What to expect in 2026 · KubeCraft (Free)

Mischa van den Burg

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14h (edited) • 💬 General discussion

What to expect in 2026

Sunday, Dec 28 05:30:09 AM CET 2025

2025 has gone by so fast.

It was the first year where I had 0 income from being an employee.

All of the money I’ve made in 2025 has come from my own businesses, and it feels amazing.

And I want as many people as possible to experience the same. This will be my guiding light for the next year.

In this newsletter I will share my plans for what is coming, and I think you will like it.

I’m going to help a lot of people for free.

Autonomy

Many of you have heard me talk about the importance of autonomy in my recent video called “Why I Refuse to Use Windows”.

That video has received 85.000 views at the time of writing of this email.

Eighty five thousand people have spent a few minutes watching me talk about Linux and the importance of autonomy in life. Some of those people watched the video from beginning to end.

And they commented.

These comments have had a profound effect on me.

You see, when I made this video, I had no expectation that this would get so much attention.

I had no idea that it would resonate on a deep level with so many people.

In that video I wanted to do something different from what I’ve been doing so far. I wanted to share more of the WHY behind everything that I do.

The results surprised me.

The comments I received on this video were of a completely different nature. People sharing their stories and expressing their deep appreciation for what I was teaching them.

Several people made the commitment to become a DevOps engineer and joined KubeCraft after watching that video.

It became clear to me that I had more to give to the world than Kubernetes tutorials.

The Sovereign Craftsman

On January 1st 2025 my YouTube channel had 32.000 subscribers.

As I write this, I have 72.000 subscribers.

That means I have more than doubled my subs, and I’m getting close to 100K subscribers.

When I combine the counts from all platforms, I now have 115.000 followers.

Followers and views are just vanity metrics, I’m not playing this game to boost my ego.

I see more clearly now that what I create helps improve lives. That makes it all worthwhile.

I don’t like calling myself an “influencer”. Yet the numbers show it clearly: people care about what I have to say.

I take that very seriously.

I have the opportunity to change people’s lives for the better by giving them the tools and information I wish I had known about 15 years ago.

To this end I have been reflecting deeply about the content I wish to create in 2026.

And it has become very clear to me that I wish to help as many people as possible to achieve true autonomy.

I’m calling it the Sovereign Craftsman:

A Philosophy of Autonomy, Mastery, and Intentional Living Through Technology.

The core of this philosophy is my belief that learning tech skills such as Linux and basic coding are the gateway to an autonomous life.

It’s a journey of multiple steps that begins with learning basic skills and landing a tech job.

You work there for a few years, and with the skills you learned, you start your own business.

You can read the full blog post outlining this philosophy here:

https://mischavandenburg.com/zet/the-sovereign-craftsman/

The Hierarchy of Sovereignty

The path to sovereignty follows a progression, each level building on the previous. Understanding where you are in this hierarchy clarifies the next step forward.

The ultimate destination is Level 4: not just escaping wage slavery, but multiplying yourself. This is the logical extension of the Sovereign Craftsman philosophy.

My goal for 2026 is to help as many people as possible to start their journey towards becoming a Sovereign Craftsman.

This journey begins by learning the fundamental tech skills, and here’s what I have planned for that:

KubeCraft Starter Series: Weekly Live Streams

Let me be honest: I want to create a full series of YouTube videos to teach you about landing tech jobs. However, there are limits to what I can produce.

Each video takes about 8 hours to prepare and costs $700 for editing. That’s $36,400 per year I spend on free content, I can’t do more out of pocket.

But here’s what I’ve come up with:

I’m going to start a weekly live stream on YouTube where I’ll do live teaching of the skills that I think you’ll need to land your first tech job.

This will be much less polished than the content you see in my videos and courses.

Live, raw teaching and unedited videos.

The packaging is more raw, but the content will be even better, because I can respond live to your questions as we go along.

And of course, it will all be for free.

Skills that I plan on teaching in these series:

Linux
Editing text with vi(m)
Command line fundamentals
Working without using the mouse and using the terminal only
Coding in Bash (and maybe other languages too)
How to study and stay motivated
Note-taking, writing and communication skills
Becoming an autodidact

Now these are just some initial ideas.

It will all depend on how many people will attend and what they need.

That’s the beauty of live and raw: we can (and will) adjust as we go along.

KubeCraft Apprentice Hall

I envision a place where the people who follow the streams can gather and help each other out.

It will be a place where we can neatly organize the content that is being produced so people who come in later can get a structured overview of what we have done so far.

I’ve noticed from similar journeys that I’ve been a part of that senior people enjoy mentoring others and that they tend to attend these types of streams as well to help out.

I’d love to create a place where these people can help others too.

That will be the KubeCraft Apprentice Hall.

When you get stuck with the things we teach in the Starter Series, this will be the place to ask for help.

But to be clear: this is for people seriously committed to becoming a Sovereign Craftsman. It’s a community of active members who help each other—not a place to just take and leave.

You can join the waitlist by CLICKING HERE. You will reserve a spot and get your invitation as soon as we go live.

Dare To Dream

If you’re reading this and thinking, “that sounds amazing, but I can’t do it because [insert excuse here]”.

The excuse can be “I’m not as smart as he is” or “I don’t have time”.

That’s just your mind trying to keep you comfortable.

The truth is, to make progress in life, to reach autonomy, you will have to work hard. And your mind doesn’t like that.

But I know that deep down inside you want what I have. To live a life of independence, working on the projects you want, with the people you want, from anywhere in the world.

I firmly believe that learning tech skills is the best way to achieve that goal in a predictable and sustainable way.

It is working very well for members of the KubeCraft Career Accelerator: we are landing jobs almost every week these days.

Even people without any prior tech experience, or straight out of university.

Endrit doubled his salary and got a remote job. He’s on his way to becoming a true Sovereign Craftsman.

If you’re ready to commit to that journey already, you can CLICK HERE to apply for your spot.

We’re allowing 10 new craftsmen in this January, if they meet our standards.

And if you don’t feel ready yet, make sure you are subscribed to the YouTube channel.

2026 will be the year where you start the path of true autonomy.

I will meet you there,

Mischa

P.S. Don’t want to wait for the live streams? You can start your journey towards true autonomy by CLICKING HERE. We’ve helped over 1000 people achieve their dreams already, and it’s working.

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