Building Fractal #4
This is the fourth in a series of weekly newsletters where I'll be sharing my journey of reimagining the intersection between the future of work and AI
Happy Tuesday (that should have been Monday)!
We were a bit delayed this week for what I think is a pretty good reason. I spent yesterday evening in conversation with David Knott, CTO of the UK government, talking all things AI and future of work. I wrote about it here.
Other than that, it’s been a busy couple of weeks and I have lots of news and learnings to share!
Reading this week’s update may also help you understand why I’m thinking of renaming this newsletter to "Building My Career In Public”…what do you think?
Let’s get into it…
💡 In this section, I’ll evaluate how building went last week.
What we did well last week:
What we could do better this week:
Main learnings 🧭
💡 I find the best way to integrate learnings into future work is to clarify them through writing and share them so they can be helpful to others.
To set the scene, I’ve got two primary focus areas at the moment: (1) futureproofing students/graduates through workshops and courses and (2) AI upskilling/consulting for organisations.
Internal musing: I spent the weekend at an incredible founders’ retreat and bounced my current thinking around with people much more experienced than me. One thing I learnt is that I’m definitely not alone in questioning the overhyped VC-backed startup path. I’m increasingly certain that focusing on consulting and creating at the intersection of AI and the future of work is where I should be. My current hypothesis is that doing this for a while will get me much closer to the real pain points people and organisations are facing in the problem space, while leveraging my strengths.
Internal musing: I’m noticing much more obviously where I’m getting my energy from (upskilling people, writing content, dissipating fear around AI, sharing my frameworks and toolkits for futureproofing) and I’m gradually finding the intersection between that and where I can generate good revenue.
External feedback: University students are finding my futureproof content really valuable because it’s presenting an entirely new way to think about career design - I’m keen to continue validating this with a range of universities.
External feedback: There’s still a lot of fear amongst founders and business leaders who are at the forefront of their respective industries. Dissipating this fear and working with them to get to a jaw-drop moment of “WOAH. I didn’t know this was possible!” is a great informal metric of success.
Kudos 🙌
💡 A quick moment to show my appreciation for my community, collaborators and supporters.
Thanks to my incredible mentors Mary and Rebecca for their unwavering belief in me and continuous support. There are certain people who always make the time, no matter how busy things get - keep them around!
Asks & Offers 🍀
💡 What support do I need and can I offer this week?
Offer: I’m helping an awesome generative AI startup find a couple of product/operations folks to take their product to the next level. If you or someone you know has 1-4 years of experience and is interested in a challenging but fun startup role in the AI space, reply to this email and I’ll connect you.
Offer: If you’re a knowledge management nerd (or just want to improve your productivity), I’ve built an AI-powered Second Brain template in Notion that you should check out. You can get a 20% discount here.
Sending good vibes for the week ahead and thanks for reading,
Nikita