So no entrepreneur is worried about an AI taking their job because entrepreneurs are trying to do impossible things. They’re trying to do very difficult things. Any AI that shows up is their ally and can help them tackle this really hard problem.
They don’t even have a job to steal. They have a product to build. They have a market to serve. They have a customer to support. They have a creativity to realize. They have a thing that they want to instantiate in the world, and they want to build a repeatable and scalable process around getting it out into the world.
Playing around with AI has got me thinking more like an entrepreneur than I have felt like in a decade. Just so many thoughts, feelings and ideas that want to get out. To assist with my ideation, I created a new folder for holding my ideas. I spun up a codex, and started asking it how I best could currate ideas that come to me. After some back and forth we created a process for considering ideas. We now have the folowing folders :
And in order to more easily push ideas through the proces, I spellcast a script so that I can just type :
idea "someting I think about" from anywhere in my terminal and immediately the idea will be taken through my research flow. Each folder has a README that defines how the researh should be conducted. Ideas are scored based on how good of ideas they are on some established metrics. Additionally, the AI considers how the idea scores compared to the 7 powers.
When I capture an idea, it'll run for a few minutes and flesh out some resarch on the idea.
In addition to this starting point, i've been dumping various thoughts/questions/ and research into the 07 misc_research folder. I've been trying to think through what I genuinely think is going to happen to general software development. And what kinds of ideas will be good ideas to pursue in a world where AI is created through spellcasting.
What feels really good about this new way to process ideas, is that it's pretty good. And to get started only took me like 20 minutes. Honestly I was to the point in 20 mintues where I had my templates, my script and my ideation workflow happening so fast. The ability to tell my computer what I want it to do based on the context of the documentation that it also helped me create is amazing.
I've also recognized that in addition to taking ideas through a process. I also need to find inspiration in the world. And so i've been kind of thinking about how best to gain experiences outside of staring at my computer screen. That part is difficult. But even reading different books or reading about different things is something that i'm exploring. And I'm also trying to identify the kinds of things that I want to build. Not just ideas that would be successful. It's not worth getting too precious. But it's not a bad idea for me to be thinking about what kinds of work do I want to do longer term? What kinds of projects do I enjoy? Some of this has also lead me to some journaling projects. I'm also considering how best I can translate my thoughts and feelings into more structured data and context that I can analyze ideas through.
One final thought on entrepreneurship, i'm not sure if I'm really cut out ot be one. I've always kind of thought of myself as one. But my working career I have always deferred to my jobby job. And i've never been able to follow through on any of my ideas to create something successful. When I think of being an entrepreneur the word that just jumps to my mind is "action". Make things happen. And don't stop pushing on something until it exists. And then keep pushing things to be better. Action orriented or the project dies.
If you follow the AI software development crowd, there has been a repeated phrasing about how AI is taking all of the junior dev jobs. And this is most likely true. However, what most people might misunderstand about that is that they might associate AI as being something that performs at a junior dev level. As of this month that is definitely not the case. AI when properly directed, is like a pyscho bezerk developer that handles so many tasks so well that it more resembles the 10x developer on your team that you previously would have said "they are definitely the most valuable developer on the team".
I haven't published my recent experiences working with AI. I tried to write something because I was just gobsmacked by what i've been seeing with my own eyes. And I've also just been so struck by the moment that when I write about it, I just can't stop gushing over something I can't quite put my finger on.
When you put on the cape and just start going hard in a vibe coding session it feels so freaking incredible.
But alas, I digress...
Once upon a time I was a pretty good developer. I never felt like a leet problem solver, but I did have a knack for different parts of programming that lead me to be effective at solving problems, leading a team, and producing good results.
About 9 years ago I changed from coding to product leadership. I've still kept my programming skills with the occasional side project and tinkering. My professional skills have developed in other ways.
I don't really know how my particular mish mash of skills will age in the era of AI. But I do know that it feels freaking incredible to drive an AI apparatus around. Like it feels difficult to know whether i'm doing work or whether the ai is doing the work. Certainly the AI is doing the work. But also, i'm bringing an entire lifetime of context to the directions and decisions.
To bring it back to junion devs, it does feel eerily similar to how things felt when I very first started programming. It was so incredible back then to build software. It felt so novel and expansive. And there was so much to learn. And when you learned something you could apply it to creating entirely new things. And that's how this feels. It feels like i'm a junior dev again and everything feels so interesing and like anything is possible. It feels like i'm in a sea of possibilities. And like i'm so far behind. But I have my computer and with my computer I can figure anything out. I'm a dangerous junior dev again.
As I wrote earlier this year. I'm using a new system whereby the main goal is to direct tomorrows version of myself to accomplish some specific tasks for the day. I'm trying to push more of daily activity into a planned and intentional state. And trying to hold myself accountable and build trust with myself.
For ~170 tasks over the course of the first month and several days, I was able to succssfully do what I had directed myself to do from the previous night. I consider this a big accomplishment. And unfortunately my streak came to an end. The details of losing out of the goal aren't particularly interesting. But the short story was that my computer was locked into a building I didn't have access. And some of my tasks I had left til the end of the day to do. And 2am turned into 3am with still no access to my computer. And I ended up going to sleep without achieving a couple of my tasks.
So this is a pretty classic case of a new years resolution that experiences a setback. And it's been interesting to observe how I feel about it and to try and do some things differently as a result.
It was very difficult the next couple of days to resume doing the system. I was pretty quick to intellectually realize that it was ok to have a blemish. And that it was important that I get back to it. But losing out on the tasks for that one day, also lead me to fail the next day, because I usually do my planning on my computer and I usually do it when i'm done with my tasks for the day. Both of which were excuses that I didn't even know I was making with myself until the next morning when I woke up and didn't have any tasks for the day.
So I got back to it in earnest the following night when I again started directing my future self. However, it's been hard these first couple of days because you kind of have that nagging voice that it's ok to miss. We've missed before and it wasn't a big deal so if we miss again, it'll just be like that. Which is all true. But very much not helpful for accomplishing things with resolve and working towards a longer goal that isn't directly related to a particular streak.
Inner demons are the enemy of any effort to systematically improve your life. But, I have actually restored order to my system. And I'm back to delivering on my tasks set by myself on the prior day. I've also realized that even though I had a pretty good reason to miss, and that reason wasn't really my fault, but that I was accountable for putting myself in the position to miss. And that I could have found alternative means to accomplishing my tasks. I had written the tasks in ways that allow for a pretty open ended accomplishment path. And I had failed to do the tasks on another computer or on my phone even though it was possible to do that.
So i'm treating this like i've let myself down and that I can do better. I've also had to grapple with the reality that the system isn't the point. The streak isn't the point. I have clear goals and reasons for doing what i'm doing. And all of that still holds. The system is also simple enough that I can think about how I can do better without it being a "systems problem". I think this is good too, and is showing the strength of a system that is so simple.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
An "anti-pattern" is a solution that looks like a good idea at first, feels familiar or convenient, but consistently causes more problems than it solves.
It's worth spending some time to identify anti-patterns in your life. Because once you find one, you might be on the verge of making a major breakthrough that could really meaningfully improve your life. I've written recently about when you are using AI and think that the answer to learning is to have AI give you an answer instead of struggling on your own. When you goal is to learn, the anti-pattern is giving yourself the answers too easily. A good teacher knows this is an anti-pattern and real learning always includes struggle. But it's so easy to fall into the anti-pattern of undermining your own learning. It's so convenient to give your mind an out by just looking at the answer. Doing this repeatedly also causes more problems than it solves.
So how do you solve an anti-pattern? Unfortunately, not easily. But it has to start with recognition. Once you recognize the anti-pattern and label it. You can start to see solutions that might be painful at first but can unwind the negative behavior. Once I realized what I was doing with AI undermining my education. I turned off my auto-complete. And I asked for explicit exercises that I would bang my head against without using AI to give me the answers. I started to take pride in when I could achieve exercises without using Google to search for questions. And without asking AI for answers. And there is a line there too. Because in the course of an exercise there might be a different problem unrelated to your learning. And perhaps that might be worth using a google search or asking AI. But you gotta be disciplined about what you are doing. You have to be ruthless about identifying the goal you and making sure your behavior is going to lead to the end goal.
Another anti-pattern that I observed is the anti-pattern of using command tab to switch between applications. Why is that an anti-pattern? Well, it's certainly familiar and seemingly convenient. It's something that seems like such a good idea. But think about it for a moment. When you start to switch between a handful of applications, how many times do you find yourself hitting command+tab like 15 times to get to the application that you used a few days ago? If you really knew how often you are ineffeciently using command+tab, you'd start to realize how the pattern could be greatly improved upon. And yes, getting to a better place would be hard. Especially because using command+tab just grows to be second nature.
So what's the answer?
A few years ago, i decided to map my most used applications to a specific keyboard shortcut. I hold a custom modifier and press a single key and what happens is that a specific application opens if it's not already running OR if it's already running then it comes to the foreground and gains focus. Pressing that same key again automatically hides the same application.
So a simple thought exercise.
Say you want are browsing the internet and you want to go to your terminal, what do you do?
Most people will just start command+tabbing.
That is not what I do.
super+y
What if you are on Slack and realize you need to open your browser? Command+tabbing? Nope.
super+j (Browser is such a regular application, I use one of the best keys for that application. Right on the homerow of the keyboard.)
If you want to really breakthrough, you disable command+tab altogether. That can help jumpstart the change in your behavior.
And so now that it's been a few years where am I at with the anti-pattern? Well. Honestly, I still sometimes use command+tab (i currently have it allowed). But when I just use my system to go directly without command+tab, it's honestly so much better. You can fly around where you want to be. It's so much more intentional.
When you are on the other side looking back at an anti-pattern you have a much different perspective. You realize how much better things could have been if you'd addressed the pattern much earlier. And you also see other people and wish you could help them. But it's always hard. Because remember, it wouldn't be an anti-pattern if it wasn't seeminly convenient. Or wasn't easy at first.
After you find your first anti-pattern and overcome it you might be surprised that you are now more open minded that there could be other anti-pattern's in your life. If something so sacred as command+tab is an anti-pattern, then what else could be? How much of our interactions with our phone, social media, or even our daily routine could you think about as an anti-pattern? Starts to be scary (and exciting) to look around and challenge everything.
But remember, anti-patterns aren't bad just because they are convenient. Many great things are actually convenient and NOT an anti-pattern. It actually has to be something that causes more problems than it solves after repeated instances. It will be hard to see initially, but if you knew you were going to do it 1 million times you could then realize that it's worth doing things the right way. It turns into an anti-pattern when you extrapolate beyond initial ease and see that not only will it eventually be better to behave differently, but that you are for sure going to get where it's worth doing things right.
