I use AI because I want to build more.
Every so often someone sees the number of projects I’m working on and asks, “How do you have time to do all of that?”
The answer isn’t that I work 20-hour days.
The answer is that I rarely work alone.
AI has become the apprentice sitting beside me.
There was a time when building an idea meant finding a designer, hiring a developer, paying a copywriter, waiting on revisions, scheduling meetings, and hoping everyone understood the vision in my head.
Today, I can sketch an idea over morning coffee and have a working prototype before lunch.
Not because AI did the work for me.
Because it removed the friction between the idea and the execution.
That’s a huge difference.
I still have to decide:
- Which problems are worth solving.
- What the customer actually needs.
- Which features matter.
- What should be simple.
- What should be removed.
- Whether something is actually good enough to ship.
AI doesn’t make those decisions.
Experience does.
Judgment does.
Failure does.
I’d describe myself as somewhat of a renaissance man. In my life I’ve been blessed experience A LOT of different things, and my interests are vast. I’ve spent years leading teams, building software, serving churches, coaching people, flying airplanes, working on projects, and solving problems. When people ask what I’ve done, I find it difficult to explain because… where do I start?
That experience is still the engine.
AI is simply a much better set of tools.
Just as a nail gun didn’t eliminate carpenters, AI doesn’t eliminate builders.
It lets skilled builders spend less time swinging the hammer.
One thing I’ve noticed is that AI has given individuals something they haven’t had in a long time.
Leverage.
One person can now design.
Write.
Prototype.
Research.
Market.
Analyze.
And ship products that once required an entire team.
That’s incredibly exciting.
Not because it replaces people—but because it gives ordinary builders the freedom to test ideas they otherwise never could have afforded to pursue.
Almost everything you’ll see me build at Summitory will involve AI somewhere in the process.
The writing.
The illustrations.
The prototypes.
The code.
The planning.
The brainstorming.
The documentation.
The research.
Not because I want shortcuts.
Because I want to spend my time on the parts only I can contribute.
The vision.
The decisions.
The craftsmanship.
People often ask if I’m worried AI will replace developers.
I think that’s asking the wrong question.
The better question is:
What becomes possible when developers spend less time writing boilerplate and more time solving meaningful problems?
That’s where the opportunity is.
AI won’t directly replace people. What will happen is people who know how to utilize AI tools will replace people who don’t.
Summitory exists because I love building.
AI simply means I get to build more.
More experiments.
More products.
More lessons learned.
More stories worth telling.
If every summit reveals another mountain to climb, then AI has simply made the trail a little faster.
The climb is still mine.