in most work environments, there exists a trichotomy between people who wait for things to do, people who wait for things to get done, or people who just go do it themselves. the last category tends to be some of the most valuable employees that a company can have, but finding these unicorns has been difficult because only a rare few people have skills and agency spanning multiple functions.
i have wrung my hands many times when i desperately wanted to do something but didn’t know how to do it without someone helping or handholding me through it. every time i had to say “hmmm that requires a code change, let’s ask engineering” or “no, i don’t know how to get that data, we need to ask the data team” or “our designer needs to make a change to the prototype”, a part of me felt pretty useless.
needless to say, all that has changed now. there is now very little stopping me (or honestly anyone) from doing what needs to get done. this is so powerful, i don’t think we’ve harnessed what AI can do to help us become 10x more productive. you can clearly see the difference in output between people who use AI and people who don’t. and the irony is that AI is equally accessible to everyone at this point, you don’t need to be an engineer or a coder to understand how to use it effectively.
in a startup environment where things move fast, using AI is critical to my speed and sanity. i would be working longer hours and be much more tired and stressed if i wasn’t using AI to the degree that i’m using it now.
it has become clear to me in the near term that AI is not going to replace humans, as much as humans who effectively use AI will replace humans who don’t.
question every single part of your workflow and your day. ask yourself: is what i’m doing truly high leverage work? am i stuck doing something boring and tedious? am i stuck waiting for someone else to do something? in an ideal world, how would this work? once you ask yourself these questions, where AI can fit in becomes more obvious.
a rule of thumb i have is - is it quicker for me to do this or is it quicker for AI to do this? once i apply that rule, i use my valuable brain power for only the things that matter:
- creating new products and features; thinking deeply throughout my day
- building relationships with my coworkers, managing communication and conflicts
that’s really it. there’s such an asymmetric advantage to using AI, it’s the ultimate cheat code to excelling at work. what’s changing is that “i don’t know how” no longer has to be a stopping point. the mindset shift is everything.