What Dad Would Have Seen
When I was a kid, sometime in the eighties or nineties, my dad took me to a Space Shuttle launch. He took me to air shows too. I had so much fun that I never stopped. I still do all of it. This week I stood at the Starship launch, and he wasn't there. He died a few years ago at sixty-five. I wish he could have seen it.
What he built
With a couple of partners, my dad built a very successful oil company by bringing new technologies into oil and gas before most people were willing to try them. He did very well.
People sometimes assume that's the story of my life: that I came from a well-off family and everything was handed to me. It wasn't. I'm doing fine on my own, and I don't need anything he left. What he actually gave me was worth far more than money.
What he actually passed down
He gave me a genuinely optimistic mindset. He taught me to pursue new technologies aggressively, not wait until they were safe and boring.
He taught me to learn as much as possible, any way I could: from mistakes, books, technology, experience, and watching other people. There's no wrong way to learn, as long as you're learning. AI has only added to the list of ways.
He taught me to be passionate. He always wanted to hire passionate people. He admitted they came with lows to match their highs, and could be a pain in the butt, but passion is what kept things moving.
And he taught me to have confidence in myself, to be happy, and to make life easy for myself where I could.
Passion, constant learning, curiosity, confidence. Those are why things are going well for me now, far more than any money ever could be.
The people opting out
That's why I feel sad for a lot of people right now.
Many people refuse to work with AI, learn about it, or let it into their lives. Some believe it's morally wrong. Some are against data centers, and they often make that argument in posts that are served from data centers. Right now it seems fashionable to be against it.
I understand the concerns, and some of them deserve serious answers. But I also see what they're missing. AI is making me smarter. The economic opportunity is real. I'm far more effective at work, I learn new things fast, and my life is getting better quickly. Many of the people opting out will catch up eventually, but right now they're checked out.
What worries me most is the mindset underneath. A lot of people look at this moment as victims, as if the world is passing them by and everyone is out to get them. The truth is that they're in charge of their own lives, and more than ever before, people can learn on their own.
Harvard in your pocket
With what's on my cell phone, I can learn as much as anyone at Harvard, Princeton, or MIT. That isn't just true inside my bubble. I've heard people from the Amazon rainforest, and Afghan refugees I've helped here in Oklahoma, talk about YouTube as one of their best ways to learn. People everywhere have access to an extraordinary amount, and many haven't realized the opportunity in front of them.
Access has never been more equal than it is right now. What separates people now is mindset: passion, curiosity, optimism, and confidence. That's exactly what my dad gave me, and it's what the people opting out are missing.
Here's the hard part. All of this is going to happen whether they participate or not. They might as well take advantage of what's in front of them.
What he would have seen
I wish Dad could see what's happening with AI and how fast the world is changing. I wish he could see that I'm a technology leader at several companies, that life is getting easier, and that I travel the world and learn whatever I want.
He would have loved this moment. If he were still in business, he would have been all over it.
I'm moving ahead faster than I ever could have imagined, and I know where it comes from. It isn't the money. It's a kid at a Shuttle launch, next to a dad who thought the future was worth driving across the country to watch.