Good morning, Starshine.
Maybe you, like me, read Matt Shumer's mega-viral piece about AI eliminating 50% of white-collar jobs in the next 1-5 years, and maybe you, like me, thought... Oh. Isht.
It's well-crafted,
detailed, and structured to make you feel like you're getting the inside scoop from someone who knows. And everyone else is sleepwalking into disaster.
It's also designed to trigger panic.
I did panic at first. And then I didn't. So I wrote this in case it helps you, too.
Something Messy Is Happening: On AI, Panic, and Asking Better Questions
* * *
I published that ^^ last
week on LinkedIn. My rebuttal went a little bananas, with 2,200 reactions and 500+ comments. If you haven't seen it, please go read it.
It's important—not because
I wrote it, but because it runs counter to the @dApT oR dIe!!! narrative that is literally everywhere right now.
The heart of my rebuttal to the panic-driven pandemonium is this:
When speed becomes cheap, judgment carries a premium.
AI is making speed cheap—but the best response is not to move faster. The better, saner response is to slow down enough to ask better questions:
What am I actually trying to make or do?
What's worth protecting because it compounds over time?
Where does friction create value instead of destroying it?
What work do I love doing, regardless of
whether AI could do it faster?
That's the gist of my rebuttal to Matt's argument, among other nuances.
And for no reason at all, I'll mention here that Matt has an AI technology to sell, and I do not.
* * *
But what if "slow down" feels like advice you can't afford?
After I wrote that, conversations elsewhere made me question myself: Is that even fair advice?
Is slowing down itself a privilege? I wondered.
What if you don't
have runway—a decade of work behind you, people to vouch for you, relationships you can rely on, a financial cushion to be deliberate?
For some people being disrupted right now, the timeline isn't a mindset choice. It's an economic reality they're already living inside.
So... is that fair advice?
Yes. It is. (I thought about this for days and days. Not just for three paragraphs.)
Here's the deal: Those with the least margin for error are the ones who can least afford panic... I'd argue it's more important then to take a beat.
When pressure spikes and stakes feel high, we tend to make reactive moves. We grab whatever
feels safe right now. We abandon what we've already built or are building—skills, reputation, relationships, domain expertise—because the noise around us is so loud that staying the course feels like you're swimming in a Swamp of Denial.
The "move faster or die" message does something sinister: It makes every pause feel like falling behind. And when you're scared, that feeling is almost unbearable. Inaction feels like
error.
Here's the truth, in marketing and in life: Reactive pivots are expensive. Bets made under pressure are often costly—in time, money, and the compounding cost of starting over.
The people with the most runway can absorb a wrong move. The people without it... can't.
* * *
When I say in my original post "don't let someone else's timeline determine how you spend your life," I'm not saying slow down as a luxury.
I'm saying: "Be deliberate, especially when you can't afford not to be. This is important. Your next move counts."
Here's what I've seen work—not just for senior folks, but for people at every level navigating the disruption.
• Own something that gets better the more you do it. Not a title. Not a tool.
Own a capability that compounds—one AI can assist but not originate.
You don't need decades. You already have context, taste, pattern recognition. Develop that deliberately.
Make it unmistakably yours.
If you're not sure what that is, that's the question worth slowing down to answer.
• If you use AI, use it in service of your
expertise—not as a substitute for it. (And if you decide it doesn't belong in a piece of work right now... well, that's a choice, too.)
The most resilient people I'm seeing aren't the ones who've mastered the most tools or the Perfect Prompt™. They're the ones who've figured out how AI makes their particular expertise more valuable—more scalable, more accessible, more fun to work in.
Tools should extend your judgment. Not replace it.
• And for the love of Matt... resist the urgency! I don't think the AI Apocalypse is imminent. (I explain why in my LinkedIn post.)
And yetttttt... there's a whole economy built on making you feel behind: courses; certifications; "experts" who
popped up like mushrooms overnight, pivoting from selling Metaverse real estate to AI "consulting."
LinkedIn posts that implicitly suggest if you're not moving fast enough, you're already losing; guys on social media who say things like COMMENT I WANT IN to get their Agentic AI guide.
Some of it is helpful. Much of it is not. Much of it is noise that benefits
the people selling the urgency... not the people feeling it.
* * *
I know slowing down to ask "what am I actually good at" and "how do I own a thing in this new world?" when you're under real financial pressure feels... like not enough? But it is.
Even a short, intentional pause—a few days of honest assessment moving through a situation before the next move—is always worth it. It's a way to invest in yourself.
Not slowness for its own sake. But for the sake of deliberate speed: knowing what you're running toward, and why, before you start running.
* * *
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the Little House on the Prairie books. I rode my bike around my suburban neighborhood, pretending it was a horse and the banana-seat a saddle. I started calling my parents "Ma" and "Pa."
Laura Ingalls Wilder tells a
story, in a later book, about a neighbor who spent hours every day hauling water to his homestead. Back and forth he went with his horse-drawn wagon, hauling water barrels from the creek.
Someone asked why he didn't just dig a well on his property instead of spending all that time hauling water. "I would," he said. "But I can't find the time."
I think Matt and
the panic folks are telling you to keep hauling water—except now they're telling you to swap your wagon for a monster truck.
I'm saying: It's time to dig your well.
