Last Updated on April 8, 2025
Consider the Conductor
Picture an orchestra.
Violins swell, brass punches through, and percussion drives the rhythm.
But none of it works without the conductor, someone who understands how each section fits into the whole, who can signal when to crescendo or fade, and who can shape the sound to match a vision only they can hear.
Now, you can consider yourself a conductor, bringing to life a symphony of data, subject matter expertise, human creativity, and more recently, AI workflows.
Using AI isn’t about pressing “generate” and hoping for brilliance. It’s about orchestrating inputs and guiding outputs with precision and clarity. Like a conductor with a trained ear, your vocabulary—the way you articulate what you want—determines the result.
In a recent podcast conversation, I brought up the example of Suno, which creates music based on your prompts. Say you prompt it to “write a punk rock song.” You’ll get something. But it’s like asking an orchestra to “play something loud.” The result will be generic, high variance, not likely what you were imagining.
Now, imagine having a richer musical vocabulary. You specify: “Give me a 1970s New York punk vibe, but with a melodic chorus that shifts from a minor to a major key, and throw in a 5/4 bridge to create tension before resolving back into 4/4.” Suddenly, you’re able to bring greater precision to the vision in your brain. Suddenly, the articulate are able to engineer.
(Suspending disbelief for a second that a punk rock song would have a key change or an odd time signature)
Write Me a Blog Post!
Ask AI to “write a blog post about SaaS pricing,” and you’ll get a boilerplate draft.
But someone with domain expertise might say: “Explore why usage-based pricing is flawed for enterprise SaaS, highlight the scalability of seat-based pricing, and include specific scenarios where hybrid models outperform both.”
If you’re a systems thinker, you may also have broken down “content quality” into something that can be evaluated somewhat objectively, even breaking down a blog post into its subcomponent parts.
The highest leverage point in the system – the subject matter expertise – is where you’ve designated your team to spend most of their time. You’ve come to the realization that the keyword optimization can be done relatively easily, so you’ve automated that portion with a quick API connection to Clearscope. Now your team spends its time figuring out what experts know about usage based pricing that non-experts don’t, and extracting that knowledge.
By articulating these nuances, they leverage AI as an extension of their expertise rather than a replacement for it.
In both cases, the difference isn’t the tool—it’s the conductor. The richer your vocabulary and the clearer your vision, the more precisely you can direct AI toward outcomes that stand out.
Taste, Depth, and Levels of Vocabulary?
Have you ever heard of Franklin’s Barbecue?
It’s a legendary restaurant in Austin, Texas, that regularly has a line wrapping around the corner, many waiting 3-4 hours or more for a slab of world class brisket. People will bring coolers and tailgate, making a whole day of it. I’ve talked to people who have embarked on a family road trip from Minnesota to Texas just to taste Franklin’s moist brisket.
Now, this is mastery. Perhaps the universe itself working through Aaron Franklin’s carefully chosen oak wood and mystery rub.
Speaking of that carefully chosen wood – Aaron Franklin does a course on MasterClass. Gives his secrets away (for the most part). In it, he spends a seemingly inordinate amount of time waxing poetic about the wood – its weight, the specific type of oak (post oak), its grain, tannic acid quantity, etc.
To an amateur like myself, it doesn’t even register. It’s like he’s speaking French, which I don’t understand, but it sounds pretty to my ears anyway.
But then again, I can suddenly understand why you can’t get a good piece of brisket in New York City. Because they probably don’t think at all about the amount of tannic acid in their wood.
This is a very high level of vocabulary, something that cannot be faked, and something that brings a level of excellence that is invisible to most (and invisibility is the key to proper magic).
Can you make brisket without this particular cut of wood? Yes, and it will be fine. But it won’t be Franklin’s.
Taste and discernment is at play here, but it’s more than just knowing what you like. It’s being able to articulate it.
I know, for instance, what I like in visual design (say interior design). But I can’t describe it. I barely know what midcentury modern means. In this arena, I’m flying partially blind and often have to outsource my articulation to my more visually gifted friends.
You shouldn’t hire me to decorate your living room, in other words, but I can tell you exactly what we should do with that low performing landing page (particularly if we have analytics access).
The Double-Edged Sword: Cognitive Leverage and Cognitive Atrophy
Once in a while, I’m a bit apprehensive at getting too good at using AI.
It never stops me from tinkering, because I’m preternaturally curious. I’m also anxious enough to believe that I’m always a half-step behind, which impels me to stay as close as I can to the bleeding edge.
And I’m not scared for any outlandish or cinematic reason.
It’s actually quite banal: writing, for me, is a process that leads to clear and structured thinking.
Rather, writing is thinking.
And there’s some preliminary but growing evidence pointing to potential cognitive atrophy from too much AI usage.
The flip side – and this is my own conjecture – is that critical thinking ability (particularly the ability articulate oneself, refine one’s thinking with the right questions, and think in systems) is the single thing that gives you the most power of AI’s potential (in its many forms, from time management to content repurposing to product design and development).
So, it’s a double edged sword: those with the highest level of articulation and critical thinking have the strongest advantage in using AI, though leaning on AI too much may degrade that very ability.
That’s one reason I elect to spend an inordinate amount of time writing this newsletter. Not only because it may or may not lead to one of you eventually wanting to work with us (we do hope that happens), but because it gives me time, space, and practice to hone my critical thinking.
A logical question you may have asked at this point: do I use AI to write it?
Well, as they say in The Prestige, “the secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything.”
So if I do, the hope is that it is invisible, like all great techniques (sprezzatura, baby!) Because when it’s visible, it’s a crudely constructed parlor trick that may sell courses or get you attention on LinkedIn, but as soon as you see it, the magic is gone.
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