If You Feel Behind With AI, Good

I watch AI builders on Twitter.

Not the spammy ones...

I mean the ones shipping quality products, training models, and who have legit credibility.

They give in-depth takes that show their thought leadership.

And they seem miles ahead of someone like me, who's not technical.

It's easy to assume they have it all figured out.

Then they say something like this:

That's from Andrej Karpathy.

He's one of the founding members of OpenAI and a highly respected voice today.

And he's not alone...

That one's from Jaana Dogan, a top engineer at Google.

She admitted that a year of Google's work was replicated by a competitor product (Claude Code) in an hour.

Someone like Jaana isn't lacking skills.

The ground is shifting for everyone.

Experts are admitting they feel behind with AI and are surprised by its pace.

If they feel behind, what does feeling "behind" even mean?

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It means you're paying attention.

That awareness is the signal.

Just like the experts, you're solving problems with tools that evolve daily.

Knowing you have more to learn means you're willing to grow.

I'm more concerned about the people who don't feel behind.

They're in trouble.

If you're leaning in, feeling behind is initiation.

You're in a group of people trying to make sense of change.

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So here's how to navigate it:

It's impossible to know everything when AI moves this fast.

It's also impossible to test every tool or new model.

This is why selectivity now beats volume.

Last week I wrote how to filter AI tools and features.

Let other people validate them to conserve your energy.

Then use that energy on stuff that will move the needle.

Standing out means knowing a little more about applying AI in your domain than the person next to you.

That small edge + solving problems = how you stand out.

Everyone's uncomfortable.

Even the experts don't have it figured out.

Your discomfort is where leadership starts.

Stay engaged and keep iterating.

And whatever you do, don't check out.