I Should Have Started Sooner
- Rich Washburn
- 26 minutes ago
- 7 min read
I asked Gary Vee what to do last night. Not the real Gary Vee. A bot trained on everything he's ever said. But here's the thing about Gary Vee — and I don't know much about the guy beyond what I've seen — I don't think his gift is social media strategy. I think his gift is understanding the human animal. He gets people at a level that most "experts" don't. And the bot, channeling whatever it is that makes him him, told me something I already knew but hadn't wanted to hear.
It told me to stop overthinking and start making videos. Every day. One video. One question. One idea. Just start. So I'm starting. August 13. My birthday. I'll be 52. I've spent my life in technology. Not one corner of it — most of it. Cybersecurity, infrastructure, digital forensics, systems architecture, AI, energy, capital. Different altitudes, different problems, same through line: figuring out how things actually work and then making them work for people who need them to. This isn't a career pivot. It's not a rebrand. It's the part I should have been doing all along — the part where thirty years of accumulated knowledge stops being a private asset and starts being something people can use. August 13 is when that starts.
I've been writing about AI for a while now. Published articles, built platforms, advised companies, run training sessions. Five years in this space. And for five years, there's been something I kept not doing. Teaching people AI. Not the way I taught technology and STEM years ago. Not a curriculum. Not a certification program. Not a "sign up for my course" funnel. Unlocking it. For regular people. The accountant who's scared she's going to be replaced.
The salesperson who knows something is happening but can't articulate what. The small business owner who keeps hearing "AI this, AI that" and doesn't know where to start. The parent trying to understand what their kid's world is going to look like. The person with a side hustle who suspects AI could help but doesn't want to become a technologist to find out. These people aren't dumb. They're busy. They're intimidated. They're successful at something else and they don't have time to become AI experts on top of whatever they're already doing. They need someone who can take this stuff apart, show them what it actually does, and hand it back to them in a form they can use. That's the gap. Not the technology. The gap between what the technology can do and what regular people believe it can do.
Here's why I didn't start five years ago. The technology wasn't there yet. I know that sounds like an excuse, and maybe it is, but I also think it's true. Five years ago, AI couldn't do what it does now. The tools were rough. The capabilities were narrow. You had to be a certain kind of person to extract value from them, and even then, the value was inconsistent. I didn't want to stand in front of people and say "this is going to change your life" when the honest version was "this might change your life eventually but right now it's mostly a party trick." That's no longer the case.
Sometime in the last year — and I can't point to a single moment, it was more like a tide coming in — the tools crossed a threshold. They got good enough that a regular person with no technical background can sit down, have a conversation with a machine, and get real work done. Write a business plan. Organize a messy idea. Analyze a spreadsheet. Draft a legal letter. Build a marketing campaign. Learn a language. Debug code they didn't write. Understand a concept that used to require a textbook. The limitation is no longer capability. The limitation is that most people don't know this is available to them. And the ones who do know are often too intimidated to try. That's where August 13 comes in.
I'm going to make a video every day. I'm almost certain I'm going to do a shitty job of it in the beginning. I'm not a natural on camera. I'm setting up lighting in a spare room right now. I don't have a studio. I don't have a production team. I don't have a content calendar or a brand strategy or a funnel. I have a phone, a microphone I just bought, and five years of accumulated knowledge about how this stuff actually works when you apply it to real problems.
Gary — the bot version — made a point that stuck with me. He said the audience will tell you what the course is. The comments will tell you what people are afraid of. The direct messages will tell you what they'll pay for. The recurring questions become the curriculum. The people who keep showing up become the community. I've been thinking like the architect of the finished institution. I should have been thinking like the guy standing outside inviting the first hundred people through the door. So that's what I'm doing. August 13, the door opens.
Here's what I believe, and why I think this matters. There are no more limitations. I know that sounds like hype. It isn't. I'm about as skeptical a person as you'll find when it comes to technology promises. I've been around long enough to watch the internet, mobile, cloud, and crypto each arrive with predictions of revolution, and I've watched most of those predictions collapse on contact with reality. This is different.
Not because AI is smarter than previous technologies. But because AI removes the constraint that previous technologies couldn't touch: the cost of attempting the idea.
You want to write a children's book? You can. Not someday. Now. You can write it, illustrate it, format it, and prepare it for publication in a weekend. Is it going to be perfect? No. Is it going to be yours? Yes. Is it going to be better than the idea that stayed in your head for ten years because you couldn't afford an illustrator? Obviously.
You want to build a community platform? Start a business? Take a product to market? Organize your kid's education plan? Restructure your company? Write the software your team has been needing for two years but couldn't justify hiring a developer for?
You can do all of it. Not because AI does it for you. Because AI reduces the cost of starting from "I need to hire three people and find $50,000" to "I need a $20/month subscription and a clear idea." The clear idea is the hard part. That's the thing worth teaching.
I'm not going to pretend I have this figured out. I don't. I'm going to make videos that are rough. I'm going to explain things badly sometimes. I'm going to get questions I can't answer. I'm going to learn in public, which is uncomfortable for someone who has spent most of his career being the person in the room who already knows the answer. But I've been thinking about something one of my articles touched on — the idea that the best way to learn something is to teach it, and the best way to teach it is to do it in front of people who'll tell you when you're wrong.
So that's the plan. Or the anti-plan, really. The plan is to stop planning and start doing.
One video a day. One idea per video. One question answered, one concept explained, one fear addressed. Short. Direct. No jargon. No prerequisites. No "first, let me tell you about my framework." Just the thing you need to know, explained by someone who's been living in it for five years and who remembers what it felt like before any of this made sense. I'll post them everywhere. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube. Whatever you use, I'll be there. You don't need to come to me. I'll come to where you already are.
Here's what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to sell you a course before I've earned the right to. I'm not going to pretend the first videos are going to be great. I'm not going to dress this up as something polished and professional, because it isn't, and pretending otherwise would be exactly the kind of thing that makes people distrust the people who are supposed to be helping them. I'm not going to tell you AI is going to replace you. It isn't. Not the way the headlines say, anyway. But it is going to change what's possible for you, and the people who figure that out first are going to have an advantage that compounds over time. I'd rather you be one of those people. And I'm not going to wait until it's perfect. That's the whole point. Gary Vee — the real one or the bot, doesn't matter — was right about that. I've been sitting on five years of experience waiting for the right moment to share it, and the right moment was probably three years ago. The second-best moment is August 13.
If you're reading this and you've been scared to try AI, or confused about where to start, or quietly worried that everyone else is figuring it out while you're falling behind — you're not alone. Most people feel exactly the same way. The ones who seem like they have it together are mostly winging it too. The difference between the people who get value from AI and the people who don't isn't talent or technical ability. It's willingness to try. That's it. The tools are ready. The barrier isn't capability anymore. It's just starting.
So I'm starting. And I'd like you to start with me.
August 13. I'll see you there.
Rich Washburn is a technologist and strategist working at the intersection of AI, infrastructure, and capital. He is Managing Partner and Chief AI Officer at Eliakim Capital.