Two Men, Same Clock

Hey brother,

I’ve been having conversations lately with men my age about AI. Most of them are just now waking up to what’s going on. Not behind, just getting started. But two of those conversations stuck with me, and I want to tell you about them.

The first guy basically told me he’s not doing anything about it. He’s a few years out from retirement. The way he said it, it was like AI just wasn’t going to touch him. He’s going to get out before it changes anything in his career. Not worried. Not bothered. Just running out the clock.

The second guy, around the same age, did the complete opposite. He left and started his own company. Spun off, doing his own thing, building something right now.

Same clock on the wall. Two totally different bets.

I keep thinking about that first guy. So let me just talk to him for a minute, because I have a feeling some of you reading this made the same bet he did.

Here’s the thing. I get it. If you can see the finish line, why learn a whole new game? That math almost works.

Almost.

I started digging into the actual numbers, and I’m going to be straight with you about what I found, because some of it surprised me, too.

PwC looked at close to a billion job ads around the world. People with AI skills are getting paid 56% more than people in the same job without them. A year before that, it was 25%. It more than doubled in one year. Another study by Lightcast found about 28% more, roughly 18 grand a year. Two different studies, both pointing in the same direction. Companies are paying real money for this, right now.

And before you say AI is a tech thing, it’s not anymore. Over half the job postings asking for AI skills are outside of IT completely. Finance, healthcare, HR, marketing, operations. A few years ago, most of those postings were tech jobs. Not anymore. This thing left the tech department, and it’s coming down your hallway.

So here’s what I think happens to my friend who’s waiting it out. Sometime in the next two or three years, the pressure shows up anyway. Maybe it’s pressure to retire earlier than he planned. Maybe it’s scrambling to learn just enough to fake it to the exit. Maybe it’s his boss asking pointed questions he doesn’t have answers for. The requirements are changing underneath him while he’s watching the clock.

Waiting it out isn’t a plan. It’s a bet that nothing changes before you get out. And things are changing every quarter.

But here’s the part nobody is telling him, and it’s the part that matters most.

AI is fast, and it’s confident, but it’s wrong sometimes. And it’s wrong with a straight face. Somebody has to catch that. Somebody has to look at what it spits out and say no, that’s not right. I’ve seen this before, run it again.

Who does that? The guy with thirty years of scar tissue, that’s who. The one who’s seen enough deals go sideways and enough projects blow up to smell a bad answer before it costs money. Stanford’s research says the most wanted AI skill in job postings right now isn’t coding. It’s knowing how to use the tools and knowing when not to trust them.

Think about that. The most valuable AI skill on the market is judgment. You’ve been building that for three decades. The 25 year old can’t download it.

The experienced men aren’t the ones AI replaces. They’re the ones who are going to be checking AI’s work. But only if they can actually work with it.

So here’s all I’m asking you to do today. Nothing big. No course, no certification, none of that.

Open up any AI model. Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, doesn’t matter. Ask it one question. Tell it one thing. Ask it something about your industry, or give it a problem you’ve been chewing on. Two minutes. That’s the whole assignment.

That’s the first step. Everything else comes after it.

Two men, same clock. One is hoping time runs out before the change reaches him. The other one is building.

Which one are you?

The clock is real, brother.

Sean

Sources: PwC 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer. Lightcast, The Generative AI Job Market 2025. Stanford AI Index 2026.