Blink & You'll Miss a Revolution.
How to stay relevant in a fast-moving tech world.
Every now and then, I take a step back and reflect on my career. And its milestones.
They usually show up during deep shifts — when something so big hits the industry, you can’t ignore it. The kind that makes you feel like a beginner again. Like you’re about to get replaced… or maybe reborn.
AI is one of those moments.
I didn’t welcome it with open arms.
At first, it felt off like yet another overhyped trendy product. Then came fear. But slowly, like the first time I held an iPhone in 2007, I started to lean in.
While I miss spending eight days straight crafting a single app screen in Photoshop, I’m not chasing the past or being too anchored to it.
I’m just recalibrating. Trying to stay sharp and focused.
When the iPhone came out, I had a visceral reaction.
I previously wrote:
The OG iPhone had just launched. Rushed to the 5th Avenue Apple Store on Day 1 to get one. The App Store didn’t exist yet. I couldn’t afford one and was struggling to pay rent, but I was obsessed. Obsessed with what it meant for design, for the future—and for me
the playbook - How I Went From Jail to Building a Design Career.
I knew something deep was being triggered. It wasn’t just a new device, it was a new canvas. And nobodyknew how to design for it.
Mobile first wasn’t even a term yet. Touch and gesture interactions were experimental. Everything had to be rethought.
Now, almost two decades later, AI is doing it again.
Only this time, I’m older. More experienced. But also more overwhelmed than I’d like to admit.
A few months before we founded amo, I started dabbling with Stable Diffusion in Fall 2022. Within a week, we shipped an AI drawing app with friends.
It felt magical and opened a whole new world of ideas.
Then ChatGPT came out.
Nicolas wouldn’t stop talking about it during our commutes to work.
I just saw this as another clunky chatbot with outdated data. Entertainment at best. Noise at worst.
Obviously, I changed my mind.
I now use it every day. For feedback, deep research (this one still blows my mind), asset generation, revenue modeling, investment analysis, communications. It’s become a real extension of my workflow.
Ironically, I barely use AI for the playbook, except for grammar tweaks clean-up or research on tricky, taboo topics, fact checks.
But for a recent client app I worked on—a consumer AI wrapper launching soon—it felt like I had wings. I used AI to shape the product’s entire vibe and universe.
It felt even better than switching from Photoshop to Sketch or Figma back in the days.
It makes me wonder where’s the line between productivity and creative laziness. I mean, it definitely amplifies my creativity, but it also feels like I’m taking shortcuts somehow.
Perhaps I just need to strengthen the habit muscle again.
The good thing is, I don’t fear losing my job to AI anymore.
What I fear now is something else entirely:
Losing my focus.
The speed at which AI is becoming a commodity is unreal. And so is the wave of new AI tools dropping daily.
I’m drunk on it, and I keep coming back for more.
There’s so much potential. So many ideas. So many playgrounds opening up at once.
And it’s become harder, way harder, to focus on just one thing.
Consequently, I keep sidetracking myself. Getting pulled toward the next shiny thing.
I’ve built an entire graveyard of unlaunched products these past few months.
Stuff I designed, named, scoped in Notion, even vibe-coded into existence. And then dropped.
Games. Tools. Plugins. SaaS. An unreasonable number of single-page landing pages.
Either the thrill wore off. Or the long-term vision was missing. Or something shinier came along.
And I’m not alone in this. A lot of builders I talk to feel the same way. We’re overstimulated. Creatively charged, but scattered.
I wish I could just hit pause. Step back for a full year. Pull a Sagmeister and reboot my brain.
Who can afford taking a one-year sabbatical though. It’s not just about the money I’d miss, it’s also about FOMO.
Blink for a year and the whole industry has shifted again. You didn’t just miss a few updates. You missed a revolution.
After I left amo last April, I actually tried to take a proper break, especially since I didn’t the chance to so between Zenly and amo.
It lasted a month more or less. A few calls and opportunities later, I was back at it.
Maybe next time I’ll try harder.
Maybe two or three months. Not a full year.
It’s true tough. In this industry, a year feels like a decade.
As builders, how do we stay sharp in an industry that keeps erasing its own playbook?
Seth Godin used to say: Stop overthinking. Start shipping.
Maybe I should have shipped my whole product graveyard.
I’ll still stick to quality over quantity, any given day.
In a world that keeps speeding up, I’ve found that the best way to stay grounded, is to give.
David Hoang (yes, him again!), actually just published a kind of similar topic that echoes all this.
He says:
Invest in the next generation. Mentor. Share your playbook. Let their perspective reshape yours, too.
David Hoang’s “Career Reboot” Issue
I started mentoring a long time ago, but I’ve found myself doing it more and more lately.
And while part of it is about giving back, it’s also selfish in the best way.
It keeps me sharp. It forces me to reflect. To articulate what I’ve learned. To stay in touch with how newer designers see the world.
There’s something gratifying about hearing, even years later, that your feedback made a difference. That a 30-minute jam helped someone land a job, unlock a direction, a new perspective.
And in those moments, I realize I’m not falling behind. That I’ve evolved.
Sometimes, staying relevant isn’t about shipping faster. It’s about helping others sharpen their craft and grow in their own careers.
The best way to protect your edge isn’t to work harder. It’s to keep recalibrating. Think of it as becoming a swiss knife. Adding new tools and blades along the way.
You don’t need a year off to reboot. Unless you’re retiring.
Sometimes a weekend, a new collab, or helping someone out is enough to feel the spark again.
Recalibrating isn’t slowing down.
It’s momentum.
Just a stop and go.
Julien