Two Years in the AI Trenches: 3 Unexpected Lessons from a Non-Engineer Founder

Lessons From the AI Trenches

AI overwhelms me constantly. New tools seem to launch daily, and navigating the landscape can make you want to avoid it entirely.

I've spent the past two years immersed in it, from the day ChatGPT took us all by storm to today, where my team and I have built an AI-powered hiring platform.

Here are three of the most important things I've learned on that journey.

1. Embrace It, or Risk Being Left Behind

For the first year, it was easy to treat generative AI as a fad. But it's not going away. I heard a great line recently: "AI may not be ready to replace lawyers, but lawyers who don't use AI will be replaced by the ones who do."

A long-time friend of mine who owns a successful HR consulting firm had this same epiphany. He was resistant to the noise, then realized that to stay competitive, he had to dive right in.

Without AI, you're not playing on the same field as your opponent.

The lesson is clear: you don't need to become an expert overnight, but you do need to start learning, practicing, and finding the tools that work for you.

2. Your First Tool is Rarely Your Best Tool

And it certainly shouldn't be your only tool.

ChatGPT became synonymous with "AI" simply because it was first. But the competition is now fierce, and different models have different superpowers.

For example, at Ratio, we initially built our platform on OpenAI's models but have since rebuilt our entire infrastructure on Google's Gemini. It's faster, more reliable, and gives us excellent results at a fraction of the cost.

For my own daily work, I bounce between Gemini, Google AI Studio, Perplexity, and NotebookLM, depending on the task. The models have bad days, just like we do. Don't get frustrated; get nimble. If one tool isn't working, move on to another.

3. The Human is Still the Most Important Part of the Equation

This has been my biggest lesson. I can't tell you how many times I've coded with an AI, amazed at its speed, only to be the one who solves a logical problem that would have stumped it for hours.

We still matter. Our expertise, our intuition, and our creativity are the critical ingredients.

In fact, we named our startup Ratio because we believe in empowering people, not replacing them. The right balance, or the right ratio, of human logic and AI speed can make you unbelievably productive.

Although Ratio drafts a fantastic skills-based hiring model, the nuanced understanding of culture, team dynamics, and strategic fit still requires a human expert to make the final call.

Building the Future, Together

Building Ratio has been a crash course in practical AI, and I'm still learning every day. The technology will keep evolving, but the core challenge remains the same: how do we use these powerful tools to augment our own capabilities and build better teams?

That's the question we're obsessed with solving.

If you're a leader who is also thinking about these challenges, I'd love to hear your perspective.

Works Cited

• Sackett, P. R., Zhang, C., Berry, C. M., & Lievens, F. "Revisiting meta-analytic estimates of validity in personnel selection." Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(11), 2022. link
• Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. "The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology." Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 1998. link