mr-entj

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Dubai, UAE

Sunset at The Lounge in the Burj Khalifa, views from the Floor 154 observatory deck, Valentine's Day dinner at BASTA at the St. Regis, Garden Light of Masterpieces at the Arte Museum, drinks and dessert at the Arte Tea Bar.

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Museum of the Future | Dubai, UAE

The DNA Library exhibit with plants, animals, and microorganisms.

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Atlantis The Royal | Dubai, UAE

Dinner at La Mar, drinks at Elements Lounge.

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Abu Dhabi, UAE

Morning at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, afternoon at the Qasr Al Watn Presidential Palace, lunch at the Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, views from our room at the Abu Dhabi EDITION, dinner at Erth*.

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Louvre Abu Dhabi | Abu Dhabi, UAE

Art, history, architecture.

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Le Narcisse Blanc | Paris, France

That’s a wrap on Paris. Off to Dubai for Valentine’s week with the wife.

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Start

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If you don't mind a personal question, did you lose friends the more success you achieved or did you change your inner circle yourself by choice?

Answered here:

Have you ever experienced resentment or anger from those closest to you (friends and family) due to your high ambitions and goals

Yes to both questions. I'll leave you with this quote:

“There are people that come into your life like boosters for a rocket. If you ever watch a rocket go into space, the boosters fall off when it reaches a certain altitude. Some people are not equipped to handle the altitudes that you’re going to. So don’t be afraid when they fall off. They’re not bad people, they just couldn’t go where you’re going.”

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“I'm really good at strategy and business operations. In Silicon Valley, I have a reputation as Mr. GSD ("Get Shit Done") from my track record solving very tricky, tough, and high-stakes problems.”

Two questions:

1. How did you get good in strategy and business operations? From what kind of job did you learn? Or is there any other ways?

2. Getting shit done. How do you keep up a consistent energy and motivation throughout the day without getting bored and stressed over the job? I find it extremely difficult to keep up with my concentration and attention since I’m juggling so many tasks and I feel like at the end of the day I can’t get any thing done properly. By this time my energy runs out!

1. How did you get good in strategy and business operations? From what kind of job did you learn? Or is there any other ways?

Management Consulting at a Big 4 firm. From there, I transitioned into Program Management in tech, then Strategy & Operations, then Product Management, then my current role, but consulting was the foundation. Consulting taught me valuable business frameworks, paired me with mentors (senior consultants) who showed me the ropes, threw me at tough problems and into intense situations that forced me to learn faster (client engagements), and polished my communication and presentation skills (executive presence). It kicked my ass in all the good ways.

For more, check the tag: #Management Consulting.

2. Getting shit done. How do you keep up a consistent energy and motivation throughout the day without getting bored and stressed over the job? I find it extremely difficult to keep up with my concentration and attention since I’m juggling so many tasks and I feel like at the end of the day I can’t get any thing done properly. By this time my energy runs out!

tl;dr: I'm addicted to winning.

I get a visceral high—physically, mentally, and emotionally—from solving problems, delivering impact, and hitting major milestones. This has been true since I was young, so even the smallest, most annoying and braindead tasks feel like steps toward my goals. My goals are the first thing on my mind when I wake up and the last thing I think about before I sleep.

I'm highly focused and don't struggle with attention or concentration issues because I've always prioritized ruthlessly. I start with my end goal (North Star), map all the steps to get there, and then cut out everything that doesn't contribute to achieving my goal. There's a great word in the English language that really helps with this, here it is:

"No."

I say no a lot—to people, to distractions, to anything that drains my time and energy. Life constantly throws demands your way, and if you’re not careful, you’ll easily end up overwhelmed. Time is the currency of life and the one thing you can’t get back, so I make a point to protect it. For me, that starts with saying no.

Add it all up and that’s how I've preserved my stamina all these years and built incredible momentum in both my life and career. My work doesn’t drain me— it energizes me. I feel unstoppable.

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Is there any other Mr ENTJ around since you’re already taken. I should’ve been in my 30s and entered tech industry. Honestly you’re such a gem LITERALLY A GEM haven’t come across a man with this intellect before. Sorry my English sucks but I’m trying…

Thanks for the kind words. No clue, but you can ask my wife—she’s been threatening to give me away for years. No takers yet, though.

It's never too late to go after what you really want in life, the time will pass anyway, so you might as well make it count.

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How can I be you? The life, the experiences, 0.1%! Incredible! I’m a little bit jealous but inspired at the same time! Tips? 😂

Why be me when you can be you?

If I were to travel back in time and live my life again, I'm not sure I could get this same outcome. There were tons of toxic situations that opened new doors, rejections that turned into amazing redirections, random meetings with people who became lifelong friends, and more one-off lucky instances that I wouldn't be able to recreate. It's a mosaic of fortuitous events over the past few years that led me here.

With that said, there were definitely factors within my control that I maximized to increase my chances of success:

Become an expert in something. A lot of people want the lifestyle, glitz, and glamor, but not the hard work and grind required to develop expertise. Have a pocket skill. For example, I'm really good at strategy and business operations. In Silicon Valley, I have a reputation as Mr. GSD ("Get Shit Done") from my track record solving very tricky, tough, and high-stakes problems. That’s how I ended up building an incredible professional and personal network of people who’ve got my back—whether it’s giving me referrals on the spot or stepping up for me when needed. I haven't applied to jobs in years and former colleagues reach out with opportunities all the time:

Proximity is everything. Be where excellence is. Want to marry someone from an Ivy League university? Get into an Ivy League university yourself. Only about 0.1% of the world’s population graduates from Harvard, but if you get into Harvard, guess what? 100% of your circle did too. The same goes for Silicon Valley. I came here to work with the smartest people in tech because being around excellence opens up opportunities. You're not going to get that living in Antarctica. Proximity equals opportunity.

Shoot for seniority as fast as possible. The higher your level, the more visibility your work receives, and the more opportunities to interact with decision makers like top executives and industry leaders. I've always had problems with authority and I didn't want to waste years of my life being told what to do by someone else so guess what I did? I became the person with authority who tells other people what to do as fast as possible.

For context, most new college graduates in tech start at Level 3 (L3). Promotions typically follow this timeline:

L4 (Senior): 1–2 years

L5 (Lead): 2–3 more years

L6 (Manager/Staff): 3–4 more years

L6 is considered a terminal level, meaning many people spend years there without ever advancing further. Breaking into L7 (Senior Manager/Senior Staff) is extremely difficult, and L8 (Director/Principal) is even rarer—less than 1% of the industry reaches those levels. On average, moving from L3 to L6 typically takes 6 years on the low end and 9 years on the high end, just to reach mid-level management, not even senior leadership.

With that said, I'm currently an L9 (Senior Director)— and I achieved that in 7 years from the time I entered tech.

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How do you justify the environmental impact of AI, morally / ethically speaking? I'm asking in good faith; I think it's a valuable tool but when ChatGPT uses ten times as much power as Google, I don't know how we can justify it.

Good question.

We're working on it through developing energy efficient AI chips. Others are using AI for efficiency gains (like reducing waste in healthcare, optimizing supply chains, deprecating manual labor that sucks up human time and energy, etc.) and big tech is investing in AI infrastructure powered by renewable energy sources.

I was in Oslo a few months ago with a former Norwegian Minister, visiting a farm to explore how we could capture heat from AI servers and repurpose it to help grow vegetables:

The internet, data centers, and global financial systems all use a ton of energy too. So, the current challenge is figuring out how to balance the benefits of AI (like boosting scientific research, improving education, and making things more efficient) with its environmental impact. We're still figuring it out.

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Hi Mr Entj. I was wondering what is your opinion regarding AI and Art? I’ve seen various tech bros on X say that AI will eventually replace the movie industry, for example, and while my first reaction is “that sounds ridiculous”, truthfully things that we thought impossible once have become a commonality.

Related answers:

AI trends and predictions

AI and design careers

We're definitely not there yet, but the technology is evolving quickly so, again, learn to use the AI tools out there to understand their capabilities and limitations. They can't replace a human (yet), they're still very flawed, but they're getting better much faster than most people realize.

This week, I was playing around with the new AI video generator, Adobe Firefly and this is what I produced using a short text prompt:

The quality is incredible, especially when it comes to the lighting, textures, and distortion.

If you continue to approach A.I. with fear and mistrust instead of curiosity and openness, you're no better than the people who once thought the printing press would ruin society, the steam engine was a disaster waiting to happen, or the internet was just a passing fad. History has shown time and time again that progress doesn’t wait for skeptics—it moves forward with or without them.

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Visionaries Club at The American Cathedral in Paris | Paris, France

Backstage with Dario Amodei (Anthropic) and Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind and Nobel laureate), learning from Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), chatted with French Minister of A.I. Clara Chappaz, and caught up with former OpenAI colleagues.