You're Not Late

On Monday I woke up to news that made my mind spiral. I've spent the last year building my app. Two years if we include the attempts before AI made it possible.

I closed my phone and went for a walk.

I thought about how many people are actually building apps. How many have the vision but not the skill. How many would even like to. How many wouldn't even know where to start.

And I realised something.

The Compression Illusion

There's a phenomenon happening right now. Things that were just created are being treated as the death of life as we know it. But if we close the laptop and step outside, things are not as they seem.

We're blessed to be at the forefront of tech. Actual geniuses pushing the envelope. We can log in and see their thoughts in real time.

But the curse is this: we see their velocity and assume our time horizon has flattened completely. That everything needs to ship tomorrow.

Time feels faster than ever. Technological advancements happen daily instead of every century. But we have more time than we think.

The Single Print Problem

In trading, when price moves too fast, it creates single prints. Gaps in the candle where not enough volume was traded to establish equilibrium. When cracks start to show in the market, price returns to fill those gaps. To compress around what was skipped.

I fear this is happening in tech right now. Code was the backbone. Things took time, but they took time and they were right. Now things are faster because they're easier. Everyone's running forward without thinking about the details we left out.

Things haven't compressed in a while. Everyone has the greatest ideas. But is the infrastructure there yet? Are banks, governments, countries going to simply endorse these changes? Or is there going to be a slower grind than expected — while a few outliers run wild with their imagination?

Two Different Games

I'm not smart enough to do what they do at OpenAI or Anthropic. But neither of these are my job.

My job is to find a problem and solve it. Even better — find my own problem, solve that, and then help those who need it. You see how I took a massive problem and shrank it down to the size of my world?

The tools no longer matter like they used to. While the outliers run wild, they leave space for dreamers, builders, creators to piece together what's in their heads. The lived experience of knowing you're different. Feeling stuck. Now granted the opportunity to execute what you always dreamed of.

I'm not talking about people who ship 200 apps a month. I'm talking about people who've lived an almost curated life. Music, film, architecture, technology. People for whom this is their time to fully explore.

But this is only possible if we know when to disconnect from socials and laser focus on the task at hand.

The Random Tweet Problem

It's not going to be easy. Because in this time — as much as people tell you anything is possible — a single tweet on a random day can make you question your whole existence.

But the truth is: anything is possible.

The Wright brothers looked insane flapping their arms in a field. They were right.

You look absolutely insane to most people who haven't the slightest idea what an AI agent is — even if they use one. Push because you never know where you might end up. But also push because you owe it to yourself.

Either you're right, the life you dreamed of is finally around the corner. Or if your idea didn't work out — the hours spent building have put you closer to magic than any of your ancestors ever were. And closer than most people in the world ever will be.

The Old Guard and the Wait

The world has to catch up. When my generation gets into power and the old guard dies out, it's clear how the world will look. But right now that old guard is unforgiving. Overleveraged. In desperate need of help.

We need to actively play the game and wait for opportunity. But we must form the skills to do so.

Just keep playing.

Online time moves at one speed. Real time moves at another. The gap between them is where you build.

Not panicking when someone ships a new model. Not spiralling when someone hires the creator of something you're building. Not assuming you're late because the timeline feels compressed.

The people screaming "it's over" are trapped in online time. The people building are operating in real time.

Real time is slower. Real time has room. Real time rewards patience combined with execution.

You have more time than you think. But only if you close the laptop, step outside, and remember:

The world hasn't caught up yet. And that's your window.