Open Letter on AI

My letter to my operations leaders on AI from this week.

There’s a piece by Matt Shumer called “Something Big Is Happening” that’s been making waves last week (80M+ views). Worth a read.

“This might be the most important year of your career. Work accordingly. I don’t say that to stress you out. I say it because right now, there is a brief window where most people at most companies are still ignoring this. The person who walks into a meeting and says “I used AI to do this analysis in an hour instead of three days” is going to be the most valuable person in the room. Not eventually. Right now. Learn these tools. Get proficient. Demonstrate what’s possible.”

The core argument: we’re past the “slow transition” phase with AI. The latest models (opus 4.6!!) releases represent a real tipping point — AI is starting to demonstrate genuine judgment and execute complex, multi-hour tasks independently. The gap between people who use these tools daily and people who only talk about them is becoming a competitive risk.

Being “ahead” is a moving target. The models that dropped in the last two weeks are a meaningful step change, and the pace is only accelerating.

I wrote a doc in Q4 around this idea that captures how I think about this mindset shift. The TL;DR: our default should be to reach for AI first, and only fall back to manual when we have to. Not the other way around.

What I need from each of you:

1. Get hands-on yourself. If you’re not using Claude, ChatGPT, or similar tools daily in your actual work — not just experimenting — start now. The best way to spot automation opportunities in your workflows is to be a power user yourself.

2. Lean into coding. Start thinking about the problems you’d want to build against. Then build a PRD. Then play with a Lovable or Replit to go from idea to prototype. It will feel like magic the first time you do it!

3. Show your teams how it’s done. Your people are watching. When they see you using these tools to solve real problems, it gives them permission to do the same.

The window where this feels optional is closing fast. But the window where being early still matters? That’s right now. The people who lean in today won’t just be more productive — they’ll be the ones shaping how their organizations work for the next decade. Don’t wait for permission. Don’t wait for a mandate. Just start building.