Key Highlights ›
The dangerous ones are the ones who started as optimists and slowly became opportunists without noticing the transition.
The optimism becomes the cover story for the opportunism, and they can't see the boundary anymore.
They sound authentic — they were authentic — and they'll take teams, investors, and customers deep into a hole.
Me: back to previous question: do u think opportunistics are aware who they are, or just optimistics?
AI: Both exist, but the dangerous ones are the ones who started as optimists and slowly became opportunists without noticing the transition.
The pure opportunist knows. They've always been selling. AI is just the current vehicle — last year it was crypto, next year it'll be something else. They're easy to spot if you're paying attention.
The pure optimist genuinely believes. They're wrong about timelines and complexity, but they're honest. They'll learn or they'll fail and pivot. No real harm done.
The third category is the problem. Someone who started genuinely excited about AI, built something half-working, got funding or attention based on the demo, and now can't afford to admit the gaps. Every day the distance between what they're selling and what they've built grows a little, and every day they tell themselves "we'll close the gap soon." They're not lying — they're drifting. The optimism becomes the cover story for the opportunism, and they can't see the boundary anymore because admitting it would collapse everything they've built.
That's the one that does real damage. Because they sound authentic — they were authentic — and they'll take teams, investors, and customers deep into a hole before anyone realizes the map stopped matching the territory a long time ago.
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