AI's Musical Chairs Analogy

Shaan explains why AI creates unprecedented opportunities despite increased competition, and how to leverage it effectively.

The Musical Chairs Analogy

• AI is like adding 50x more chairs to musical chairs while only adding 50 more players
• Competition increases, but the opportunity set grows exponentially larger
• Every single product in every single category just came up for grabs
• AI changes what can be done, creating entirely new categories
• The huge multiplier on possible ways to win outweighs the increased competition

Real-world AI implementation examples

Customer management system

• Built a custom CRM tool in 3 months with one developer
• Analyzes renewal opportunities automatically
  • Reads last status updates and client call transcripts
  • Analyzes sentiment to predict renewal likelihood
  • Calculates adjusted NRR and expansion percentages
• Includes an AI agent you can talk to directly
  • Ask about expansion opportunities
  • Cross-references internal services database with customer needs
  • Automatically creates tasks and to-dos
  • Makes information accessible to entire company
• Serves as the "command center for the business"

Enterprise-level impact

• Billion-dollar company example:
  • Improved customer support with AI
  • Made developers more productive
  • Eliminated junior programmers not good at using AI
  • Result: Doubled profit margin with just these three changes

The right mindset for AI adoption

Don't aim to be top-tier in AI

• Wrong approach: Try to beat AI geniuses who are technically oriented and work on it 24/7
• Right approach: Get to 50th percentile in AI and multiply it against your existing skills
• If you're already top 10% in business/content/your domain, just getting "dangerous enough" with AI creates massive leverage

The skill vs. taste framework

• Previously needed both skill (technical knowledge, tool mastery) and taste (what's cool, what's interesting)
• AI decoupled these requirements
• Now you can participate with just taste—skill is optional
• Having both is obviously better, but taste alone gets you in the game

Accessibility advantage

• Can now create things for use cases that wouldn't have made economic sense before
• Wouldn't hire someone to make something, but if it takes 2 seconds, you'll do it
• Opens up participation in fields you were previously "segregated" from

Practical application philosophy

• Don't need to become a top 1%, 5%, or even 10% AI builder
• Just need to get "good enough" or "dangerous enough"
• Focus on how AI multiplies against your existing 10-20 years of domain knowledge
• The forcing function: Use AI tools regularly to discover what's possible