Three Stories About Building AI in the Storm of Progress

Let me tell you three stories.

First story: Connecting the dots backwards

When you stand at the beginning—bright-eyed, code humming, vision clear—you see gaps in the world. You build bridges to cross them. But here’s the thing no one tells you: the ground itself is shifting.

AI doesn’t wait. What took years in the old world now happens in months. That startup coding furiously to solve yesterday’s problem? They’re like sculptors carving ice under a rising sun. Foundation models evolve faster than product cycles. By month 22, the chasm they aimed to fill has become a crack—and GPT-5 strides over it without breaking stride.

Second story: Love, loss, and letting go