I’m often asked what really separates a strong founder from someone who simply knows how to prompt AI well. The assumption behind the question is usually the same: if everyone has access to the same tools, then what actually creates the difference?
The answer isn’t access. AI is inexpensive, and prompts are too, so everyone can afford them. Founders don’t work with certainty. They work with uncertainty: incomplete information, pressure, responsibility, and consequences. AI can generate scenarios, suggestions, and directions, but it does so without understanding the founder’s culture, the company’s internal logic, or the context in which decisions are made. That’s where lazy thinking becomes visible. You can always tell when a founder uses AI as a navigation tool versus when they replace their own thinking with it. In the second case, everything starts to look the same. The language is polished, the logic is “correct’’, but the business loses its character. It becomes obvious very quickly.
If Everyone Can Move Fast, Speed Stops Being an Advantage
For a long time, speed was an advantage. If you moved faster than everyone else, you could win simply by executing more quickly. That’s no longer true because AI has equalised speed, and everyone can move fast.
What matters now is direction.
Today, founders need to think years ahead, not months. I’m making decisions based on where I believe the business should be in three years, sometimes five. Speed only works when it’s applied in the right direction. Moving quickly without depth doesn’t make you competitive, because it helps you reach the wrong place sooner.
What Founders Should Never Outsource to AI
Some things are simply the founder's responsibility. AI can support, but it can’t replace them.
For me, the things founders must do themselves are:
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Vision
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Hiring
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Sales
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Product
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Pricing
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Narrative
AI cannot give you real product features, but basic ones. It’s like saying, “A car needs wheels.” That’s not product thinking, but just describing reality.
And AI cannot give you a narrative, because it’s impossible.
Narrative comes from the founder. Then it goes to the management team. Then it goes into the product, it shows up in PR, sales, and every department. The narrative is why the business exists in the first place. AI can’t create that because it doesn’t live inside your reasons.
And strategic decisions — the real “yes or no” should not be delegated to AI. Some people do it, which is interesting. But I don’t believe a company can sustain long-term if a founder builds a strategy based on AI output alone.
To make an AI strategy real, AI would need thousands of inputs: the founder, the market, the business, industry context, internal metrics, and background. That’s impossible at the current stage.
People are overestimating AI: AI is an instrument that makes suggestions based on patterns from the past. That’s not the same as building a pathway into the future.
AI Makes Bad Founders Worse & Good Founders Better
Good founders and bad founders both use AI, but AI accelerates the gap between them.
Bad founders become worse faster because AI gives them answers quickly, and they don’t slow down to assess them. They absorb output without discipline. They rely on suggestions instead of judgment. Decision-making weakens.
Good founders become better faster because the difference between a good founder and a bad one is simple: how many decisions they make, and how good those decisions are.
It’s the ratio of correct decisions and the number of decisions you can make.
A good founder makes thousands of decisions per day, ideally with good quality. A bad founder takes longer, hesitates, and delays. And in business, delay has a price.
Every decision has a cost: hiring has a cost, waiting has a cost, and launching late has a cost. Even hesitation has a cost. Founders who make decisions too slowly unnecessarily extend those costs.
Even imperfect decisions, made quickly and reviewed honestly, are often better than waiting for certainty that never comes. But reflection is essential. If you make decisions without assessing them, fail to listen to feedback, and don’t adjust, the situation deteriorates rapidly.
Real Strategy Lives in Saying “No”
The real strategy today isn’t about producing more plans, but about saying no.
Even if AI gives you a hundred pages of strategy, the founder’s job is to decide what not to do. Most things should be rejected. The challenge isn’t generating ideas but having the discipline to focus on the few that actually matter.
I use AI as a navigation tool, but I don’t use it as an authority.
It replaces junior-level work: it structures information, speeds up thinking. But anything connected to culture, narrative, or strategic direction needs to be rebuilt by a human. If you treat AI as final, you lose focus, and your company starts sounding like everyone else.
Founders should say no to 80–90% of things. It’s the Pareto principle — you say no to 80% to leverage the 20% that will actually work. It sounds simple, but it’s a heavy risk. Saying no is painful, but that’s where real strategy lives now.
What is Fundamentally Human in Founding
There are parts of founding that are fundamentally human. Making decisions with zero data is one of them. AI cannot do that. Humans rely on experience-based intuition, not guessing, intuition shaped by exposure to reality.
AI also can’t support a team when confidence collapses. It can’t inspire people during uncertainty, can’t carry emotional responsibility with investors, employees, or partners. It doesn’t feel doubt, and doesn’t feel accountability.
AI doesn’t reduce risk but reduces the feeling of uncertainty.
And it cannot sense failure the way a human founder can. AI might tell you, “Your metrics mean you fail tomorrow.” But businesses survive for decades because founders pivot, change direction, and fix processes. AI doesn’t have faith and emotional intelligence.
What Founders Will Misunderstand About AI in 5 Years
In the next few years, we’ll see stronger companies and sharper separation. Founders without vision, narrative, discipline, or ownership will disappear. Those who build systems, delegate properly, communicate clearly, and take responsibility will stay. AI definitely won’t lead companies, but it will support them for sure.
Founders also need to unlearn the idea that they must be the smartest person in the room. That mindset leads to average teams. A founder should understand every area of the business, but not control everything; that’s why teams exist.
Over-researching is another trap. The environment changes too quickly. You can study something for months and find that the situation no longer exists. Planning matters, but it must be adaptive.
Lazy thinking today looks like skipping the work because AI can do it. Discipline looks like checking, reviewing, validating, and killing ideas quickly. It means thinking before writing the prompt and auditing outputs regularly. It means not trusting polish over substance.
AI is useful, but it’s not mature. The hype is ahead of the reality. And the founders who relax too much will feel that gap first.
AI won’t replace founders.
But it will expose exactly who was thinking and who wasn’t.