I started this newsletter to share my story. I’m still committed to sharing it here and elsewhere. This story is about me, the things I’m building, the lessons I’m learning and the wins and losses I live through. My hope is that my story will help your story have bigger wins and smaller losses.
The best stories take us on a journey from highs to lows across chapters from “Once upon a time” all the way to “The End.” The things that happen between chapters either don’t matter to the story or get revealed later. The pause between chapters lets the story breathe.
The next chapter is about to start. In this chapter you’ll read less about my cacao beverage and more about my current focus, joining the AI revolution, on the humane side of course. We can’t let the robots win or make us cruel.
Recently, I wrote that I use AI as my editor. I’ve been engaging with Claude for months. It started when I needed a thought partner to help automate some tedious work. It morphed into a creative partnership and now it’s evolving into something bigger.
I've been spending a lot of time considering what AI can actually do for me and others like me. Not the hype. Not the doom trolling. Just the immensely useful ways it can help me fill my cup and live a richer story. I sincerely believe it can and I will write about it here.
In the past few months Claude has helped me in more ways than I can remember. It has helped me make strategic decisions while pushing back on my assumptions. It has helped me research market trends, build positioning frameworks and unleash my creativity in ways I never imagined possible. It even helps me craft bedtime stories for my daughter. More on that in a future post.
None of what Claude does has replaced my thinking, it has let me sharpen and deepen my thinking. I’m not outsourcing what makes me me, I’m letting go of what was never me. I know what you’re thinking, wow, that’s a bold claim. It is and it’s possible I’m delusional. I get that I could be drinking the kool aid through a hallucinatory straw.
I’m going to assume that I’m not insane. I’m going to lean into this terrified new world. I’m going to run right past the fears and find out what’s possible to do with this technology. I’ll tell you why.
I missed out on the dot com boom. I went to work at a safe bank job instead.
I missed out on the peak of the app economy. I never figured out what to build.
I missed out on the crypto craze. I never understood what problem it was solving.
I can’t miss out on this. I see what it can do and I want in.
I earned my CS degree a quarter century ago. I spent my career in marketing and analytics. I’ve never shied away from technology. There’s something about this moment in AI that reminds me of those earlier technology revolutions. I could sense that everything was about to change and never jumped in. The ones who jumped did great things. The ones, like me, who waited, got left behind.
I don’t have a roadmap yet. I have some ideas. Maybe I’ll build AI-powered tools for small businesses. Maybe I’ll build virtual story worlds for parents. Maybe I’ll build something I haven't thought of yet. What I know is that the same energy that made me chose to build a cacao brand is now pointed at building something with AI. Not because it's easy, but because I build things.
This is an intermission in the story. It’s the moment after the last chapter ended on a cliffhanger and the next chapter starts with an AI prompt.
Disclosure: I write these posts. AI helps me edit them.