How To Build Influence In A World Flooded With AIA practical guide to developing a useful opinions AI could never generate
Artificial intelligence is creating a flood of generic and soulless content. It's getting incredibly good at producing the "fat middle" of the curve. It can write an average memo, a decent coding prototype, or a passable first draft. This is wonderful news if you weren’t able to do any of those things to begin with, or in situations where average is all you need. But it’s also creating a big opportunity. As the volume of mediocrity explodes, the value of a novel perspective skyrockets. AI makes the average more average, which means the exceptional stands out like never before. While most are predicting that AI will make human creativity less valuable, I think that this dynamic represents the single biggest opportunity for your career right now. The most valuable professional moat you can build is around your unique voice, your hard-won experience, and your human perspective. The way to build that moat is to stop thinking like an employee who completes tasks and start thinking like a creator who makes content that resonates. This is the essence of influence. Influence is whether you, or the ideas attributed to you, are in the room helping to shape decisions even when you're not physically present. It is the most powerful tool for career growth, especially for leaders or people who aspire to become one. More people, not fewer, should be building a personal brand, both internally within a company and externally on social media. But if the idea of building a personal brand or being an influencer is cringey, don’t worry, I got you. It all starts with forming a strong opinion that resonates with others. Here's a simple framework to start building those opinions by starting small. 1. Start by Listening, Not by TalkingThe journey to influence doesn't begin with having amazing ideas, because if you had an amazing idea to start you wouldn’t have too many issues sharing it. It actually starts with deeply understanding the conversation that's already happening. Most people feel pressure to come up with something insightful to say, so they spend their time in meetings formulating their own thoughts in an attempt to say something smart. But the most influential people start by listening, because you can’t say something that resonates if you don’t know what people are thinking. The best way to force yourself to listen is to become the best note-taker in the room. It's a low-pressure environment to practice clarifying complex ideas, understanding different viewpoints, and making yourself useful to others. It’s work that’s not going to label you a "thought leader," at least not at first, but being an effective note-taker is a surprisingly high-leverage skill. AI can transcribe what was said, but your job is to synthesize what was important and understand the human dynamics at play. Actionable Advice After your next important team meeting, volunteer to send out the summary. Structure it with a human-centric lens to demonstrate your understanding. Include these five sections:
This simple act of creating a clear, valuable asset is the first step in building your influence. 2. Develop an OpinionOnce you have a understanding of the different perspectives, you can start to form your own. This is where you move from being a note-taker to a voice. Your goal is not to be a contrarian per se, but to develop a strong opinion. You want to have a clear, well-reasoned point of view on how to move forward. You can't develop a strong opinion if you're thinking the same way as everyone else. For example, if a team is debating why a new feature is underperforming, the common wisdom might be to "add more training" or "market it more aggressively." But if your synthesis from listening revealed the real problem is user confusion, your opinion might be to "remove half the settings and simplify the workflow." I remember a time when my team was struggling with a slow, unreliable build process. The common wisdom was to "add more retries"—a classic brute-force solution. But after listening to the engineers' complaints, I realized that the real problem was a small set of flaky tests that were non-deterministic, which caused 80% of the failures. My opinion was that we should invest time in fixing that technical debt, even if it meant marginally slowing feature development in the short term. It was a less obvious solution, but it addressed the root cause and made the process more reliable for everyone, and more importantly, it led to faster feature development in the future. It also turned out that several teams within the organization had these types of tests, and it was a great opportunity to influence these teams. Actionable Advice Practice the "If I Were in Charge" thought experiment. Look at a project or process your team is working on. Based on the listening you've been doing, ask yourself: "If I were suddenly put in charge of this, what is the one thing I would change to have the biggest positive impact?" It’s a fun exercise to force yourself to move from observation to opinion, and to develop a clear, actionable thesis. 3. Make Your Opinion UsefulAn opinion is worthless if it stays in your head. Its only value is in its application. This is where you leverage your human advantage. AI is a master of the common wisdom. Your value is not in generating average answers. Your value is in the synthesis you did in Step 1 and the unique opinion you formed in Step 2. The final step is to share that perspective in a way that is useful to the team. Your goal is to help the team succeed by providing the non-obvious solution. My opinion about the flaky tests became useful when I presented it to my team not as a complaint, but as a data-backed proposal: "I believe we can permanently solve our build issues by dedicating two days to fixing these specific tests. This will pay for itself within a month." Consider a team that's constantly firefighting and missing its goals. The common wisdom might be to "implement a new prioritization framework like RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort)." But after listening, you realize the team's "priorities" change weekly based on whoever complains the loudest. Your opinion is that the problem isn't the framework, it's the lack of a clear, shared goal. Your opinion becomes useful when you propose, "Instead of a new system, let's work with leadership to define the single most important metric we need to move this quarter. We'll use that to filter every request." Actionable Advice Take the opinions you’ve developed and use AI as a tool to sharpen them, not create them. Ask an LLM: "I want to propose X. Here’s what I learned and what other people think. What are the three strongest counterarguments to my proposal?" Use its response to strengthen your own. Then, find the right moment to make your opinion useful.
This method is not a one-time trick. It's a loop. You listen, you form an opinion, you make it useful, and in doing so, you gain more influence, which gives you access to more interesting conversations to listen to. This is how you build your moat. Your job is to be the human who provides the insight that tells the tools what to do. That is the work of a leader, and it's the work that will always be in demand. Enjoyed this week's newsletter? Give it a ❤️ so I know to write similar ones in the future. NeetCode Interview & New Presenting SponsorI recently interviewed NeetCode for the podcast where we covered a lot of ground. From his origin story and hitting rock bottom after a toxic stint at Amazon, to the complete turnaround that led him to quit Google because his YouTube channel and NeetCode.io were so successful. Along the way, we explored whether more software developers need therapy, and much more. Paid subscribers to this newsletter have access to the extended conversations of the podcast, along with access to our extensive article archive.  New Presenting Sponsor: LinearI'm also excited to announce that the podcast has a new presenting sponsor, Linear. The NeetCode conversation actually got me reflecting on what I loved, and definitely didn't love, about my own engineering career. One thing that I'm glad I no longer need to do is all the busywork that comes with project management. I remember those meetings where we were told to 'update all of our issues.' This inevitably meant waiting for a follow-up email with instructions on how to do it 'right' so everything would show up correctly in reporting. The whole process was clunky, ate into time we could have spent building, and somehow we'd find ourselves having the exact same conversation at the next sprint planning. Linear is the system for modern product development. It's fast, intuitive, and actually designed for how developers work. Everything those old project management tools weren't. I’ve been using Linear to plan our content and it’s been an amazing experience. I highly recommend giving it a try. A Life Engineered will always be a free publication, but if you’d like to support it, we’d be honored if you upgraded your subscription. Paid subscribers get the full experience, including access to the archives.
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