If you want to become fully AI-native, join a startup. For years, I was fortunate to lead large teams with dedicated resources across data, engineering, product, and more. Need data? Ask the data team. Need something built? Get engineering resources. Have an idea? Find the right product partner. Those resources were an incredible advantage. But in this new era, it seems that they have become preventative to growth and innovation. Today, when I need something, my first option often isn’t to ask someone else. I’m forced to figure it out. In fact, the handbook of Dalton Mills demands it. Sometimes that means spending hours, or days learning something completely new. Other times, one prompt unlocks something I previously wouldn’t have known how to do or believed I was capable of. Either way, the result is the same: my capacity to do more keeps expanding. To be clear, this isn’t the only path to becoming AI-native. It is true nearly everywhere that the most driven people will push themselves no matter where they work. Some people will opt out entirely. Most will fall somewhere in the middle. And if you’re in that middle, surrounded by enough resources and comfort that you can always hand the problem to someone else, maybe it’s worth intentionally putting yourself in situations where you can’t because the ability to figure it out yourself has never been more valuable. The challenge I am working on this week is building an internal dashboard from scratch. That means mapping milestones, connecting the relevant BI events, and turning it all into a functioning internal data dashboard. A year ago, I wouldn’t have considered doing that myself. Wish me and Astra luck.