Jensen Huang just told you the truth about AI layoffs
The CEO of the most important tech company on Earth said something nobody's talking about.
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Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate,
Jim Cramer asked Jensen Huang a simple question last week.
If AI is so awesome, then why are companies laying people off?
Jensenâs answer should be framed on the wall of every CEO in America.
âFor companies with imagination, you will do more with more. For companies where the leadership is just out of ideas, they have nothing else to do. They have no reason to imagine greater than they are. When they have more capability, they donât do more.â
Read that again slowly.
This is the man who built the most important tech on earth.
This is the man who built the most valuable company on earth.
This is the man who says he sees one trillion dollars of demand for 2 of his products.
He just put every CEO on notice.
If you use AI to cut headcount, it means you ran out of ideas.
Pirate Christopher has been an officer and director of public companies.
He knows how this works. Anything that gives leadership air cover to cut the people they wanted to cut anyway, companies take it. The technology is convenient cover for decisions that were already made.
Do you work for a company whose CEO who Pirate Jensen says lacks imagination?
We see you. We feel for you as you endure a current or coming Career Quake.
Your job changed overnight. Or you got the call. Or you can feel it coming and youâre not sleeping well.
The fear and disruption are real. And the instinct to react is completely human:
Network harder.
Scramble and update your resume.
Put your head down and try to outwork whatever is coming.
You canât dodge a quake. You canât avoid a quake. You canât change the fact that your CEO lacks the imagination or courage to use AI to create an abundant future like no one has ever seen before.
Their ceiling is not your ceiling.
Donât be reactive. Be proactive.
This isnât an AI quake. Itâs an imagination quake.
Our Career Quakes mini-book maps exactly this: the organizational ring just went red for a lot of people, and the reflex is to blame the global ring.
AI is not the problem.
Whatâs different between the companies expanding and the companies cutting is the same thing that has always been different: whether the people at the top can imagine a bigger future than the one theyâre currently in.
Jensen didnât say AI elevates companies. He said AI elevates people with imagination.
Every carpenter could become an architect. Every plumber could become an engineer. The tool expands whatâs possible for people who know what theyâre trying to build.
Creator Capitalists are builders. You are a builder.
Donât wait to find out if your CEO has an imagination ceiling.
The Creator Capitalists we work with who are navigating this right now arenât asking, âWill AI take my job?â
Theyâre asking a completely different question: what is the category only I can design, and how do I build it before everyone else figures out what I already know?
Ask one question to elevate your imagination
Creator Capitalists are not people who suddenly had a brilliant idea.
Theyâre people who fell in love with a problem. They know how much time, money, and joy this problem costs people. They are on a mission to solve this problem, no matter what it takes.
And for them, AI is like having Steph Curry join your pick-up basketball team.
Just pass AI the ball and watch it go in.
Which brings us to the only question worth sitting with this week:
What problem have you fallen in love with and believe AI has elevated your imagination and ability to solve it with a powerful POV only you can bring to the world?
Take your time with this. The real answer doesnât come fast.
What is the problem youâve been quietly watching play out exactly the way you said it would? The problem that feels so obvious to you that you assumed everyone else must see it too.
They donât. Thatâs not a coincidence. Thatâs your category.
Two Ways to Incubate Your Imagination
If youâre mid-quake right now, there are two places worth your time.
Because you donât have to take your Creator Capitalist journey alone.
The first is The Pirate Eddie Botâthe only AI on the planet trained on Category Design, Creator Capitalism, and 200+ Category Pirates mini-books. Pirates are calling it the most valuable AI theyâve ever used. They have used it to find the language that made clients stop negotiating, design Lightning Strikes that generated thousands in new revenue, and name categories theyâd been sitting on for years. Itâs included with a Founding membership. If you want a thinking partner that will actually push back on your answer to that questionâstart here. If youâre already a founding member, dive in here.
The second is the Category Design Academy. This is the room where people who are tired of rebuilding in the rubble of someone elseâs imagination come to design their own category. Itâs not for everyoneâitâs for the people who read Jensenâs quote and thought: thatâs me. I have more imagination than the room Iâm in. And itâs time to do something about it.
If thatâs you, applications open today.
Jensen spent his shift at Dennyâs hoping to make it through. The biggest tip he ever got was two or three dollars. Now heâs building technology that has increased computing demand by one million times in two years.
He said he hopes to die on the job.
Thatâs what it looks like when someone found their category.
Arrrrrrr,
Category Pirates đ´ââ ď¸
Eddie Yoon
Christopher Lochhead
P.S. â The room where people stop rebuilding in someone elseâs rubble is opening this week.
The Category Design Academy is not a course. Itâs not a coaching program. Itâs a room where people who already have something realâa business, an expertise, a point of view the market hasnât caught up to yetâfinally get the language, the strategy, and the community to build around it.
The people who belong here are doing six figures, have driven real outcomes, and are done explaining what they do to clients who donât get it. They want to own a category. They want pricing power. They want to stop sounding like everyone else.
If you read Jensenâs quote and felt somethingâif youâve been the most right about something for the longest time and youâre ready to stop waiting for permission to build around itâthis is the room.
Category Design Academy applications are open now. [Apply here â]
Not ready for the Academy? The Pirate Eddie Bot is the only AI trained on Category Design and Creator Capitalismâand itâs included with a Founding membership. [Start here â]