18 Comments
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Alex B.'s avatar

A point you get beautifully and I’ve seen for years now: AI isn’t a magic bullet, it’s an accelerant. If your organization is already a mess: unclear ownership, broken processes, shallow strategy.. AI just helps you scale those problems faster. Garbage in, garbage out still applies.

Grateful for the inclusion of The Four Walls of Your AI Prison here, and for the thoughtful framing.

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Carolina Poll's avatar

This is so true! I've been writing a lot about this. AI is complimentary, it amplifies what one does, but one needs to do the hard work first.

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Juan Salas-Romer's avatar

👍

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Juan Salas-Romer's avatar

100%

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Carolina Poll's avatar

Thanks so much for my sharing my prompt! I’m very honored to neon this week‘s Blueprint.

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Sam Illingworth's avatar

Thanks, Juan, another great blueprint and some more Substackers for me to follow as well in the process. Thanks so much for the curation service you provide and have a fantastic festive period. See you in 2026.

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Juan Salas-Romer's avatar

Thank you Sam for your thoughtful remarks. I have enjoyed meeting you this year and learning so much from you. You are an amazing contributor in terms of fining meaning, reflecting and thinking critically about AI.

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Sam Illingworth's avatar

Thanks so much, Juan. Right back at ya.

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John Brewton's avatar

Scaling the wrong thing faster is the quiet risk here.

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Petar Dimov's avatar

Sharp and disciplined thinking. The insight that judgment, not execution, is now the real constraint is especially important as AI-driven leverage continues to accelerate.

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Juan Salas-Romer's avatar

👍

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Chris Tottman's avatar

Thanks for the prompts ! Always love these Juan 🎁

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Dennis Berry's avatar

Awesome business blueprint with inspiring people

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Neural Foundry's avatar

The framing that execution is no longer the bottlenck is dead-on. I'm watching teams automate themselves into a mess because they scaled output without upgrading decision frameworks. The "skill arbitrage collapse" insight is underrated though - when AI mediates expertise gaps, the competitive edge shifts from knowing how to do things to knowing which things are worth doing. I've seen solopreneurs generate 10x content but convert at 0.5x rates becuase volume without strategy just creates noise. The question "what breaks first if competitors double capacity at zero cost" should be tattooed on every founder's desk.

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Juan Salas-Romer's avatar

Thanks for reinstating it.

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Neural Foundry's avatar

Brilliant breakdown of hwere the real constraint sits now. The line about weak decision-making getting exposed faster really landed for me, I've been seeing this with clients who suddenly have capacity to ship more but no clarity on what's worth shipping. The bottleneck shifting from labor to judgement is such a critical framing. dunno if most founders are ready to face that yet.

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James's avatar

This felt like laying the first plank of a bridge before the week begins.

Nothing flashy, just enough structure to move forward without second-guessing every step.

Through the 5 Voices lens, this blueprint supports leaders in different ways:

Nurturers feel steadied when people are named early.

Guardians settle into the week with clear structure.

Creatives find space to think before reacting.

Connectors gain shared direction.

Pioneers move forward with confidence once direction is set.

When these needs are met upfront, teams carry less friction as the week unfolds.

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Sharyph's avatar

The bottleneck has definitely shifted upstream.

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