Don't Be A Dinosaur

I'm still amazed at how many people are not using AI to supercharge themselves at work. And I don't mean people in industries far from tech. I mean people in Silicon Valley. People who work in and around technology every single day. The epicenter of innovation, and a stunning number of people here are just… watching the biggest shift of their professional lives happen around them.

Yes, of course, people are using it as consumers - for personal therapy, words of affirmation, a replacement for Google, relationship advice... But I'm not talking about personal use. I'm talking about supercharging oneself at work. Effectively creating a mini chief-of-staff for oneself - something that helps you think, prioritize better every morning, write, drop fewer balls, execute at a pace and depth that simply wasn't possible before.

Initially, I thought maybe people are using it but it's not visible. But then I started comparing notes with friends who are using AI the way I'm describing it. Turns out, their colleagues see the output. They see the upside. And they're still not doing it themselves. Nobody really knows why, but we all attribute it to some combination of inertia, lack of initiative, and lack of imagination.

If this is happening in Silicon Valley, imagine what's happening everywhere else.

But here's the thing: this is not a normal technology cycle. This is not cloud computing. This is not mobile. This is not social media. Those were massive, yes. But this is a societal level upheaval. Every prior technology wave changed the tools companies had to be more effective. AI is changing the capacity of the individual.

The people who are leaning in right now are becoming dramatically more capable, more productive, and more valuable. Literally by the week.

The uncomfortable truth is: People who do not supercharge themselves with AI are going to wake up in two years and find themselves professionally irrelevant. Not because AI will have replaced their job. But because someone else, someone who did lean in, will be operating at a level that makes the slow adopter look like they're standing still. The 10x individual becomes a 50x individual. What happens to the rest?

Two years. That's the window. Maybe less. The race to becoming AI-native has already started.

Don't be a dinosaur.