting patterns pairs perfectly with human contextual understanding, creating a symbiosis where individuals can think bigger, faster, and smarter without giving up autonomy.

But this new model demands new skills. Collaborating with AI isn’t about teamwork in the traditional sense. It’s about learning to frame problems clearly, question outputs critically, and maintain final judgment. The collaboration of the future won’t revolve around group consensus—it will revolve around sharper thinking, better questions, and smarter decision-making.

As Grace Hopper, computer scientist and rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, famously warned, “The most dangerous phrase in the English language is ‘We’ve always done it this way.’”