Achieving Founder-Level "Lift"

I've been working among startup founders and entrepreneurs for my entire career, so trust me when I tell you that I know the type. They’re the laser-focused, relentlessly driven friend who dedicates their life to actualizing a singular vision of reality or solving a problem (often one only they can see).

In the early days, I’ve noticed that some founders experience a peculiar kind of "lift" in their lives, almost as if they’re floating above the rest of us, enmeshed in their own version of reality. This often comes at the expense of noticing the everyday world—a storm raging outside, the score of a major game, or the buzz around a cultural event. They’re so deeply plugged into their ideas (or their computers) that the ordinary simply...fades away.

Over the past few years, I’ve seen this phenomenon with particular intensity among early-stage AI founders. When I first started spending time among this crew, I frequently felt like they were speaking a language from a future the rest of us hadn’t yet arrived at. But they weren't just daydreaming about the future—they were living in it.

I noticed these founders were AI-fluent in ways that transformed every corner of their personal and professional lives. Firing their engineers to rewrite an entire codebase themselves over a weekend. Building and deploying bespoke micro-apps to optimize their family’s end-to-end workflows as casually as ordering takeout. They weren’t just doing more. They were multiplying themselves, trusting AI to take on more and more overhead in every part of their lives.

I’ll admit, it sounded crazy to me. Delusional, even. But then, about six months ago, midway through my third fractional project overhaul of the year, a funny thing happened: I noticed that person was me.

Somewhere between building my fifth and fiftieth custom GPT—and jokingly telling people I relied on AI like an "IV drip to my bloodstream"—I realized that this AI-enabled, future-first mindset had quietly taken over my own work, too. The result? Outrageous levels of productivity.

What I've realized is–this level of focus and productivity is no longer limited to founders. With the rise of AI and the flexibility of flexible (or even fractional) work, many of us, myself included, are beginning to tap into this mindset and see its transformative effects on our work.

In other words, there's a new type of energy at play, one that's giving "lift" to the rest of us too. And it's getting stronger every day. What's going on, exactly? And what does it mean for the way we work in 2025 and beyond

With Near-Zero Activation Energy, Anything (Feels) Possible

As a business generalist, I've always operated across quite a wide variety of jobs and functions, but my personal output and range in 2024 far surpassed anything I've ever experienced in my career. I believe this is largely due to the near-zero activation energy it now takes to get a project off the ground.

You can think of activation energy as the sticky, intangible stuff it takes to transform even the faintest wisp or whisper of an idea into something real and tangible. As activation energy drops, a system’s capacity for change grows exponentially—making it possible for anyone to convert an idea into reality.

Fifteen years ago, at the start of my career, the activation energy to get something out the door was incredibly high. I worked in publishing, and it took a team of 30+ people months to write, design, print, and ship magazines around the country to our paid subscriber base. By contrast, last year I wrote, designed, and published (via a digital PDF) a 25,000 word ebook on my own in a single week. This dramatic reduction in activation energy isn’t just about tools; it reflects a broader shift in who has the power to execute ideas at scale.

Companies carry activation energy, but individuals do too. A person who can dream up an idea, build it themselves, and turn it into a viable business model wields an extraordinary amount of activation energy. This is what makes founders seem like magicians. For the past two decades, this magic was largely reserved for technical founders, as most projects began with code. But today, thanks to tools like AI, that’s no longer the case.

Last year alone, I helped catalyze project teams across four industries (crypto, AI, education, and p2p software systems) and still somehow managed to churn out 100,000 words in blog posts in six months. I largely credit my ability to unleash such a high level output to two key factors: using prolific use of AI in nearly every area of my life and using fractional work as an accelerant to my own professional learning.

Over the past year, AI has made me exponentially more creative. Each workflow I design sparks fresh ideas, each new AI tool opens up yet another rabbit-hole to burrow into. Every tech advancement advancing the cycle even further. Things got weirder and weirder and weirder. I hit a point in November where all of my normal friends thought I was nuts, and all of my founder friends thought I was normal. That's to say, among my peers in AI and web3, this shift has been apparent for months, if not years. But I've noticed that even the newest AI entrants—like the nonprofit leaders I’ve worked with this fall—aren’t just imagining streamlined workflows; they’re realizing they can bring those ideas to light in weeks, if not hours.

In tandem, fractional work has taught me the art and the science of starting fresh. Rather than focusing on a single job or industry, I’ve spent the past several years deliberately launching myself into new projects across different industries and teams—again and again. Each cycle has grown shorter, forcing me to adapt quickly, synthesize ideas, and apply lessons across wildly different contexts. Fractional work has also pushed me to break habits, continually iterate by drawing in patterns from multiple groups at once, overhaul processes, and rebuild teams every few months. Each hard restart makes the next bootup a little easier, sharpening my ability to create and execute with increasing efficiency.

Not everyone has the luxury to work fractionally (though it's becoming easier). But anyone can use AI. And with a little focus, you can save yourself enough time to take on a side hustle or two also. That's where this multi-hyphenate, anything goes way of life really starts to light up the art of the possible.

I should note: Operating in this way isn't for everyone. It does mean learning how to stomach all sorts of variability that comes with managing unpredictability. It's still not easy. But it's a hell of a lot easier than it used to be. This is exhilarating and overwhelming.

As we kick off 2025, I've been thinking a lot about how to best apply myself in this new world of work, one where the activation energy required to start something is near-zero. As this shift democratizes innovation, it enables all of us—not just "traditional" founders—to think and act like founders. To dream big and execute fast. This I believe will unlock extraordinary possibilities across every field and line of work.

It also begs the question: In a world where (nearly) anything is possible, what will you build or create? How will you spend your time? And what will you need to learn this year to keep current? These are the questions I believe we’ll all need to answer in 2025 and beyond. Stay tuned...