Hey!

Chris here. Welcome to Blueprint—the newsletter to help you build a winning engineering team.

I've been getting a lot of questions lately about AI. Founders asking if their engineers will become obsolete. Engineers worried they'll be replaced. Everyone seems convinced we're heading for some kind of technological cliff.

But here's the thing: I spend more time with AI tools than probably 99% of people on Planet Earth. I'm also betting my company's future on this technology.

And I'm not worried about the doomsday scenarios everyone's freaking out about.

Let me tell you why 👇

📒 DEEP DIVE

Why I'm Not Worried About AI Taking Over (And You Shouldn't Be Either)

I spend more time with AI than most people on the planet. Here's why the panic is premature and what founders should focus on instead.

Nobody knows what's actually going to happen. I want to be crystal clear about that upfront.

But I do have opinions. And after spending thousands of hours in this space, watching how these tools actually work in practice, I think most people are jumping to conclusions that are completely unrealistic. There are 2 factors we need to consider: Timing and context.

Timing

Back in 2018, I bought the self-driving package for my Tesla. I was convinced my kids would never need to learn how to drive. I thought their kids might not even know what a steering wheel was.

I remember thinking this was inevitable within the next year or two. The technology seemed so close, so obvious.

Fast forward to today: My oldest son is turning 15 in a couple weeks, and guess what? I'm teaching him to drive.

Did the self-driving technology get there? Yes, it absolutely did. But adoption took six years longer than I expected, even though the tech felt "almost ready" back in 2018.

This is the pattern we see over and over with technology. Things that seem inevitable next year actually take much longer than we think.

Context

Here's what most people miss about AI: It has the same fundamental limitation that brilliant humans have.

You can take the smartest engineer in the world and give them a complex system they've never seen before, and they'll struggle. Not because they lack capability, but because they lack context.

AI is exactly the same. I work with models that have read everything humans have ever written, yet they still fail on problems when I don't give them enough context or when the context window isn't big enough.

The most powerful AI model can be stumped by a problem that requires 100 terabytes of background information, just like a brilliant engineer can be stumped by a system that takes a month to learn.

Context is everything.

What This Means for Jobs

Right now, there aren't enough people on the planet who understand how to actually use these tools effectively. Most people don't know how to prompt them, what to prompt them with, or how to structure problems in ways AI can solve.

The business world has an enormous backlog of problems that need solving. And the bottleneck isn't AI capability—it's human expertise in utilizing AI effectively.

Will some jobs get displaced? Absolutely. Do we have that problem today? Yes. Will it get bigger? Probably.

But here's what I've learned: Every major technological advance has created economic pain during the adjustment period. The industrial revolution displaced tons of people, but it also created opportunities nobody could have imagined.

And it's ridiculously egotistic of us to assume we could possibly imagine up every single potential outcome. In 20 years, there will be new jobs that no one on Earth could think of now.

The Skill That Matters Most

The greatest skill you can develop right now isn't learning to code or mastering prompt engineering.

It's learning to handle uncertainty.

The more uncertainty you can take without losing sleep, without it creating ripple effects in your life, the better off you'll be. Because there's going to be nonstop uncertainty, and you need that optimistic viewpoint that things will probably be okay.

The system is too complex to predict outcomes. You can't model what happens when AI gets better and society adapts, and new opportunities emerge that nobody saw coming.

But history suggests that when the Ford Motor Company was invented, nobody could have predicted we'd be sitting here today building software companies and writing newsletters about founder-led content.

Why I'm Optimistic

I wake up every morning excited to work with AI tools. It's the most fun I've ever had building. The amount of learning that's possible today versus what was possible in the past is orders of magnitude different.

If you want to build, if you want to make things better and more efficient, it's never been a better time to be alive.

This doesn't mean there won't be challenges. It will absolutely be an adjustment period.

But I've seen this pattern before. When you have tools that eliminate gatekeepers and give more people the ability to move forward with their ideas, innovation explodes.

That's not something to fear. That's something to celebrate.

🎙 EPISODE OF THE WEEK

In this episode of "Build Your Business," Matt and I get personal about why customer focus isn't just good business—it's the only thing that matters.

We share real stories, from a sudden family relocation to a dangerous carbon monoxide scare, that show how putting people first creates the kind of loyalty that bigger competitors can't buy.

If you're wondering how small businesses compete against giants with unlimited budgets, this episode has your answer: service, relationships, and doing the right thing when it counts.

Check it out: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

BEFORE YOU GO…

Look, maybe I'm wrong about all of this. Maybe we're heading for some dramatic upheaval that none of us can predict.

But here's what I know for sure: Worrying about billion-year time horizons or even ten-year scenarios you can't control isn't going to help you build a better business today.

The companies that thrive during technological transitions are the ones that embrace the uncertainty, learn to use the new tools effectively, and focus on solving real problems for real people.

Everything else is just noise.

Stay curious, stay optimistic, and keep building.

Talk soon,

Chris.