I don't hate AI. I want to say that up front, because the second you sound skeptical about it these days, people assume you're either behind or bitter. I'm neither. I use it. My team uses it. It's helped us move faster on real things and I don't see that going backwards.
But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little uneasy about where some of this is headed.
Lately I've been having more conversations that go something like, "Hey, I vibe coded a quick version of the thing, can you guys just clean it up?" And I get it. I really do. The tools are wild right now. You can describe an idea, watch something appear, and feel like you've made progress.
But somewhere in there, the thinking gets skipped. The part where you sit with the problem long enough to actually understand it. The part where you ask why before you ask how. The part where you let an idea breathe a little before you start building around it.
So what typically ends up on our plate isn't really a head start. It's a half-formed shape with a lot of confidence around it.
And the tricky part is, the person who made it usually feels like they did us a favor. They moved fast and got something working. From their seat, that looks like helpfulness. From ours, it usually means we're untangling decisions that nobody actually decided.
That's not an AI problem. That's a thinking problem. AI just made it a lot easier to skip the part that used to be unskippable.
I keep wondering what the long tail of all this looks like. We're producing content faster than anyone can read it. We're shipping code faster than anyone can review it. We're generating images, videos, posts, emails, summaries, pitches, decks, all of it, at a pace that nobody asked for and nobody can really keep up with.
At some point, I think we're going to wake up and have a plastic-y taste in our mouths.
Like when you eat something that looked great on the menu but didn't actually feed you. You can't quite name what's off, but you know you wanted something else.
I also wonder if there's going to be a quiet return to handmade things. I wonder if people are going to start noticing the difference between something that was made and something that was generated, and they're going to want the made thing. Even if it's a little slower and a little less polished. Because the polish is starting to feel a little suspicious.
I'm not saying the answer is to opt out. The tools are too good and the leverage is too real. But I do think the people who use AI well are going to be the ones who don't let it do their thinking for them. Those folks out there that use it to move faster on the parts that should be fast, and protect the parts that should still be slow.
Building something over time changes you in ways you don't see coming and wouldn't always choose. It sands down your edges. Teaches you patience and consistency and how to keep showing up when you're tired or not sure what's next.
I don't feel the same about this work as I did in year one, and I don't think I'm supposed to. It's not as new, but it feels more grounded. Less about proving something, more about doing good work with people I actually respect.
The people really are the whole thing. I hope I never forget that.
I'm not walking into this next season with a big plan or some bold declaration. Just a clearer head, a steadier posture, and a lot more gratitude for what GoodFolks actually is instead of what I kept thinking it needed to be.
Grateful for the work. Grateful for the people. Grateful I've been able to keep this thing going, even through the harder seasons.
Year eight feels different. And right now, that's enough.
Taste is going to matter more, not less. Judgment is going to matter more, not less. Knowing what's worth making in the first place is going to matter more, not less. That's the part no tool is going to do for you.
I'm still figuring out what all this means for how we work, how we hire, how we price things, how we talk to clients about what they're actually paying for. I don't have it all sorted. But I know I'd rather build slower and mean it than ship faster and wonder what I just made.
Building something over time changes you in ways you don't see coming and wouldn't always choose. It sands down your edges. Teaches you patience and consistency and how to keep showing up when you're tired or not sure what's next.
I don't feel the same about this work as I did in year one, and I don't think I'm supposed to. It's not as new, but it feels more grounded. Less about proving something, more about doing good work with people I actually respect.
The people really are the whole thing. I hope I never forget that.
I'm not walking into this next season with a big plan or some bold declaration. Just a clearer head, a steadier posture, and a lot more gratitude for what GoodFolks actually is instead of what I kept thinking it needed to be.
Grateful for the work. Grateful for the people. Grateful I've been able to keep this thing going, even through the harder seasons.
Year eight feels different. And right now, that's enough.
