Paul Welty

I built a tool that makes work logs harder. It forces 50/50 balance between technical details and reflection. The friction filters out trivial updates and makes me think deeper. Some obstacles aren't bugs. They're thresholds.

https://www.paulwelty.com/sometimes-friction-is-your-best-friend/

Busyness isn't virtue. It's avoidance. We fill calendars and ship features to dodge the real question: What am I for when motion stops mattering? AI just removed the hiding place.

https://www.paulwelty.com/busy-was-always-avoidance/

AI made execution cheap. Now the scarce skill isn't building fast, it's knowing what not to build. The bottleneck moved from implementation to judgment. Most organizations haven't noticed.

https://www.paulwelty.com/when-execution-becomes-cheap-ideas-become-expensive/

You spent years learning not to ask why. You got good at executing without questioning. That obedience made you promotable—until it made you replaceable. The machine arrived to do what you'd trained yourself to become.

https://www.paulwelty.com/you-were-trained-to-suppress-yourself/

AI collapsed the gap between idea and execution. Now the bottleneck isn't building—it's deciding what's worth building. Organizations still reward speed and volume. But when everything can be made, judgment matters more than throughput.

AI removed the execution bottleneck. Now every idea can be built immediately. The constraint isn't implementation anymore—it's judgment. Deciding what deserves to exist.

There are two versions of you at work.

The machine-self: executes tasks, follows processes, produces outputs. Got rewarded.

The actual self: exercises judgment, sees meaning, asks "is this answer right?"

Which one have you been living as?

Denial eventually fails.

One day the stories that propped you up just stop working. The roles stop explaining who you are.

AI didn't create the abyss. It was always there. AI just forced you to look.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GBYB6DJH

There are two versions of you at work.

The machine-self: executes tasks, follows processes, produces outputs. Got rewarded.

The actual self: exercises judgment, sees meaning, asks "is this answer right?"

Which one have you been living as?

Most workplace anxiety about AI isn't about losing your job.

It's about discovering that the version of yourself you've been performing at work was never actually you. It was a machine-self.

And now actual machines can do it better.

Great podcast. And I wanted to mention my book where I try to address some of these big questions and big issues ... The Work of Being: A Philosopher's Guide to Becoming Human in the AI Era ... www.paulwelty.com/books/ and www.amazon.com/dp/B0GBYB6DJH

This Week in Tech: In My Head I Have 3 Buckets | TWiT.TV What happens when AI bots get their own social network, Silicon Valley execs cozy up to power, and Apple takes a cut from creators? This week’s panel calls out the bold

New Podcast Episode:
This Week in Tech: In My Head I Have 3 Buckets
Moltbook Becomes a Surreal AI Agent Social Network
with @leolaporte.me, @grivlin.bsky.social, @devindra.bsky.social, @vicmsong.bsky.social

Helping a customer often means assembling a person from tabs. Account here. History there. Usage elsewhere. That is not personal inefficiency. It is tool design. When systems center tickets not people, judgment warps. -

Many weeks end in fatigue but no learning. Experience does not become insight on its own. It needs reflection. Small rituals that synthesize the week turn time spent into something you can use. -

We optimize away all friction like it's universally bad. But some friction is load-bearing. "Are you sure?" is noise. "Are you sure you want to delete all 47 files?" makes you look before you let go.

https://www.paulwelty.com/sometimes-friction-is-your-best-friend-post/

Many teams fear shipping more than failing. Drafts feel safe but help no one. Shipping turns private work into learning. It takes courage, then brings feedback and relief. -

Most knowledge work never ends. It just fades. Without edges we confuse motion with progress. Deliberate starts and finishes give work shape. Endings make learning possible. -

Automated reflection feels good until it turns into performance. Even a private audience changes what you say. Infrastructure becomes a stage. The risk is ritual without honesty. Discern which friction protects thinking. -

You can tell what a team thinks by what its tools reward. Email breeds paragraphs. Chat breeds fragments. Tickets turn ideas into requests. Infrastructure is philosophy with a budget. Tools shape thought before culture does. -

Ideas vanish because the path from thought to page has too many toll booths. Titles, folders, templates. High friction trains your mind to wait for complete thoughts. Infrastructure edits which ideas you ever get to have. -

A junior dev once waited days for feedback. Now the loop closes in seconds. Scarcity shaped how we learned. AI flips that. Learning becomes continuous when feedback is abundant. Build for the loop, not the lecture. -

The 90% of Education We’ve Never Tried - Paul Welty, PhD Unlock the full potential of education with AI, breaking free from outdated constraints to redefine learning and foster growth for all.

Most organizations treat learning as a scheduled event. But skill development often happens in gaps: the quick question, the five-minute search, the moment of confusion that resolves through trial. -

Writing did not start as poetry. It started as accounting. Most writing still freezes information so systems can run. Emails and reports are paperwork by design. Clarity is the job. -

Writers did not panic because AI was bad. They panicked because it worked. When a tool threatens output, you debate quality. When it threatens gatekeeping, you moralize. AI bypassed initiation. -

The old idea of loyalty came from a slower world. Skills expire fast now. Staying put can be the reckless move. Gen Z gets that learning is the real asset. Job changes become discipline, not impatience. -

The McKinsey layoffs are not a consulting story. They are a leadership story. AI exposed where judgment got handed off to process and prestige. When that scaffolding falls, only real discernment remains. -

Job hopping is not the problem many employers think it is. It is a mirror on the workplace. When people keep leaving, the work usually stopped stretching them. Ambitious people go where they can grow. -

Letting machines take the boring tasks frees people up for bigger problems and fresh ideas. Real resilience pops up when folks can actually shape the work, not just follow a script. Anyone else seeing this? -

Will AI lift us up or leave us behind? Judgment and trust matter more than algorithms. Machines crunch data, but only people bring others together. Funny how human skills keep showing up as the real edge. -

Faster isn’t always better. If automation isn’t balanced with human skills and insight, it just feels like running in place. Real resilience needs tech plus the stuff only people can do. Anyone else noticing this? -