As AI makes it increasingly trivial to create content and build applications, we’ll both be flooded by things demanding our attention and those things will be increasingly effective at getting it. Two takeaways follow from this:
- The skill of effective storytelling will be increasingly valuable. As it becomes easier to make things, “ability to make” ceases to be a differentiator in more categories.
- The skill of directing one’s own attention becomes increasingly important. Attention is the only truly finite currency.
The vast majority of people define “attention” far too narrowly. It’s not just “am I scrolling Instagram or am I working,” or even who your spend your time with. It’s the subtle, subconscious things you so deeply believe about yourself or the world that you don’t even realize they were ever chosen: attachment styles, self-sabotage and upper limit problems, extraversion vs. introversion, and so on. Your brain is a powerful tool that’s prone to overfitting. It creates these stories that you pay attention to whether you realize you’re doing it or not.
“I am this way because of X” is certainly a story you can tell yourself — I know I did. But is it one that gives you agency and enables you to live the life you want? This isn’t just about material success: it’s about friendships, relationships, hobbies, and moment-by-moment happiness.
While AI can filter information to efficiently find signal amongst noise (more on what I’m building to help founders with that soon), it ultimately mirrors and reinforces your existing behaviors and beliefs. Your ability to notice and rewire those settings is a superpower more important now — when we all have access to such incredibly powerful world-shaping tools — than ever before.
AI means tech will have more impact than ever, which means successful founders will have more impact than ever. An entrepreneur’s awareness of and ability to overcome their blocks (“what got you here won’t get you there”) will shape their scale of their success. That’s why I do what I do.
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