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Dream it’s instant

What’s left when the work is already done?

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AI increasingly does the work for us.

As we're able to do and create faster, speed is becoming a commodity. And the value we bring as humans is shifting.

The most obvious case in point: building software used to be slow and expensive, is now fast and cheap, and heading towards free and instant.

Right now, there's a wave of identity crisis flowing over the developer community as they see core aspects of their job being handled by AI to a degree that hasn't hit other fields. Yet.

Software is just the first domino. Every other industry and white collar job is in for a similar shift, probably sooner than most people expect.

So then what? Where does our value actually lie?

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH WEDNESDAY SOLUTIONS

You're busy. But are you getting closer to PMF?

You're shipping. You're iterating. You're in the weeds managing engineers.

But the customers aren't pulling yet, are they?

This playbook shows what actually creates pull - and why building faster isn't it.

Get the playbook

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A thought experiment:

Think of creating with AI as something that happens instantly.

Let's say you want it to create an app for you: it weaves itself into existence as you speak, and is finished by the time you close your mouth.

It can be any piece of work you can render on a screen. A marketing campaign. A counterposition to a lawsuit. The year-end accounting for a business. An architectural blueprint.

No planning, no back and forth. AI just carries it out, excellently, end-to-end, in milliseconds.

Now, with the execution part being completely handled for you, instant and free, can you clearly see the value of your role in the process?

I'm not here to tell you what that value is or how to hone it. You know that better than me.

The idea is to make you aware of what it isn't, so your awareness rests in a space where you're actually able to find it.

Right now there's still some friction to building with AI. Somewhat technical setup, some things you need to understand. But whatever barrier exists today will be lower next month and, eventually, gone.

Steve Jobs famously said that a computer is a bicycle for the mind.

With AI, we might no longer be on a bicycle but on a rocket ship. However, it's still a vehicle that extends our cognitive ability, and it still goes where the rider points it.

The data agrees. Anthropic published a chart last month that shows the education level of AI responses matching the education level of the user's input with a 0.92 correlation.

PhD-level prompts get PhD-level output. Surface-level prompts get surface-level responses.

To me, it's less about education specifically; those are just the labels on the chart. What I think is happening more generally is that AI mirrors your mind: the totality of your experience, knowledge, intuition, goals, direction, and your ability to articulate it. The rocket ship goes exactly as far as the rider's thinking takes it.

Learning AI and adapting to new tools is critical. It allows you to see what's possible. And given that everyone's job description is about to be disrupted, being early is no doubt an advantage.

But along with learning how to navigate the temporary technical friction of learning, building and doing work with AI, take the occasional moment to dream it's instant.

Because once speed is no longer a variable, the only thing left is the quality of your direction.

I'd love to hear what this thought experiment surfaced for you.

THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY

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