Pickleball, Perspective, and the Rhythm of AI Leadership

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is nothing. That sounds paradoxical, but it’s true. Taking time off isn’t just rest—it’s recovery. And recovery produces clarity, which is far more valuable than speed.

That’s what I learned when I stepped back. The pause gave me space to see something I hadn’t fully grasped: AI isn’t just a tool for productivity. It’s a tool for becoming.

“To be a creator is to be part of the club. AI empowered me to be the creator I’ve always aspired to be—a writer and a builder. Suddenly, anything feels possible if we keep learning, keep stretching. I love the magic of vibe coding, the power to express with words in ways I couldn’t just a year ago. It feels like having my mind unlocked—becoming my purest self and sharing it with the world. AI gives us the power to become better versions of ourselves.”

This is the real shift happening with AI. It’s not that it automates tasks, but that it lowers the barrier to creating. When the barrier drops, more people step into the role of builder. And once you’ve built something—even something small—you see the world differently.

Reading about AI gives you frameworks. Building with AI gives you empathy. When you actually use the tools, you understand not just the concepts but the feelings: the frustration when they fail, the joy when they work, the “ah-ha” when something clicks. Leaders who feel these things lead differently. They coach with credibility instead of abstraction. They build trust because they’ve been in the trenches, even briefly.

And the tools themselves have a strange side effect. They don’t just speed things up; they collapse confusion into clarity. Upload AI transcribed meeting notes into NotebookLM, upload a demo deck, shape a prompt and suddenly you’ve created a concise video with narration. The useful output isn’t only the summary—it’s the clearer understanding you gain in making it.

The pattern repeats everywhere: when leaders create, they raise the bar. Creation is contagious. It expands what others believe is possible. Culture doesn’t shift through memos; it shifts when people see leaders making things with their own hands.

Ironically, the faster the world moves, the more the basics matter. Communication, clarity, curiosity—these compound. AI doesn’t replace them; it magnifies them. A mediocre communicator with AI gets better. A good one becomes great.

And while we argue about models and GPUs, the real constraint isn’t the tech—it’s culture. Teams thrive when they feel trusted to experiment. Without that, the tools sit unused. With it, they become multipliers.

Which is why the debate about AI “taking jobs” misses the point. The divide isn’t between humans and AI, it’s between humans who use AI and humans who don’t. The former will pull ahead. Over time the gap won’t look like competition; it will look like a canyon.

So the rhythm for leaders is simple: rest to gain perspective, build to stay credible, and shape a culture that can adapt. AI won’t do these things for you. But it will give you leverage to do them faster and better.

The deeper realization is this: AI isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about expression. It lets us become the creators we always wanted to be. That’s the real revolution.

In June, I  organized the Silicon Valley AI Think Tank – Scaling AI That Works Meetup, and one talk completely shifted my perspective.

When Darius Emrani, CEO of ScoreCard, spoke about the importance of AI evaluations, it hit me: reliable AI products aren’t built on guesswork. They’re built on systematic evaluation.

That’s why I immediately enrolled in AI Evals for Engineers & PMs—and it’s been transformational. It’s given me the tools to level up as a TPM, a writer, and a leader in the AI space.

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Not sure and would like to learn more about Evals and the goodness that Hamel Husain and Shrey Shankar share?  Then Check Out their post  Frequently Asked Questions (And Answers) About AI Evaluations and makes sure to scroll to see all the excellent content.

Until next time, take it one bit at a time!

Rob

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