Reflections From A Humble AI Educator

This week, I will be graduating my fourth cohort in the Overclock Accelerator.

And to this day, it's our Capstone Demo Days that remain my favorite moments at Overclock.

We've now been working in this space for just over a year. And in that time, I have personally trained over 500 people on AI, have had dozens of conversations with execs trying to define (and re-define) their AI strategies, and have gotten to be a (sometimes helpful) fly on the wall to more than a handful of teams working to agentify their operating systems.

And yet, despite all this work, I still see myself first and foremost as an educator.

For those who have known me over the years, I have long said that I believe:

"Education is at its best when it's about helping people to get unstuck."

It serves its true purpose when it helps people to close the gap between the potential they see in themselves and the realities they find themselves in -- even, and especially, when the path to closing that gap is unclear.

Despite this conviction, when we first started Overclock, my internal narrative was a lot more pessimistic. To me, our little team had a role to play simply because:

"The boulder was coming."

AI was about to eviscerate the livelihoods of so many people -- including many of the thousands of people we helped train nearly a decade ago when we were first building technology bootcamps at Trilogy Education.

"Who will still hire (or even employ) a full-stack engineer / data analyst / UX designer / etc. when you have AI? The market is about to be brutal. We're here to train the survivors."

This was the founding, but cynical educational mantra for me at Overclock.

What's Changed

Fortunately, having now witnessed close hand the journey of hundreds of our accelerator fellows, I'm grateful to realize how much they've changed my outlook completely.

Although, I still believe the market is (and will continue) to be brutal for many, I am now also convinced that this moment offers a "golden age of opportunity" for many others.

Social media abounds with people sharing all the crazy things they are building with AI.

Little hack-a-doodles here, little glory posting over there.

There's a lot of AI theatre.

And yet when I watch the presentations of our graduating fellows and listen to them talk about what they are excitedly building -- I know, deep in my bones, that this is absolutely a special moment for the entrepreneurs (and mad scientists) in waiting.

What I have been witnessing consistently over the last year is that, suddenly, people who have never had the capital to hire, the personal funds to take a chance, or the credibility to get taken seriously on their ideas -- can now single-handedly bring forward any of their ideas to life.

Suddenly, they can learn anything.

They can incorporate everything.

They can go as deep down the rabbit hole as their obsessed minds will take them.

There's no need to ask for permission. No polished deck necessary.

No need to convince anyone to come onboard to help them get started.

They have been "unlocked."

It's a phrase I have heard dozens of times from graduating fellows describing what they gained from our accelerator. To them the value of their experience went far beyond learning a few new technical tools or AI hacks.

The real value was in gaining a fundamental shift in what they understood to be possible -- and a new confidence to go after it.

A New Role Emerges

"But Ahmed. In a world where everyone and anyone can build/learn/do anything with AI -- how on earth is anyone to differentiate themselves? It's harder than ever!"

I once held this view as well.

But over the last year, getting a closer view on many organizations and interacting with many accelerator applicants, I've come to realize that in reality: entrepreneurial gung-ho is still in incredibly short supply.

Most individuals continue to define themselves primarily as "specialists."

"I am a marketer."

"I am a web developer."

"I am a manager who runs a team of accountants."

This is how most people in organizations sound. And because of this, by extension, most organizations remain optimized to deploy these "specialists" in organized ways.

This, however, is in spite of the fact, that suddenly, a single-AI pilled individual can strong arm a dozen departments in one, and that today, the kind of work that would have taken a team of employees an entire week to complete -- can now be handled in just one of a thousand tabs a single AI-pilled operator is running simultaneously.

This new world might sound messy and too good to be true. I might be diminishing the value that specialists still hold.

But as I speak to more and more CEOs, eager to make AI transformation a reality, I find myself observing the same patterns: Companies supposedly have the resources, the technology, the people, and the will to make clarion calls to change.

And yet, despite all of this, most will privately express a frustration that even after a year of talking (and investing) in AI, their companies remain completely stuck doing things the way they always have.

"With copy-paste spreadsheets and broken, manual systems."

Because of this, these companies are now desperately on the hunt for the kind of talent that can bring their organizations forward. They often assume the answer lies in specialized tech talent or hiring more software engineers. The assumption is: "AI is Tech, so Tech is the solution."

At one point in time, I would have assumed the same.

But today, I think the perspective might be mistaken. What I've come to see firsthand is that we are entering a moment of time where a different kind of AI-Pilled Entrepreneur / Intrapreneur is about to become hugely in-demand.

Their defining characteristic is that they know how to use AI effectively to just make things happen. They aren't trimming the hedges. They aren't maintaining the farm.

They are re-inventing, whole cloth, how entire operating models are defined. They make the assumption that they (and their teams) can now be heavily leveraged in ways like never before.

The Career Opportunity

Unfortunately, for most companies, as I'm also discovering -- these individuals are hard to find. And it's this gap in the market that presents a colossal job opportunity for the kind of individual willing to go heads-first after it.

For someone who fits the bill of a wild-eyed (or quiet-eyed) entrepreneur, someone who has long been the glue of their department or organization, someone who is diligent and filled with lots of ideas on how to make things improve...

This is your moment.

And this insight what excites me most about what we're doing at Overclock.

I can so clearly see that we're helping people to realize a massive opportunity in front of them.

What's Ahead

As an instructor, every cohort changes you for the better. It's something I've come to appreciate about teaching. You always grow with every community of learners.

And as my latest cohort rounds out their final presentations this week, I am truly excited to see their stories unfold. There's a ton of AI-pilled hustle and heart in this crew.

I'll be rooting for them.

And P.S. If you're looking to hire some AI-pilled leaders, operators, or entrepreneurs -- I know where you can find them. We've got a great bunch of alums in our network.