Running A Race With No Finish Line

This extended moment in software engineering has been equal parts exciting and exhausting.

Exciting because we as software engineers are invigorated by improvement and optimization, by empowerment through that which we build. And seemingly overnight (though it actually took decades) we were handed a 10x multiplier of our skills, followed closely by a 100x multiplier.

Exhausting because we have been in an all-out sprint since we first got our hands on LLMs, running with increasing velocity a race that barely has a course, let alone a finish line.

I had the privilege of being a part of the Digg relaunch, and then its pivot to Basic Intelligence. I since have joined WellTheory, an inspiring team working to reverse the autoimmune epidemic. These teams, their product and mission, could not be more different.

But it's 2026, so what do they have in common? Both are (rightly so) looking at how AI can help them not just to do things differently, but to bring to life what was previously impossible. We know that AI can unleash unimaginable value in the areas that are of the utmost importance to us. We know that AI has the potential to create widespread, sweeping value for humanity and for society on a scale previously not even dreamed of. And so we feel like we just can't get there fast enough.

And of course we feel that way! On a societal scale, we believe that AI can cure cancer and eradicate hunger. As for Digg and WellTheory, I whole-heartedly believe that AI can give us social connection without the toxicity, and will play a crucial role in empowering one of the most underserved and ignored medical populations that is also growing every day — one that I happen to be a part of.

The problem with feeling like "we just can't get there fast enough" is that "there" is still largely undefined. We know AI's power — we feel it every day.

The wild thing about being given something so powerful so suddenly is that you can very easily get immense value out of it while knowing that you haven't even scratched the surface. And I do believe that to varying degrees, this is where most of us are. Even if you've graduated from prompting to looping, even if you have OpenClaw agents helping you day to day, even if you have meticulous context files that offer just the right amount so that your agent can one-shot but not get bloated, all of this is just the beginning.

Now you wouldn't know it if you ever go on LinkedIn, or Twitter (sorry, it'll always be Twitter in my ❤️). Or even if you read newsletters that keep up with the AI zeitgeist. The rhetoric on these platforms would have you thinking that everyone besides you has a fleet of agents running every aspect of their life. From personal to professional, they no longer make their own dinner reservations and they're pulling in $50K/week between automated content and a business that their agents are fully autonomously running. You would think that everyone is already "there" and you are just so behind.

And so you dive deeper into reading your newsletters, browsing LinkedIn, Twitter, trying to stay on top of what's happening every single day so that you don't fall further behind. But somehow, 8 days of news and progress has happened in that one day. So even if you read and consume everything you can, you're still 7 days behind. By the time you read or listen and try this new tool or build this new buzzword thing yourself, it's been 30 minutes and no one even cares about that thing anymore.

How do any of us get there, when "there" is moving faster than we can run?

The goal right now can't be to cross and to finish. You have to measure progress by how far you've come, not how far you have to go.

Today, pick one thing that's actionable, one point of worthless friction in your life, and think about how you can use AI to automate it. And if you don't have an answer, ask AI how you can use AI to automate it. Or pick one thing that's calling to you to build or to go deep on. The only thing that matters right now is that you are moving, you are making progress, you are learning, and you are improving.

This race that we are all running, nay, sprinting, every single day, it has no finish line. And you can't be behind in a race with no finish line.